Ad-Ministers of the Gospel!!!

Reflection:  As I read over today’s passage I was struck by the phrase, “the administration of God’s mystery and grace”, which is used two times in today’s passage.  You can have all the great plans in the world, but if you don’t have someone to administrate them, they aren’t very effective.  And Paul has described to us that this is his basic calling in life, to administer the Gospel, the Good News, the message of salvation by God’s grace in Christ.  Notice the word “minister” is tucked into the word “administer”.  To be a minister is to be minister of the Gospel, to be a steward of the mysteries of God.

I like turning to Eugene Petersen’s the Message translation to get a new take on a passage, so I used it today and this is what it said: (I’ve highlighted a few verses I liked!)

The Secret Plan of God

3 ^1-3 This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in God’s plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief. ^4-6 As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.^7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.^8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!^11-13 All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!  (The Message)

Paul’s calling was to take this simple message that he finally got in an extraordinary way, and share it with those who were considered outsiders.  The message is that in Christ we are all equally in need of a Savior and God has made it available to all of us.  The only requirement is to admit that you need God and you need His Son, and the Holy Spirit will help you in all of this to understand and put into practice.

As I look back in my life I remember those who made the Gospel very accessible to me and gave me a clear presentation of who Jesus was, and what he did for me. I am thankful for those “administrators of the Gospel, I hope they are still out there sharing the Good News.  And as we read God’s plan is for the Gospel to be ad-ministered from one person to the next.  Like a hungry person who has found bread sharing it with someone else who is hungry.  Unfortunately sometimes in the Church we get very much caught up in a lot of things that really have nothing to do with this basic calling we have.  And it is very easy to do so I am not judging anyone else, only myself. 

The Good News is that God is still looking for people, like Paul, who are simply willing to lay down their plans and agendas and admit they need a Savior and then are willing to be a conduit for the Good News to those who God brings in their path.  Would be willing to do that?  Would I?  Let’s pray for God to work through us like He did Paul so many others would understand this mystery that was kept hidden for ages but now is the power of God for salvation of those who would believe! Amen. 

Psalm 81:6-10

⁶ “I removed the burden from their shoulders;
    their hands were set free from the basket.
⁷ In your distress you called and I rescued you,
    I answered you out of a thundercloud;
    I tested you at the waters of Meribah.^[a]
8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—
    if you would only listen to me, Israel!
⁹ You shall have no foreign god among you;
    you shall not worship any god other than me.
¹⁰ I am the Lord your God,
    who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

Isaiah 22:15-23:18

¹⁵ This is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:

“Go, say to this steward,
    to Shebna the palace administrator:
¹⁶ What are you doing here and who gave you permission
    to cut out a grave for yourself here,
hewing your grave on the height
    and chiseling your resting place in the rock?

¹⁷ “Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you
    and hurl you away, you mighty man.
¹⁸ He will roll you up tightly like a ball
    and throw you into a large country.
There you will die
    and there the chariots you were so proud of
    will become a disgrace to your master’s house.
¹⁹ I will depose you from your office,
    and you will be ousted from your position.

²⁰ “In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. ²¹ I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. ²² I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. ²³ I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a seat of honor for the house of his father. ²⁴ All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots—all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars. ²⁵ “In that day,” declares the Lord Almighty, “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.” The Lord has spoken.

A Prophecy Against Tyre

23 A prophecy against Tyre:

Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
    For Tyre is destroyed
    and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

² Be silent, you people of the island
    and you merchants of Sidon,
    whom the seafarers have enriched.
³ On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre,
    and she became the marketplace of the nations.

⁴ Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”
⁵ When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶ Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, you people of the island.
⁷ Is this your city of revelry,
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?
⁸ Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traders are renowned in the earth?
⁹ The Lord Almighty planned it,
    to bring down her pride in all her splendor
    and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

¹⁰ Till^[c] your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbor.
¹¹ The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.
¹² He said, “No more of your reveling,
    Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!

“Up, cross over to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.”
¹³ Look at the land of the Babylonians,
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
    a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.

¹⁴ Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
    your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵ At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

¹⁶ “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.”

¹⁷ At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. ¹⁸ Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.

Ephesians 3:1-13

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.

You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:11

In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. Colossians 2:9-10

Lord of heaven and earth, help us to live in harmony with nature and neighbor. Help us kneel in your soil and till and tend the garden of community with as much care as we might give to our own heirloom tomatoes. Amen.