Riffin' On Ephesians 3

God’s Marvelous Plan for the Gentiles

3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

A Prayer for the Ephesians

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Apparently Paul didn’t know of the Orient or their religions. I’m not a history buff, so I don’t know if there was much cultural exchange between the Orient and the peoples/cultures of the Gentiles in the times of the events of the New Testament, or perhaps Paul is still on a bit of a journey over the course of the New Testament when this occurs, I’m not certain. All I know is that it is frankly untrue that “the mystery of Christ” “was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.”

I don’t even think that that statement works in the context of the Catholic tradition. There are prophets in the Old Testament from generations which long preceded that of Christ who prophesize of his coming. A huge part of the “Christ” identity is a sense of it being Transcendental. Jesus was the human man born unto God the Father who came to realize that He and the Father were one, in addition to meaningfully being kin. The Christ is the eternal judge who forever sits at the right hand of the Father, who, for all intensive purposes, is the right hand of the Father, and has been beside or will be beside every being who will ever come to be for the entirety of their lives; this definition of Him is essentially synonymous with the Father, the two are one, expressed as “Christ”, and in this way Jesus is a pevasive source of comfort as he is all-pervading throughout the entirety of time, ministering to individuals on a personal basis, and cultivating them across the years as they grow into the people they were born to become.

Paul sounds like a gibroni in his address to the Gentiles here. I’m no Bible buff, but I think it’d be out of character for this to be shameless pandering. Like for example if the Gentiles were ignorant brutes and Paul was assigned with enlightening them by any means and so he has to initially pretend to be down with their backwards policy of insisting the specific day and age they and only they will have specifically lived in is special and everything which came before it was, by all accounts, a big rip off.

I mean you have to be a bit suspect of somebody who calls themselves a prisoner of love, for the sake of your immortal soul… they’re already doing some heavy window shopping in territory you hadn’t necessarily intended to make public (alas, we are social creatures though). Look down upon my belittling tone all you want, but it’s undeniable to me that once like the truth really is integrated socially in a powerful way, as the Christ experience really did accomplish in a deep way across time, before too long everyone is going to start making fun of you if you frame your lot in tragic/antisocial terms.

It starts to sound like hopeless romantic pining. But I was born to love you, Rebecca…

“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”

God is that stated perfectly. Notice too how the implications of it seem to undo the notion that the mystery of Christ hadn’t touched preceding generations? The “promise in Christ Jesus” is Transcendental Communion with the Father…with the idea of people reaching the room prepared for them by Jesus in “His Father’s Mansion” as alluded to in John 14.

Don’t get me wrong. Here you can see Paul rather literally saying that only through the Gospel can people such as the “Gentiles” merge “together” in “one body” with “Israel”…and all other peoples, actually. They are avoiding transcendental resolutions and putting victories already won off until tomorrow. It’s a tragic move, socially, and when it plays out in the vicinity of seeming spiritual authority, it hurts the “image” or “brand” of Christ, if such a thing really is possible (it is, sadly).

But in the midst of his surface level ignorance, the truth is evident/communicated. For example (this one is ugly), “7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.”

He alludes to the “boundless riches of Christ” but has yet to even realize that Christ was there throughout human history in a Transcendental way, as the Father was. The mystery was not denied to any tribe of people, Christ's love was out there all deep and tall and infinitely wide... and if Paul really got searching, he may be hard pressed to happen upon a social collective whose cultural origins aren’t ascribed to God in some way, shape, or form.

Nonetheless, every generation sees pervasive ignorance. Despite humanity being amazing, the amount of people directly addressing God in deep ways topically… there’s a lot of deep devotional practice, but not a lot of proper “enlightenment” in the sense of Transcendentalism. And even where you find people practicing devotionally, you still see a lot of room in their life where they aren’t seeing things in term of the Source/the Divine…even if everything is just fine and they are on good terms with Life itself…culturally you can simply see how there’s some very real territory to cover in regards to somehow deepening the sense of communion with Source, or extending the duration of it in a meaningful way.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name.”

God is that epic lol. It literally undoes the notion of religious supremacy. All cultural modalities, all families on Earth…all things got their form from the perfect Source of creation. We are but different expressions of the name that is “God” is what that means.

“20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

I find it peculiar that with the very last line of his prayer, Paul utterly undoes his fallacious point (sorry to harp upon it) that the mystery of Christ had been hidden until the times of Jesus Christ. Notice that the “him” “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” is the Him who receives the “glory” of the “church” as well as the glory “in Christ Jesus” *I can’t make this stuff up* “throughout all generations” *so much for the mystery of Christ being withheld in the past* “A-fuckin’-men”… is referencing the Father. The Father who Christ became one with.

A-fuckin’-men. Unless you don’t accept the Gospel, then you are outside of the territory of “A-men”/the collective, and then we will literally burn you to the ground (which Paul would never dream of doing but many a social leader or warlord would scheme on...)

But like… see how dubious that wording can potentially be…if you live in an area where news of Christ’s existence hasn’t yet reached? Everywhere you find large cultural centers, you find sophisticated religions/expressions of spirituality. Miraculously, we find that across human history it’s just been the same tradition being discovered by different groups on their own terms. Rather than tell that story though, we moreso know Paul’s perspective on things…which is that the mystery of Christ was hidden from the “generations” until the time of Jesus Christ.

But then Paul’s resolving prayer seems to imply that his opinion is factually incorrect? It seems to ultimate give all glory solely and exclusively to God the Father, in whose image we were made, Jesus being the perfect example of this actualized, and this actualization having been actualized largely by extremely esoteric acts of God/Divine Intervention in the first place…that’s an important template because that’s the real template all individuals fit, no matter their species.

The truth is is that the victory of Christ is all humanity has ever known. It was won by the particulars of his Life.

The same template is actually open to all of us. To be a good person is to be yourself. To fulfill your destiny is the meaning of your life. It’s your life, not some template’s, not the collective’s, not even God’s; it’s You. You are It.

How Paul made "the manifold wisdom of God" "known" "to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm"...

'Ok so Heaven is for the afterlife, that's where the kingdom of God awaits us, and there's an eternal villain forever in the ear of your children trying to tempt them away from God, people in the past had inferior lives than us because we live in the time of Christ, and when they died they had to stand at the closed gates of heaven until their tension boiled over and manifested in the social world as a plot to crucify Christ... so therefore demons are real, I know because I made sure of it...'