Msg #1537 Enlightened Eyes of Understanding

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

After his stupendous introduction, the Apostle Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians with what is the topic sentence of all topic sentences. It is two hundred words long, rated with a post-post-graduate complexity, and is only comprehensible via a thorough sentence diagram. It is well worth the effort. Modernists teach that people cannot understand the old English of the King James Bible. They purport that their copyright ecumenical bibles tell us what God meant to say. I'll trust my poor diagramming over their best copyrighting any day of the week. The heart of the first chapter's last sentence has to do with the eyes of the believer's understanding being enlightened. The reason people cannot understand the Holy Bible has nothing to do with modernized English, and everything to do with blinded eyes. In the world, seeing is believing; in the Bible, believing is seeing. In this topic sentence, and in the body of the letter which follows, Paul describes the wherewithal of those eyes being enlightened. It is the theme of his letter, and the hallmark of this new dispensation of grace that he is revealing. This enlightening is “wrought in Christ.” Don't miss it. Six aspects of it are given: 1) it is by God's power, 2) when God raised Christ from the dead (quickened him), 3) when he set him at his own right hand, 4) set him far above all, 5) put all under his feet, and 6) made him head over all things. Every ounce of the enlightening and quickening that is found in this new dispensation is wrought in Christ. This complex sentence is worth even more study. The whole letter to the Ephesians hangs here. It springs open the new revelation which Paul's two years of silence produced, the dispensation of grace.

An Essay for week #37 Sep 13, 2015

Msg in audio at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/audio/gs150913.mp3

In blog http://www.theology.gsbaptistchurch.com

In paperback at www.lulu.com/spotlight/GSBaptistChurch