What is God’s “plan for the fullness of time,” and how extensive is its reach? Eph. 1:9, 10.Paul uses three labels for God’s plan. It is (1) “the mystery of his will,” (2) “his purpose,” and (3) “a plan for the fullness of time” (ESV). What is God’s ultimate, final plan? To unite everything, everywhere, in Jesus.The term that Paul uses to describe the plan is a picturesque one (Greek, anakephalaiōsasthai), to “head up” or to “sum up” all things in Christ. In ancient accounting practice, you woul...
Jul 04, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1711
Sin had been a dark, dominating force in the lives of the members of Paul’s audience. Paul can describe them in their prior existence as the walking dead—“dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1, NKJV) yet “walking” or living as Satan commanded them (Eph. 2:1–3). Enslaved to sin and Satan, they had no ability to free themselves. They needed rescue. God has done so through His gracious actions in Christ, and Paul celebrates two new blessings of God’s grace in the lives of believers: redemption and...
Jul 03, 2023•10 min•Season 5Ep. 1710
A thank-you note usually includes a description of the gift or gifts received. Paul includes a long gift list in Ephesians 1:3–14 as he thanks God for the blessings of the gospel.Paul praises God for the fact that He has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Eph. 1:3, ESV). That the blessings are spiritual (Greek, pneumatikos) suggests that they come through the Spirit (pneuma), pointing to the closing of Paul’s blessing, which celebrates the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives ...
Jul 02, 2023•12 min•Season 5Ep. 1706
Read for This Week’s StudyEph. 1:3–14; Eph. 2:6; Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:13, 14; Deut. 9:29.Memory Text:“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3, ESV).Twenty-five years after becoming the first person to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong wrote a thank-you note to the creative team who designed the spacesuit, the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), in which he took those historic steps. Call...
Jul 01, 2023•4 min•Season 5Ep. 1708
The story of the exorcists misusing the names of Jesus and Paul (Acts 19:13–20; see Sunday’s study) helps explain why Paul uses so much language about power in Ephesians. Some new believers, under fresh conviction of the sovereignty of Jesus, throw their expensive magic manuals into the flames. Thanks to the discovery of some two hundred fifty papyri dealing with magic, as well as other finds, we have ample illustrations of rituals, spells, formulas, curses, et cetera, similar to those likely fe...
Jun 30, 2023•9 min•Season 5Ep. 1707
How does Paul announce the theme of his letter? Eph. 1:9, 10.How can the message of Ephesians be summarized? From prison, Paul sets forth a vision of God’s Christ-centered plan for the fullness of time and the church’s role in it. God has acted in Christ to initiate His plan “to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10, ESV), and He did so by creating the church as an entity composed of one new humanity of both Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14). Believers ar...
Jun 29, 2023•10 min•Season 5Ep. 1706
How does Paul begin and end his letter to the believers in Ephesus? What do we learn about his deepest desires for them? See Eph. 1:1, 2; Eph. 6:21–24.At the outset of the letter, Paul identifies himself as the author (Eph. 1:1). Near the middle of the letter, Paul again identifies himself by name, labeling himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1, NKJV), which introduces a personal reflection on his work as an apostle (Eph. 3:1–13). Near the end of the letter, he again ...
Jun 28, 2023•9 min•Season 5Ep. 1705
Paul wrote Ephesians to be read aloud in the house churches of believers in greater Ephesus. In the intervening years since Paul’s departure, the Christian movement in Ephesus had grown, and the number of house churches had multiplied. For those early believers, it would have been an important event to have Tychicus, the personal representative of the founding apostle Paul, stand among them and share a letter from him. As suggested by the epistle itself, the assembled group likely included membe...
Jun 27, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 1704
Monday ↥ June 26 A Riot in the Amphitheater Read Acts 19:21-20:1. What lessons can we draw from this story? Paul’s witness in the large, sophisticated city of Ephesus was so effective that it impacted an important economic engine for the city, tourism focused on the Temple of Artemis. And what a temple it was! This magnificent structure was composed partly of 127 pillars, each 60 feet high, of Parian marble, a pure-white, flawless marble highly prized for sculptures. Thirty-six of these pillars ...
