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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2023: Ephesians

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Paul and the Ephesians

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

It is a new quarter of lessons, and this time we're not looking at just a topic or a theme, we're looking at a book of the Bible, the book of Ephesians.

And as is common with the times we live in and everything's kind of changing and not the way it used to be, we again have 14 lessons this quarter.

But 14 lessons from the book of Ephesians.

And you know, I don't ever want to say, you can never say like, oh, this is a good book, right?

But I particularly have a fondness for the themes that are brought out in if, and the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul.

And so I, I have a great, very good lesson.

I have great hope for this quarter is going to be some very good studies and you actually put together our talking points for this week.

So let me have a word of prayer and get out of the way and let you lead forth in just a moment here.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for this opportunity to study your word and thank you for the particular book of the Bible that we're going to be looking at and the truth that it's going to be shedding light into our lives.

Please help us to understand it, but not just academically or intellectually, but Lord give us a deep-seated appreciation and experience in your word as we apply it in our lives.

All right, what do we have, Brother Howard?

Well, I think going into this, I was thinking we might want to take opportunity again for those who might be joining in to talking points just to highlight a couple overall themes.

Of, of, or explain why we do what we do or what we're trying to get at here.

The, we don't have quarterly, we're recording this far enough ahead that we have them in digital form.

We have them digitally, but not physically.

But what we call a quarterly is officially called the Adult Bible Study Guide.

And we have emphasized before that the lesson book for Sabbath school is the Bible.

And so the reason we put together talking points is to help teachers draw points out of the lesson.

And every teacher, depending on their context, congregation, what's going on, is going to draw out a different point.

So we bring out our talking points, but we're not saying that you have to use these talking points.

You're welcome to use them, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how to draw out significant things out of the lesson so you're not trying to bring everything in the lesson out and then bogged down with too much to cover in the amount of time you have.

Well, you've repeatedly said they're drawing things out of the lesson, But when we were talking before about this 1, you have a methodology for how you approach something and it leads to your talking points.

Yeah, that kind of led me to why I wanted to give this introduction is, and this is just my own personal practice, is the first thing I do with the week's lesson is at the top of every lesson it says read for this week's study and it has all the scriptures.

So I read through those scriptures and I got so many good ideas from those scriptures before I got into the lesson and some of those ideas the lesson didn't bring out.

But in the same thing's going to happen to you and the temptation is to say, well, the lesson doesn't bring it out so maybe I shouldn't bring it up.

Just because it isn't brought out doesn't mean it can't be brought up.

And 1 of the things this week's lesson does that you would expect any time you do a book of the Bible is it gives you a little bit of the background of the letter.

It actually, this particular lesson, gives you an outline of the book of Ephesians in on Tuesday's lesson.

Well, I'm not going to go over that in class.

From my standpoint, that kind of could be, it's great material, and I'm hoping that my class is studying that.

But as far as the things that I drew out, I drew out some different things this week.

Some were just from my reading of scripture.

But all of them are rooted in the book that we're studying.

And Paul's experience with the Ephesians.

So just to say that up front, You as the teacher, the Holy Spirit will lead you as you use the lesson as a guide and use the scripture that we're studying to help you bring out things that will be especially helpful to your class.

So, in light of all that, you did actually have some talking points come out from that study.

So my talking points for this week's lesson are number 1, Paul was not a lone ranger.

And I drew that from Sunday through Tuesday even though the lesson really didn't make that point so much but you'll see where there's a thread that runs through.

Talking point number 2, Paul preached to the Ephesians the gospel of peace.

And then formalism lends itself to idolatry.

So those are our talking points for this.

Now I have to say there were other things that I was wanting to get a little bit more into, But I know that we're going to get into them in the 6 chapters that we cover over 14 weeks.

So, you know, I don't want to jump in first lesson.

Like I wanted to get a little bit into Paul's whole in Christ motif and what that means and everything.

But and there's a lot of different ideas on that.

And so that well, we'll get into that surely throughout the course of the lesson.

So well, knowing what you're gonna talk about, I already am thinking like, oh, there's other stuff in Ephesians that talks about this too, but you didn't put it in here because your goal isn't to put in an exhaustive topical study, it's just to go through and touch on these things.

And the reason I'm saying that is so our teachers don't, you know, there's a lot of you might like, hey, I'm gonna bring up all my favorite parts of it.

Well, there might be a whole entire lesson on something and then you're gonna get there and say, oh, we kind of did that already.

Now the lesson starts out in the book of Acts to show us Paul's experience in Ephesus.

