We begin on Sunday a journey through St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, the great epistle about the worldwide church whose head is Jesus Christ. This journey continues through August 26.

Certain early manuscripts omit the phrase in Ephesus from the first verse, and this omission raises the question of whether the epistle was addressed to a particular community of believers, where Paul ministered for well over two years, or was written for a broader, if not universal, audience. Certainly we believe that whenever we read any of the Scriptures in church that the reading applies to us as well as to all Christians.

A major theme of the epistle concerns the purpose of the worldwide church which is to be the instrument for making God’s plan of salvation known throughout the universe. God’s plan of salvation, shown most especially in Jesus Christ, flows from God’s saving love for all whom God created.

The portion of the epistle appointed for Sunday (1:3-14) refers repeatedly to God’s plan of salvation: “[h]e destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ” (1:5) and “[w]ith all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (1:8c-10) are prime examples of Paul’s emphasis on God’s plan of salvation.

Paul concludes Sunday’s portion, the opening of the epistle, by specifying that his readers, too, specifically were targeted in God’s sweeping plan of salvation: “In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance twoard redemption as God’s people, to the praise of his glory (1:13-14).