Jun 26, 2023•15 min•Season 5Ep. 1703
Paul, Evangelist to Ephesus What does Paul do on his first visit to Ephesus, at the end of his second missionary journey? (Acts 18:18-21). Ephesus was one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire, with a population of about 250,000. It was the capital of one of the Empire’s richest provinces, the province of Asia, which covered much of what we know today as Asia Minor. In Paul’s day, the province was enjoying a time of growth and prosperity. A port city, Ephesus was also at the crossroads of im...
Jun 25, 2023•12 min•Season 5Ep. 1702
bout the Ephesians themselves. Years after the exciting events of the early days of Christian mission in Ephesus, the Ephesians struggled with the significance of their Christian faith. Paul, once the troubler of the economy of this fourth-largest city in the Roman Empire, is now sidelined and imprisoned. Writing from prison, he worries that the believers in Ephesus may “lose heart,” forgetting any active sense of what it means to be disciples of Jesus in the sophisticated, urban, and thoroughly...
Jun 24, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1700
Sabbath Afternoon Read for This Week’s Study: Acts 18:18-21; Acts 19:13-20:1; Acts 20:17-38; Eph. 1:1, 2; Eph. 6:21-24; Eph. 3:13; Eph. 1:9, 10. Memory Text: “Making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9, 10, ESV). When we write something, we have a purpose for doing so, sometimes a weighty one. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, w...
Jun 24, 2023•6 min•Season 5Ep. 1701
“Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. Satan also works, with lying wonders, even bringing down fire from heaven in the sight of men. Revelation 13:13. Thus the inhabitants of the earth will be brought to take their s...
Jun 23, 2023•6 min•Season 5Ep. 1699
There are many symbols in Revelation, biblical symbols of importance; that is, a dragon in heaven (Rev. 12:3, 4, 7), angels flying in the midst of heaven (Rev. 14:6), a woman riding a scarlet beast (Rev. 17:3), and so forth. They are in the Word of God; the Holy Spirit inspired John to put them there, and they have important roles in revealing truth to those who read the words of this book and do them, for, as it says, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and k...
Jun 22, 2023•10 min•Season 5Ep. 1698
Read Revelation 4:11, Revelation 5:12, Revelation 19:1, and Revelation 21:26. What words are associated with the glory of God that fills the earth as described in Revelation 18:1?The great controversy between good and evil in the universe also is about God’s honor or reputation. Satan, a rebel angel, has declared that God is unjust, that He demands worship but gives little in return. The evil one declares that God’s law restricts our freedom and limits our joy.Jesus’ life, death, and resurrectio...
Jun 21, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1697
God has raised up a last-day people to stand on the shoulders of the great Reformers of the past with the Bible as their only creed, Christ alone as their only Source of salvation, the Holy Spirit as their only Source of strength, and the return of our Lord as the consummation of all their hopes. Truths long obscured by the darkness of error and tradition, including the true Bible Sabbath, will be proclaimed to the world just before the return of our Lord.The three angels’ messages gave birth to...
Jun 20, 2023•9 min•Season 5Ep. 1696
Read John 7:17, John 8:32, and John 17:17. What promises does Jesus give regarding knowing truth and where is it found?God’s final appeal to His people is to flee the errors of Babylon and walk in the light of eternal truth found in His Word. The key to everything is the Bible. As long as people stick to the Bible and follow what it teaches, they will not be deceived in the final crisis, particularly regarding the Sabbath.The message of the second angel appeals to us to accept truth rather than ...
Jun 19, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1695
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6. What admonition does the apostle Paul give us regarding the last days of human history?The apostle Paul urged the believers at Thessaloniki to “watch” and “be sober” in the context of the second coming of Christ. And if Paul would say that to believers then, what would he say to us today?He also declared that they were “children of light” (1 Thess. 5:5, NIV) and that they were not in “darkness, so that this day [the return of Christ]” (1 Thess. 5:4, NIV) should overta...
Jun 18, 2023•11 min•Season 5Ep. 1694
Read for This Week’s Study1 Thess. 5:1–6; John 8:32; Rev. 18:1; Rev. 4:11; Exod. 33:18, 19; Rev. 5:6, 12; Rev. 13:8.Memory Text:“After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory” (Revelation 18:1, NKJV).Sooner or later, final events will unfold. Exactly when, exactly how—we have not been told. But we have been told enough. Some kind of legislation enforcing Sunday keeping, in contrast to Sabbath keeping, will occ...
Jun 17, 2023•5 min•Season 5Ep. 1693
“When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country [the United States] shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan ...
