Every one of Paul’s letters is an exposition of the Gospel, but an exposition in light of the particular circumstances of the church to which it was addressed. So, as he begins to expound the Gospel to the group of churches around which this letter was probably circulated, he explodes with praise for what the Gospel is. Indeed he opens it up in a way that shows there is infinitely more to this message than we could ever hope to comprehend.

‘What makes a preacher choose any book or passage of the Bible to preach on?’

That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question I tend to ask myself on not a few occasions and feel I have to answer to my congregation (usually when I’m beginning a new series). I suppose there is a degree of similarity in that to the mountaineer’s question and answer: ‘Why climb that mountain? – Because it’s there!’

The Bible is full of scriptural ‘mountains’—some of which feel pretty Himalayan in their proportions and tend to scare us off as preachers—but they’re there as part of that ‘all Scripture’ which is not only all ‘God-breathed’, but also ‘useful.’ They cry out to be climbed. So sometimes I have found myself delving into certain books for the sheer challenge they present (like Ezekiel), into others for their sheer size (like Isaiah), and for others for their sheer beauty (like the Psalms).

But what made me launch into Ephesians?

Part of the reason was pure nostalgia. Ephesians was the first book that began to really shape my thinking and my life as a very young Christian almost 50 years ago. My father was a preacher—one who sat under Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and whose preaching was hugely influenced by that giant of preachers in the mid-20th Century. In true Lloyd-Jonesian fashion, he had a predilection for preaching long series (and long sermons), and they were simply captivating. His series on Ephesians was the first of these consecutive expositions that really began to register with me.

I had professed faith at the age of ten, and Dad began preaching these sermons probably when I was about twelve. I still have my little zipped edition of the King James Bible that I used back then and inside its back pages are the notes I took during those evening services. Despite all the limits of my understanding I had a real sense of this book of the Bible having a truly majestic air about its message.

This sense of appreciation was not only strengthened, but also deepened the following year when a number of my close friends in the school where I was a boarder came to faith, and we began to do Bible studies together. Inter Varsity Press had just published Francis Foulkes’ little paperback commentary on Ephesians (the precursor to his Tyndale commentary) and my ever thoughtful father put a copy into our hands. He nudged us in the direction of using it as a study-guide to Ephesians.

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