EPHESIANS 2 | BIBLE STUDY WITH ME

hey guys welcome back to my channel today's video we're gonna be continuing on with our ephesians bible study with me series and today we're gonna be in ephesians chapter two so in between the time when this video is going live and when last week's video on chapter one went live there was only a week but in between the filming of those two videos there was actually an entire month and something pretty significant happened in that month tyler and i got engaged we did an entire video sharing that story and so if you want to check that out i'll have it linked up here if you haven't already watched the ephesians chapter 1 video i encourage you to go back and watch that before you watch this video just because we cover all the context for the book of ephesians and also go through chapter one which will set us up for what we're going to be digging into today but just to give a little refresher on what we've covered so far ephesians is a letter that the apostle paul wrote to the church at ephesus but unlike some of paul's other letters which were written to address a particular problem within a particular church ephesians was written more generally to address some of the great themes and doctrines of christianity particularly as it relates to the community of believers and how jesus has united all things and all people in him and so in ephesians we really take a look at what is the gospel story and what are the implications of the gospel story for our own stories and for the lives that we live and so in chapter one paul started off this letter by writing a greeting to the saints at ephesus and then he goes into the spiritual blessings the spiritual blessings that are ours in christ he breaks these down and details what those are and then he ends off chapter one with a prayer for the saints in ephesus and this is really a template that we can use when praying for other believers and so that's a little recap of the context of the book and ephesians chapter one now heading into chapter two we see two main subheadings the first subheading in ephesians chapter two is by grace through faith and this covers verses one through ten again this is going to look at what is the gospel the second subheading in ephesians 2 is one in christ and this is going to cover verses 11 through 22 and again that's going into how christ has united all things in him all people in him and we are one in christ and so for this video what we're going to do is we're going to read through each subheading and then after each subheading we'll stop to talk through and unpack the verses a little bit and then after we've finished reading through the entire chapter we'll pick a couple verses as always to zoom into and dig a little bit deeper on as always any of the resources i mentioned or that you see me using in this video whether that be a commentary or a sermon i listened to or my bible highlighters any of that that is all going to be linked down below so if you have any questions about that check that out but without further ado we'll just get to the reading so if you have a bible go ahead and pull it out and turn to ephesians chapter 2. verse 1 and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind but god being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in christ jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in christ jesus for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them so like we saw in two of the subheadings in chapter one this first subheading hearing chapter two verses one through ten it's actually one long run-on sentence in the original greek and so that means that it's really conveying one idea and the theme of this subheading is that god lavishes his grace on christians through his saving initiative paul ended off the last chapter so he ended off chapter one by talking about how the ultimate example of god's power is displayed in the resurrection of jesus and now here in chapter one paul is going to consider what are the implications of this resurrection power for our lives and so i want to sort of categorize this subheading into two categories the first one is what we were and the second category is what we are we were dead in our trespasses but god has made us alive together with christ this is something i don't think i really realized until maybe a couple years ago even having grown up in a christian home and going to christian schools and growing up in the church i always sort of understood the gospel to mean that we were bad that we were sinful which we are and that god made us good that he covered our sins but this verse is telling us that we weren't just bad being made into good but rather we were dead and we are made alive in christ and so i want to read through a list that the enduring word commentary actually listed out that points to other places in scripture that help further describe what is our state before jesus so what is our state in this sort of category of what we were and so i'm just going to read through this list it also says that we were blind that we were slaves to sin that we were lovers of darkness that we were sick that we were lost that we were aliens strangers foreigners and children of wrath and that we were under the power of darkness so this is our state before jesus this is our state before those glorious two words of but god and so i want to break down some of these verses that describe what we were so the first thing we see is that once again we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked so it's saying that these trespasses and sins that we once walked in them but a note from the commentary again this is the enduring word commentary says that it should be different though for those who are made alive by jesus christ and so it gives this analogy of a dead man in saying that a dead man feels comfortable in his coffin but if that same dead man were to be made alive again then he would instantly feel suffocated and uncomfortable in that very same coffin and there would be in him a strong urge to escape