Jun 16, 2023•7 min•Season 5Ep. 1692
Even now, perhaps, the stage is being set for this impending persecution. On June 6, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI made an urgent appeal to more than 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome that Sunday must be a day of rest for everyone, so people can be free to be with their families and with God. “By defending Sunday, one defends human freedom.” This isn’t, of course, the same thing as demanding that others keep this day, as opposed to the biblical Sabbath, but it does show that the ide...
Jun 15, 2023•7 min•Season 5Ep. 1691
Read Revelation 14:9 and compare it to Revelation 14:12. Where is the mark of the beast placed? (See Deut. 6:8, Deut. 11:18.) What two characteristics distinguish God’s people from those who receive the mark of the beast?One group worships the beast, and one keeps the commandments of God (which includes the fourth, the one commandment the beast power thought to change) and has the faith of Jesus. That’s the contrast. Working through the sea and land beasts, the devil attempts to undermine God’s ...
Jun 14, 2023•11 min•Season 5Ep. 1690
Surveys reveal a deep lack of trust in institutions and governments. Millions wonder, “Where is there someone who is morally fit to lead the world?” Revelation’s prophecies identify the beast power as the one who, under the auspices of a religious/political union, will be the power believed fit to fill this role.Read Revelation 17:12–14. How does John describe these final scenes of earth’s history? What powerful contrast is seen here?There are three significant points John makes in this passage....
Jun 13, 2023•7 min•Season 5Ep. 1689
Bonus song: Hold On Words and Music: Michael McLean The message of this moment is so clear; And as certain as the rising of the sun. If your world is filled with darkness doubt and fear, Just hold on, Hold on; the light will come. Ev'ryone who's ever tried and failed Stands much taller when the victory's won. And those who've been in darkness for a while Kneel much longer when the light has come. It's a message ev'ry one of us must learn; That the answers never come without a fight. And when it ...
Jun 12, 2023•4 min
Read 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, 9–12. What does Paul predict about the last days? What identifying marks does he give for the beast, the antichrist power?The apostle Paul warns the Christian community of a “falling away” from the truth of God’s Word. He is concerned about the seeds of apostasy already present in the New Testament church, which would flourish in the coming centuries before the second coming of Christ. A counterfeit gospel would come into the church, distorting the Word of God.Satan ...
Jun 12, 2023•10 min•Season 5Ep. 1688
As we have already studied, the beast powers of Revelation 13 and 14 represent a worldwide system of false worship. But there’s more.Read Revelation 13:5; Revelation 12:6, 14; and Daniel 7:25. How long would this power dominate the religious landscape in the previous centuries?The beast would continue for a specific duration of time in history. In symbolic time prophecies, a prophetic day equals a literal year. In Numbers 14:34, we read: “for every day a year”—applying the Bible principle of cou...
Jun 11, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1687
Memory Text:“He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:10, NKJV).In the fifteenth century, the Piedmont valleys, high in the Alps of northern Italy, were home to the Waldenses, a people determined to stay faithful to their understanding of the Bible. As a result of their steadfast loyalty to Christ, they were fiercely persecuted. In a.d. 1488, the Waldenses in th...
Jun 10, 2023•5 min•Season 5Ep. 1686
“From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God. It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth. To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God’s law, is the object which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be accomplished by casting aside the law altogether, or by rejecting one of its precepts, the...
Jun 09, 2023•6 min•Season 5Ep. 1685
Read Revelation 13:4, 5. What identifying marks of the beast power do we discover in these verses?The beast of Revelation is an apostate religious power that rises out of pagan Rome and grows to become a worldwide system of worship. According to Revelation 13:5, it is a blasphemous power. In the New Testament, blasphemy is equated with assuming the privileges and prerogatives of God as an equal.Read Luke 5:18–26 and John 10:33. What two aspects of blasphemy do these verses identify?Jesus was acc...
Jun 08, 2023•9 min•Season 5Ep. 1684
Read Revelation 13:1, 2. Where does the beast come from, and who gives the beast his authority?The first beast power of Revelation 13 receives his power, seat, and great authority from the dragon. Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2 identify the dragon as Satan. Satan is a cunning foe and works through earthly powers. Revelation 12:3–5 says this “dragon”—the devil—attempted to destroy the “male Child” as soon as He was born. This “male Child” was later “caught up to God and His throne” (NKJV). T...
Jun 07, 2023•8 min•Season 5Ep. 1683
