A Plan – 27 April 2009
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus....
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
Ephesians 1:1-10 [NIV]
Few of us may believe in conspiracy theories, but there are times when we think there are gigantic cover-ups, like the ways the banks suddenly collapsed last year. Did no-one really know what was going on?
But what if there were an even greater plan: one on the scale of world domination? No, not of the James Bond type, but a huge planetary plan, but one that people could buy into voluntarily!
If there were such a plan then it would perhaps be a mystery to most, as such plans tend to be in fiction. But in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul starts to unfold a plan that has all the hallmarks a planet-wide plan – or maybe even bigger!
And why not? If we believe in a God who is over all, in all, and creator of the world, then why not? If anyone would have a plan of this gigantic scale it would have to be the Almighty God!
But what is this plan? Nothing less than ‘to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.’
This is pretty heady stuff for any would-be world leader! And, it seems, it is a plan that reaches back in time to the very beginnings of the world. And it seems to be aimed at transforming humanity into something everyone aspires to: ‘all wisdom and understanding’, ‘adopted as his sons [of God]’.
And Paul reveals all this stuff to us, if we are to believe it!
And do we believe it? If so we had better keep it under our hats. If it gets out people might see what is going on and want to do something about it… | 