from the coffin and to leave it behind and so in the same way when we were spiritually dead we felt comfortable in the trespasses and the sins that we once walked in but having come to new life in jesus we feel that we must escape that coffin or escape those sins escape those trespasses and leave them behind so there should be this shift in coming to jesus another verse that describes the state of what we were before jesus is that second part of verse two it says following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience and so something i thought was interesting also from the commentary here is saying that the same greek verb is used here to describe the work of satan in unbelievers as will later be used in ephesians chapter 3 to describe the power of god at work in believers and so this same verb for power is used here to describe satan working in the lives of unbelievers as is going to be used to describe god working in the lives of believers and so this same verb for power but how is it going to be used and sort of a takeaway from this is that if we are not yielded to the holy spirit we are susceptible to the influence of satan next note on what we were is in verse 3 where it says living in the passions of our flesh or some version say the lusts of our flesh and a note on this is that a lust of the flesh is simply a perversion of a legitimate desire of human nature and so god created us with desires as human beings but a lust of the flesh is when one of these desires is perverted and so an example of this is food god created us not only with the need for food but with a desire for food but that becomes a lust of the flesh or a perversion of that good desire when we cross a line and step into something like gluttony when we take it too far and we gorge ourselves and so that is the state of what we were before jesus is that we were living in the passions of our flesh final note on what we were is that it says by nature we were children of wrath that's also in verse 3. so we rightfully deserved god's wrath because our heritage is that we were born sinners and that's also from the enduring word commentary but now enters in to the passage to this chapter those two glorious words but god because that is what we were that is the state that we were once in but god did not leave us there god initiated with as we talked about before this saving initiative and verse 4 is where we see this turning point again it says god but god being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with christ and so we're going to look into what is the what we are what is who we are now that god has stepped in and i want to make a note on this also from the enduring word commentary it says that god's reasoning behind reconciling man to himself so his reasoning for stepping in is found totally in him the reasons are his rich mercy and his great love so it says that god did this because of his great love with which he loved us because of his great mercy that is the why and the note in the commentary continues on to say that some imagine god loves us because we are so lovable but instead scripture tells us that it's god's love which is so great that it extends even to the unlovely to the children of wrath that we were so god didn't reach out to save us because of something that we did or because we were super lovable or because we deserved us even though we were unlovely even though we were dead in our trespasses he reached out even still and so the commentary continued on to say that this is the requirement or sort of the prerequisite for being saved is that we must first be dead dead to every attempt to justify ourselves before god if we think that we did something to earn it then we have it mistaken we must first recognize that we are dead before him and so i want to read a note from my study bible on this idea it says the idea that god helps those who help themselves is not from the bible but rather from the ancient greeks as paul emphasizes in this section the truth is the exact opposite god helps the helpless even more he helps his enemies who have transgressed his holy law apart from jesus we are enemies of god and so god helps even his enemies he reaches out even to us next note i want to make is on verse 5 where it says that he made us alive together with christ and the note here is that god shared in our death so that we could share in his resurrection life and then another note on verse 5 as well where it says by grace you have been saved so once again this is god's grace not involving man's merit so grace which comes from the greek word charis i think i'm saying that right hopefully is something that has not been earned if you think about the idea of giving someone a gift well a gift means that you are not requiring anything in return for it if i were to go give you a gift and let's just say i got you this nice bible but i'm like this is a gift that i'm giving to you but actually can you maybe pay me like five dollars for it or even if i asked you to pay me only one penny for it the second i require anything in exchange for that gift it is no longer a gift but rather an obligation so once again it is by nothing that we have done to earn it rather it is a free gift of god now this doesn't mean that our works don't matter at all because as we talked about a lot in the book of james the bible study series i did through that book good works are going to be the natural byproduct of genuine faith but it is not our works that earn anything now as to this idea of by grace through faith i feel like that's a phrase you've probably heard if you've been around the church for any amount of time but i really want to try to unpack what that means and so i want to share this analogy that the enduring word commentary gives that i found super helpful in understanding that because i know even for me sometimes i mix up is it by faith through grace is it through grace by faith which one is it but it is by grace through faith so what does that mean it says we can think of water flowing through a hose the water