And we start in Acts chapter 18 actually, verses 18 to 21, if you want to read that for us.

Sure 18 to 21 reads, So Paul still remained a good while then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria and Priscilla and Aquila were with him.

He had his hair cut off at Cancria, Am I saying that right?

Yeah, okay, so for he had taken a vow and he came to Ephesus and Left them there, but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews when they asked him to stay a longer time with him He did not consent but took leave of them saying I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you God willing.

Well, and what's interesting there is that his first encounter in Ephesus, he pretty much leaves Priscilla and Aquila, a couple lay people there to start the work.

02 God’s Grand, Christ-Centered Plan

Pastor Howard, we're diving deeper into our Ephesians study.

This week the lesson is called God's Grand Christ-Centered Plan.

Essentially, as I have it in the notes here, this is going to be taking a look at some of the main themes that are going to be continually fleshed out through the rest of the book of Ephesians, but our home base is going to be the introductory verses of, well not the introductory, but verses 3 and on, or at least 3 to 14-ish in Ephesians chapter 1.

So we're basically walking through Ephesians and looking at some of these concepts that Paul is laying down in those opening verses.

And then you can give us our talking points for the week.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege we have of being able to read and study your word and to fellowship with 1 another, we pray a special blessing upon our Sabbath school classes as they study this lesson, that it would be an encouragement to all and that it would strengthen us in our spiritual walk with you.

To the glory and honor of your kingdom we ask and pray these things in Jesus name amen amen you know as I as you look through and we're not going to take the time to read through the whole section of scripture but again as I mentioned we're essentially looking Ephesians 1 3 to 14 is our pericope is the section of Scripture that term and it dawns on me.

Are you gonna put that on the screen with a little definition?

So but you know in the Greek they didn't use punctuation.

And it dawns me as you read through Paul's writing, even if he had it available, I'm not sure he would have wanted it.

He just likes to pile, and this is, my point is that as you read through here there are so many phrases and concepts.

I have just personally called Paul the king of the run-on sentences.

Exactly and so there's so many clauses and phrases and addendums and piles.

So to that point the book of Ephesians is probably, you know, Paul is a theologian but there are some of his books that may tend to be even more heady theologically and Ephesians is 1 of those.

It's densely loaded with big themes and so that's not just to give any excuse to like, oh, we can't make sense of it.

But my point is, in a Sabbath school context, if you were preparing a lesson, you could come up with probably 12 different versions of your talking points, what we're trying to go to, and even if you prepare those, the people in the class might want to go some other direction.

Because of the breadth of the themes, you can even pick, you know, 1 of those themes and have 5 different ways to present it.

So this is preparation for the talking points we're laying out here are not at all a straitjacket or the textbook recommendation.

This is just what we came up with, at least I came up with this week.

All right, and from these this section of scripture I'm taking away these 3 points.

Number 1, God's great plan is universal oneness in Christ.

That's going to come from Sunday, Tuesday, and also Friday.

We'll get into how that works in just a few minutes.

Talking point number 2, God is preparing us for unity with heaven.

And that honestly comes from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

So the larger block of the lesson covers that.

And finally, talking point number 3, the entire Godhead is active in our redemption.

In fact, you're gonna see Sunday is crucial to all of them.

It touches on things and it kind of expands it out.

But in a non-New Age-y, but an actual biblical reality, that's exactly what God wants.

Well, first of all, the fact that God has an idea.

God does have this great idea and repeatedly you see this language coming up in Ephesians 1.

I want to just read verses 3 through 6, just a few verses there.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise and glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved." Again a lot of words there but you're gonna see repeatedly things volitional terms like he chose, he had a will, he had a purpose, he predestined, right?

And in later on, it would call it the mystery of his will.

And that's a phrase that Paul uses here in Ephesians repeatedly and in other passages too, to talk about this great big idea that this behind the scenes, before the foundation of the world, that it was in God, he had this thought that now is finally going to be accomplished, which is the unification of all his created universe, both in heaven and on earth.

That comes out explicitly in just a few minutes.

By the way, I'm gonna put a note in here.

The only reference to Friday's lesson that I made in my notes was in this section.

Because when you turn to Friday's lesson, you realize it is simply an articulation or an explanation of the biblical concept of predestination.

As contrasted with the false notions that are out there that man has no choice in this God, knew it from the beginning, and you know, this Calvinistic type of predestination idea, it kind of does a case of why that's different than the biblical concept.

