Week 4 | Ephesians 2:11-22
For this week’s Engage God Daily, we are providing a reprint of a 2017 guide on our central passage, Ephesians 2:11–22. It was written by Barry Applewhite.
Day 1: First Looks
Barry Applewhite, Author
This week’s passage focuses on unity in Christ. This unity is more than a theological reality: you can feel it in every place where strangers meet and discover that both share faith in Jesus.
Read
Ephesians 2:11-22
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands) —
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
What words in verse 12 indicates the former, left-out status of the Gentiles?
What does verse 15 reveal about Christ’s unifying strategy?
How do verses 12 and 19 relate to one another in time?
Outline of this week’s passage
- Distance from God and his purposes, privileges, and people until made near in Christ (2:11-13).
- Peace with God and his people because Christ has brought peace (2:14-18).
- The people of God as the dwelling of God (2:19-22).[1]
[1] Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996)