is the important part but it is communicated through the hose so the hose does not quench your thirst the water does but the hose brings the water to the place where you can benefit from it and so it is by grace grace is the water in this analogy but that hose is necessary to communicate or to be a vessel of that grace and so we are saved by grace by that water that is quenching our thirst but we receive that through faith next up i want to look at verse 10 that says for we are his workmanship now that greek word for workmanship actually is poema which could be translated to a poem so this is literally saying that we are god's poem the sermon was talking about how we used to be a display of selfishness of worldliness of corruption but now because of that but god we are now a display of his kindness the second part of verse 10 that says we are his workmanship created in christ jesus four good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them i love this first i think it is incredible to think about the fact that before you and i were ever born god knew already the good works that he had prepared for us and not only did he know those works like we just said he prepared them that we should walk in them and so god has already prepared works for you and works for me our job is simply to walk in them that is all for the first subheading now moving on to the second subheading one in christ verse 11. it says therefore remember that at one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from christ alienated from the commonwealth of israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without god in the world but now in christ jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of christ for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace and might reconcile us both to god in one body through the cross thereby killing hostility and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near for through him we both have access in one spirit to the father so then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of god built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets christ jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the lord in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for god by the spirit so what is going on here the first thing paul is talking about in this subheading is circumcision so to understand the context of this a little bit more circumcision was a special sign of the covenant that god had made with the jewish people we talked in chapter one about how there was a physical covenant in the old testament or the old covenant and now this covenant that we have is a spiritual covenant so circumcision was the sign the physical sign of the old covenant that god had made with the jewish people and so the jews they would refer to themselves as the circumcision and this was sort of inferring that they were special and that they had a prominent position with god and then on the other hand you had the gentiles and so this would be anyone who is not of jewish ethnicity and the gentiles were in this desperate place being aliens strangers having no hope and being without god and so that's what paul is talking about here in these first couple verses in this subheading saying that the gentiles were alienated from the commonwealth of israel and this state that the gentiles were in of having no hope being aliens strangers and without god without jesus this is all of our state but again there's a but so then in verse 13 it says but now in christ jesus so going back to the what we were versus what we are but now in christ jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of christ and so again we don't come near to god by keeping the law on our own efforts or by belonging to a particular group the only way to be brought near to god is by the blood of jesus in verse 14 it says he himself is our peace and i just love the note here this is from the enduring word commentary again that jesus hasn't simply made peace between god and man or between jew and gentile he himself is our peace without him there is no peace because he is peace next i want to read a fairly long note from the commentary on this second part of verse 14 where it says he's our peace who has made us both one and broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility because to be quite honest with you i really didn't know what this meant but this note from the commentary was really helpful to me so i'm going to read it to you it says in the temple so the jewish temple in israel in jerusalem in the temple in between the court of the gentiles and the court of the women because these were all separated out there was a physical barrier so there was an actual wall of separation between jew and gentile and paul was at the time of this writing so when he was writing the letter to the ephesians he was under house arrest in rome or prison in rome awaiting trial because he was falsely accused by the jews of taking a gentile into the temple past the literal wall of separation dividing jew and gentile so to have a gentile come past that barrier into the jewish part of the temple would have been a big deal but paul is making clear this point in this verse that in jesus this wall is gone there is no longer a physical barrier the wall of separation is gone because the common lordship meaning the commonality that we all share as having jesus as our lord and savior is greater than any other previous division so whatever might make me different from you or might make you different from another person whatever differences we might have in the body of christ pales in comparison to the commonality we share of all having him as our lord and savior so it's this idea that what unites us is much greater than anything that could divide us in jesus there are no longer any second class citizens of the kingdom of heaven we are all full citizens full and equal members of god's household final note i want to get to is on verse 20 so it's saying we're no longer strangers and aliens in verse 19 but we're