Lesson 1: The Light of Hope

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was written while the apostle was in prison in Rome around A.D. 62. It is part of what is known as the Prison Epistles, a group of letters that also includes letters to the Philippians and Colossians and to Philemon.

Paul was familiar with the Ephesian church because he helped start it at the end of his second missionary journey. Paul traveled to Ephesus and met with the Jews in the synagogue there. Upon hearing his message, they begged him to stay. Priscilla and Aquila accompanied Paul on this trip and remained behind to nurture what would become the church at Ephesus (Acts 18:18–21). Paul traveled on to Jerusalem but would later return on his third missionary journey and remain in Ephesus for at least three years (Gaebelein, 12).

Ephesus was a strategic port city along the west coast of the Roman province of Asia. While being known for their fascination with magic and occult practices, the people of Ephesus also boasted of their city as the home of the temple of Artemis (ESV, 2258). Although Paul did not specifically address problems in the church or the satanic pressures of the community upon the church, he took the opportunity to use his letter to encourage believers by exalting the gospel of Christ and the power of God displayed through the unified Church—the personification (Body) of Christ present in the world.

Ephesians 1:18 The apostle Paul used this segment of his letter to “God’s holy people in Ephesus” (1:1) in order to emphasize his prayers of thanksgiving and intercession on their behalf. Paul emphasized the importance of believers, identifying them as “chosen” (1:4, 11), “holy” (1:1, 4, 18), and “included” (1:13). These were highly treasured people, and Paul’s longing for them was that they would truly know the one who had called them into His light.

To know Christ is to know a specific calling. In this case, it is a calling of hope. Hopeless people can only invest an artificial sense of hope in that which they can see with physical eyes. They might also seek enlightenment in worldly wisdom, knowledge, or mysticism. God’s people are called to hope in the eternal, not the temporal, which they can only see with spiritual eyes—the eyes of their heart. Paul identified this as the enlightenment of the heart, which only the Holy Spirit provides for those who respond in trust. As such, this is an investment of faith that carries God’s people through difficult times because they have latched onto a person and not a thing or an idea, which cannot be taken from them. They become His “glorious inheritance” as His holy, claimed, treasured people, inhabited by His Spirit and intended for His joy and pleasure.

Paul also wanted God’s people to know that faith comes with an inheritance that only the eternal God can provide. Whereas the Israelites in the Old Testament looked to an earthly inheritance, the people of Christ’s promise are provided with the hope of an eternal inheritance in heaven (Gaebelein, 30). This will be the fullness of God’s glory—God completely revealed.

Ephesians 1:19–20 Paul was passionate in both his understanding and his relationship with Almighty God. He expressed this passion with such phrases as “incomparably great” and “mighty strength” in his description of the power of God. Paul used these words to build a bridge of understanding between the kind of power that God uses in and through the lives of His people and that of the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at the Father’s right hand and on the throne of glory (Bruce, 1432). This is a supernatural power that is of God and no one else. God offers this power in and through the lives of His own people. In a society obsessed with magic and the occult, these would have been valuable words. Paul wanted believers to realize that all that they had and knew through a relationship with Christ was above and beyond what could ever be known from an earthly source or from false gods (ESV, 2263).

Ephesians 1:21 There is no higher or greater power and authority than that of the resurrected Christ. Caesar could not express such power or authority when referenced in that day. Today there are many names that can be equated with power and authority—the president of the United States, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, world leaders, and billionaires, to name a few—but none compare with that of God. There are also the spiritual powers and authorities to consider, none of which would have their being apart from Christ who created them (Col. 1:16). This truth was not only valid then but is valid now and in the future. He is the “Alpha and Omega . . . who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).

Ephesians 1:22–23 Psalm 8:6 notes that God’s plan was that His creation of humanity would be given dominion over all the rest of His creation. Sin eradicated this authority, but God made Christ the supreme authority, giving Him dominion over all (1 Cor. 15:27), including the provision of restoration for humanity, lost and overshadowed by sin. In other words, God’s plan has been fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 2:5–10). Consequently, the restored in Christ have been brought together as His Body, the Church (Foulkes, 65). Jesus Christ is then Lord over all—the supreme authority over all creation and the supreme head over His Church. Through Him humanity can fulfill its intended purpose, for He has fulfilled the “destiny of man” (Bruce, 1433). In Him His Church, those in Christ, find themselves in a state of completeness and wholeness, empowered to do and fulfill all that they have been given the authority to accomplish (Matt. 28:18–20).

Famine in the horn of Africa that threatens to wipe out populations, a global recession that seems to stretch on, continuing job loss in America, government that doesn’t seem to want to work together for the good of the country, endless war in distant lands, governments overthrown in the Middle East, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, draught, and riots—the news is pretty bleak today. Is hope to be found anywhere? How do Christians express hope in the middle of so much loss?

Students need assurance that God has provided an eternal hope in the gospel of Christ that is not of this world. The world points to destruction and loss, but Jesus Christ points to an eternal inheritance that causes the believer to see what the world cannot see. Students need to know that they have a future that is secure. They need us to point them to the truths of Scripture in order to see that others, too, have needed reassurance and that God has provided in response. You can provide this assurance to students by helping them discover in these verses that God has never failed and that His promise is in His Son—the glorious Savior who has all power and authority and includes us in His plan of reaching the world with His hope. Once students have examined what is really the source of their hope in comparison with the world’s hopelessness, they will see that only God can make that provision in Christ.