TAKE YOUR STAND
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By the time Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus, he was living under house arrest in Rome. This letter was a follow-up to the tearful farewell with the leaders from Ephesus as Paul had passed by on his final trip to Jerusalem almost five years earlier.
As a final summary of his ministry to them, he urged them to stand strong in God and in His power. Of course, this also recognized that there would be attacks.
There would be things that would threaten them and make them afraid, but Paul assured them that they had everything they needed to withstand the devil’s schemes. Despite all the physical dangers they faced, he insisted that the greater threat was the spiritual battle in which they were engaged (see Ephesians 6:12). Perhaps describing the armor of the Roman soldier standing at his door (see Acts 28:16), Paul highlighted truth, righteousness, and the gospel of peace, as well as faith, salvation, and the word of God as the believers’ tools of defense and protection. And he urged them to put these things on, to cover themselves with them, filling their lives with what God had provided in the truth about Jesus and His plan for salvation and reconciliation, healing and hope. The final glimpses that the Bible gives us of the Ephesus church are in the letter to the churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation, probably written about thirty years after Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Revelation 2:4 is a call to Ephesus to repent and return to “the love you had at first.” It describes a falling away, but also includes an invitation to return and a promise to those who, as Paul put it, would remain strong.
“To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life” (Revelation 2:7).
