Ephesians Quote

The picture the text paints is bleak. Because of sins humans are the living dead. They live in keeping with a world that ignores God and in keeping with a tyrant who works to cause disobedience. In their enslavement they follow desires and distorted reasonings that leave God out of the picture and, therefore, they are under God's wrath. But , the main point of Ephesians-- and especially of 2:1-10-- is that God will not stay out of the picture.

Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians.

Ephesians & Revelation

Words play an interesting place in our language as we use them to communicate and miscommunicate with those around us. Klyne always said that words are verbal symbols that have meaning made out of their relation to one another. One way of exegeting passages of Scripture is by counting how often specific words are used. Wordle does that for us now and presents it in an eye-pleasing way. The first picture above is Ephesians and the second is Revelation.

Go check out Wordle if you haven't already.

Catching Up

I've been extremely busy with school the last week and a half. Papers are beginning to be thought of-- some close to being written. All the work that I had been working through slowly is needing a few extra efforts to get back on track. Books need to be read. Passages need to be translated.

Right now, I'm working mainly in Ephesians, doing the worksheet and eventually translating. It's the only real class that I have to attend each week. I'd never spent much time in Ephesians-- enough for it to really affect my life, at least, but it's beginning to sneak in-- in my prayers especially. It's giving me language to express my heart, my emotions. It teaches me what God has done for me, even though I deserve none of it. It's really quite amazing. Reading about how we were once dead in our sins, focused on the physical world around us and being oppressed by the spirit of the age, you feel the weight with which we need to be redeemed. And then Paul puts for three little words, transliterated ha de theos. In English, it comes across in two: But God. Think about that for a moment. But. God. With stark contrast to the preceding three verses, Paul lets us know that despite our situation, God has broken in and done something amazing, that while we were dead in our sins, he has made us alive in Christ.

Klyne made the point simply: "Never forget that the Gospel is theocentric." In other words, God is at the center of the Gospel, not us.