This past Sunday (11th October) we began our new series studying together the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – which I am very, very excited about!

The audio for Part 1 is available now.

During the sermon I made some suggestions for how we can all maximise the benefit of this in-depth study, on our lives and families.

The suggestions were:

1.  Read the whole book through a few times.

Sunday mornings are going to be like taking a “glass-bottom boat trip” over Ephesians.  We will have time to see the richness, beauty, glory and intricate detail of God’s truth.  But there’s also a place to take a “speed-boat” trip over the book, to get the bigger picture and to see how it flows and fits together.

Let me suggest reading the entire book in one sitting.  It should take about 25mins.

2.  Study Ephesians in your own personal devotional time.

Get hold of a good study Bible (like the ESV Study Bible) and work your way through Ephesians in your own quiet times.  Review your sermon notes from Sunday, get out the “Take it Home” sheet and use the questions to reflect on the passage/message.

In fact, there’s an on-line version of the ESV Study Bible you can use.

To aid you in your personal reading through Ephesians, get hold of a good commentary.  A particular favourite of mine (and the one Clare and I are using for this purpose) would be:

THE MESSAGE OF EPHESIANS

by John Stott

It’s a great one-volume commentary which is, at the same time, accessible, readable, simple to understand and, yet, wonderfully insightful.

We will have some copies available from this coming Sunday (18th October) at the Info Point, for a remarkable Amazon-price- beating£6!  Be sure to pick up a copy!

3.  Talk to others about what God is teaching you and what you are learning.

Don’t wait for home group to roll around, share the things God is teaching and showing you with others, to encourage them, and ask others what things they have been learning, so you might be encouraged!

4.  Memorise Scripture.

There can be an enormous benefit to our souls to learn and memorise portions of Scripture – to hide God’s Word in our hearts, and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.  In order to serve us in memorising Scripture passages from Ephesians we have produced our Grace Church Ephesians Scripture Memory Songs Project.

As we saw in our recent “WHY: sing?“ sermon, singing is a gift from God that can help us remember the truth of God’s Word.  So, to coincide with almost every sermon, we will be releasing a short song (via this blog) that has a Scripture passage from Ephesians set to music.  Every song has been written, played/sung, recorded and produced by people in our church!

Look out for the release of the first song with next week’s sermon.

5.  Let’s pray!

This letter is packed full of majestic, grand themes and rich theological truth — the sovereignty of God in Salvation, the grace of God, what our union with Christ means — and also simple, profound practical truths for living our lives in a way that glorifies God.  This combination makes this book immensely powerful.

Let’s pray that God, through the power of His Holy Spirit would use our study to change our lives, for our good and His glory, as He gives us a renewed panoramic vision of the glorious and wondrous work of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.