citizens we're all full members and we are built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets but that jesus himself is the cornerstone and so this whole structure this whole body of christ is built on him is joined together in him and in him we are also built into a dwelling place for god by the spirit and so what does it mean that jesus is the cornerstone a cornerstone in building or an architecture would denote the stone that is placed at the extreme corner of the building so as to bind the other stones in the building together it is the most important stone in the structure the one on which its stability depends and so this is jesus jesus is our cornerstone on which everything is built on which everything is united in him i want to read one final note from my study bible this is on verse 21 and it says that christians are the temple of god corporately belonging to the visible church is not optional for followers of christ and then on the holy temple it says that this is where god meets with his people in joyful worship and fellowship believers do not have to worship in jerusalem today because they themselves we ourselves have become the new temple of god so that is all of chapter two for deeper study i want to take a look at verses eight through ten this is talking about how we have been saved by grace through faith and how we are his workmanship i just honestly really love these verses and so i want to study them more and meditate on them and so i'm just going to go ahead and grab my scribe bible journal and we'll dig in all right so here are those verses written out again it says for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them so sometimes i like to look up commentaries to dissect what's going on here more or sometimes i like to look up the meanings of words i feel like there was already kind of a lot we went through on these verses in particular and so what i want to do here is just write some of those things out and make my own observations to sort of solidify the things that i learned and kind of ingrain them in my memory a little bit more and so the first thing i want to write out is the water hose analogy just sort of abbreviate that and summarize it and so i'm gonna do that now okay so i put that we are saved by grace but faith is the channel through which that grace is received and in parentheses i put grace is the water that quenches our thirst and faith is the channel we receive the water through next i want to pull up a note from the enduring word commentary on workmanship and so it says here what i was saying before about the greek word poema that the idea here is that we are god's beautiful poem and the jerusalem bible translates workmanship as work of art so i'm just going to make a note on those things okay so i wrote here that we are god's poema we are god's beautiful poem or his work of art and as i was writing that down it made me think of last week the chapter one video how at the end when paul is praying for the ephesians he is saying how we how the saints are god's inheritance how we are what god looks forward to so i think these two things saying how we are his work of art and how we are his treasured inheritance really paint for us a picture of god's heart toward us so i wrote down here that god's heart toward us is that we are treasured by him going back to one of the big themes of ephesians is that it is painting for us or giving us an accurate depiction of who we are in christ that is meant to correct our own view of ourselves and i think that oftentimes we don't see or believe that god's heart toward us is that we are treasured by him that we are his poem that we are his work of art that we are his treasured inheritance but that is what scripture is telling us that we are and so i want to write that down because that is part of how scripture works in our lives and our hearts is that it transforms us that it renews our mind as we read it and it changes the way that we think and so that is what is happening here as we're writing this out finally i want to write down what we were talking about when we talked through these verses how god prepared the works for us we simply need to walk in them i just want to write that simple statement out as a reminder that god already knew god already prepared each thing that he would have me do my job is to walk in what he has already prepared for me so i put god already prepared the good works our job is simply to walk in them next in this application section i just want to spend some time reflecting on these truths and sort of journaling and writing it out so that's what i'm gonna do i put god saved me not because of anything i could do or earn but because of his great love and mercy it is all rooted in his character he treasures me his saving and sanctifying work in my life is his work of art he has prepared good works for me to walk in that is all for ephesians chapter two comment down below letting me know what your favorite verse or takeaway was and then read through some of the others as well if you are enjoying this study and looking forward to chapter three please be sure to give this video a thumbs up and then also hit the subscribe button if you haven't already that is a huge way that you can help to support my channel thank you so much for watching this video and i will see you back here next week for ephesians chapter three bye

Channel: Kaci Nicole

Views: 3,490

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ephesians 2 1-10, ephesians 2 bible study, ephesians 2 bible project, ephesians 2 bible study questions and answers, ephesians 2 bible study guide, ephesians chapter 2 bible study, ephesians 2, ephesians 2 bible study with me, ephesians bible project, ephesians bible study, ephesians 2 commentary, ephesians 2 explained, ephesians 2 sermons, ephesians 2 study, by grace through faith ephesians 2, we are God's workmanship ephesians 2:10, we are Gods workmanship, bible study video

Id: RR5fFmhGhsw

Length: 29min 16sec (1756 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021