So it's not like a separate popping point, it's like an addendum for clarification and if you want to go there, if you need it, exactly, if you're in that topic, hit Friday there, okay, but otherwise it really doesn't have a function otherwise.

Anyway, by the way, in Ephesians, it probably is an important thing to cover though as you're teaching the class because of its sure prevalence in much of evangelical thought absolutely and I think You could either take a whole lesson on that Or you could simply allude to the fact that there's these different concepts of predestination and 1 says that you could probably do it in 30 seconds.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to say, you know, to pre anything is to do it beforehand.

And the bottom line is that as we've studied before, the plan of salvation was not an afterthought.

And it's his will that it happened, but it doesn't preclude our will from being involved in that plan.

So the main distinction with most Christian, I shouldn't even say most, but but some of the Christian branches, is that God planned ahead of time who he would save and so we have no choice in the matter.

Where we say no God planned ahead of time how the plan of salvation will work it wasn't an afterthought but that wasn't none of his plan included taking man's choice.

Just because he planned it doesn't mean he...

I mean, we could go down this thing, but in Peter, he talks about how it's God's will that none would be lost, but all would come to ruin it, but God's still gonna destroy it.

So he knows that that's what he would like, but he doesn't take over our choice and brings us into that.

Right, so I've presented it this way before, the bottom line is that God planned ahead of time that he would save everybody who accepted the provision he made in Christ.

It was predetermined, it was pre-planned, and he determined who he was gonna save, those people who believe in Jesus.

Which could be anybody, it's open to all.

Anyway, well this mystery of his will concept by the way is in Ephesians 3 8 and 9, Romans 16 25 26 and even Revelation chapter 10 when it talks about the mystery of God being finished or completed.

That there's this big idea and God's trying to work it out through Christ that at the end it'll actually accomplish his purpose which he had from before the foundation of the world.

Now in verse, why don't you read Ephesians 1 verse 10 for us.

Sure, verse 10 says that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in 1 all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him." So there is, I think, 1 of the clearest articulations of what the mystery of God is, the great big plan is.

It's not just the covering of our past sins, even though that's vital component to it.

And it's not just giving us eternal life, but it's to unify so that his entire created universe would be 1 in Christ.

There'd be no sin between, the earthly would be redeemed, the heavenly would be secure, and this big idea is God's plan.

03 The Power of the Exalted Jesus

I'm Cameron DeBasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Third lesson, Pastor Howard, of our Ephesian study guide.

This 1 titled, The Power of the Exalted Christ.

It has a picture of Christ lifting up his arm.

Yes, but that's the same guy and he is all-powerful and this lesson apparently focuses on that power of Jesus.

Okay, well, from the lesson on Sabbath, it actually has kind of a lengthy paragraph, the next to last 1 on Sabbath, actually the last 2 on Sabbath, and it says that we're, we see God's power represented in 4 cosmos-shifting salvation history events, the resurrection of Jesus, the exaltation at the throne of God, all things being placed in subservience to Christ, and Christ being given to the church as its head.

So it's kind of rolling in all that from primarily from the first chapter of Ephesians again, but A little bit in chapter 3 and 4 and that kind of thing.

So do they put together 4 talking points?

This would you say hey, there's the 4 listed out and there we got it or how do we do?

So I think some of these things are just I rolled into as you're gonna see I rolled into fewer talking points.

2 that come primarily from the lesson and 1 that kind of comes from the lesson.

And then all come, that's an important point, They all come from the scripture and so it's going to be a great study.

Well, let's, before we study scripture, let me have a word of prayer, then you can walk us through those points.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word, for the specific book of Ephesians that we're studying right now, and the themes of redemption and the focus on Christ and the application in our lives that we can draw from it.

Please now bless our time together, bless every teacher and Sabbath school participant in every local church, that they may be blessed as we study together this powerful part of God's Word.

Number 1, prayer is an opportunity for praise and thanksgiving.

And that's drawn from Sunday's lesson primarily.

Number 2, talking point number 2, there is life after justification.

That makes me chuckle because it seems like, well, there's your past life, then you get justified, and then it's whatever, but anyway.

That's drawn primarily from Monday and Tuesday's lessons.

And then talking point number 3, Christ's enthronement is our guarantee of victory.

And that's actually, you get a little overlap, and that's drawn from Monday and through Thursday with a theme that Paul is using, incorporating, in fact, throughout his letters.

So we're going to focus a little bit more on the background of that theme and then its application in our lesson this week.

Yeah, so I'm gonna ask if you would start out by reading Ephesians 1, 15 to 23.

1, starting with verse 15 to 23, says, therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places." All right, that's good.

That gives us the sense of the same thing that we see similarly in Same and similarly.

Verse 14, chapter 3, verse 14, Paul says, "...for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted in grounded love, and he's praying how he wants to see this further success of the believer.

But it's, the lesson points out how Paul's prayers were characterized by praise and thanksgiving and the salvation of souls.

And it contrasts that if you'll read Sunday's lesson, I believe it's the second paragraph there under that fill in the blank, if just read the first couple sentences there.

Sometimes our default, yeah, sometimes our default tone in prayer can be doleful, mourning over this challenge or that problem.

Paul's prayer reports in Ephesians suggest that Thanksgiving is the native language of prayer.

So, it's an interesting statement to make and I, Of course, I don't know anybody who doesn't resonate with this to some degree.

Just about every church I've gone to, whether member or visit, has a prayer request time built into the service.

And I mean, it's good that we have, we can bring our...

You can never critique it, you can never analyze it because as soon as you say, oh, so you're against prayer.

Let me be clear, I'm on team prayer, I'm pro prayer, okay?

But the worship service, instead of, it used to have an intercessory prayer time where someone would pray and that would be it.

But now we open the floor to, and what are your requests?

And it ends up being a whole season of prayer or a garden of prayer and they come down for it.

And we have a whole thing called prayer meeting in the worship.

Anyway, I won't get started on this, but it's important to pray.

But what your point is, I think you're talking to is As the floor opens up more and more in the worship services, you're seeing a trend emerge.

Yeah, usually, usually, I mean, easily 70, if not 80 percent of the requests are a request.

And somebody's sick, somebody's in the hospital, somebody had this happen to them, somebody had that happen to them, and I don't want to discourage being able to bring those things before the Lord, but I do think it's interesting, and this is what the lesson's highlighting, that when you look at Paul's prayers, there's no doubt that there were sick people in Ephesus, or ailing people, but you notice that he, I mean, what if in those seasons of prayer, and we brought a request before the Lord, but in addition to that, what if we had, you know, the request was, First of all, the praises.

I'm so thankful God is doing what He's doing in your life.

And it's not just, hey, I'm thankful that, and I've done this myself, hey, what are your praises?

I mean, we live in Michigan, like that's half the year we don't get that, right?

So, but his praises are, I praise God that you're doing so well spiritually, that you're grounded in the Lord, that you're rejoicing in the truth, and you're growing and growing and growing.

And his prayer requests are that you would grow even more in your spiritual life.

And you would know that you have assurance, you have power.

And so I thought that was a powerful point and a takeaway that I think it would be well for us to try to incorporate and make sure that Our prayers seasons aren't just those doleful mornings over the challenging problems of life.

There's a great statement from the book Christ's Object Lessons here that I think is along this point, if you'd read that, page 142.

Our prayers are not to be a selfish asking merely for our own benefit.

The principle of Christ's life must be the principle of our lives.

Our mission to the world is not to serve or please ourselves.

We are to glorify God by cooperating with him to save sinners.

We are to ask blessings from God that we may communicate to others." So you have the the point there being made of this the non-self, you know, there's there's there can tend to be selfishness in our prayers.

Again, I don't want to give the idea that to pray for our needs, the Bible is very clear that we're to cast our cares upon the Lord, but I think we should definitely intentionally make prayer, take opportunity for praise and thanksgiving.

Well, if you think about this in Christ's model prayer, we should appeal to our Father in heaven and say how can your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

Like how can we be doing the will of our Father preeminently in our prayers?

So prayer is an opportunity for praise and thanksgiving, talking point number 1.

Talking point number 2, there is life after justification.

Now again, we were looking there in Ephesians.

You just read in Ephesians 1 15 and we touched on it in the prayer.

It's interesting, in fact, if you look at verse 15 that we just read.

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease.

04 How God Rescues Us

We're on our fourth lesson of our Ephesians quarter of study.

This time it's lesson 4, How God Rescues Us.

Pastor Howard, this is 1 of those lessons, well this entire study is going through the book of Ephesians and thus far it seems to be doing it right in order, right?

And so this is essentially 1 of the simplest, most straightforward lesson outlines you could possibly do.

It just takes a piece of scripture and here it's gonna be Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 10, and just walks through it.

So it was incredibly easy, in fact it was difficult to come up with the talking points because the temptation was be like, guys just put the lesson down, open your Bible and read through it and talk about it.

But there are good resources, good references in the lesson.

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Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2023: Ephesians

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