[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, if you have your Bibles, if you'll take those and turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians. It is called city of Ephesus.
It's now the Turkish city of Kushadasi. I've been there, been to the ancient city, the ruins of Ephesus.
Let me just give you a wee bit of background before we even read some of the Scriptures.
Ephesus was the principal Roman capital of an area that the Romans called Asia Minor.
It would be contemporary Turkey.
And this area of Asia Minor, or Asia as it is called in the Book of Acts, is hugely important biblically, especially when we come to the final. I'm hoping to spend the last two weeks of this series on the epistles, on the Book of Revelation.
And it's hugely important Revelation.
Most of the letters, most of the epistles, as we're studying in this series called you've got mail there of cities in mostly in Asia Minor, not Corinth, of course, which is in Greece, but most of them in Asia Minor, contemporary Turkey.
The church in Ephesus itself was born in both revival and riot.
John Wesley's field preachers in the early days of the Wesleyan Revival movement, they used to say that if you haven't had either a revival or a riot, you haven't preached.
Someone has said the story is told. I don't know if it's true or apocryphal that some of the field preachers came back to John Wesley and reported to him and he said, did you have a lot of people converted? And they said, no, we didn't have anybody converted. He said, then did the mob throw you in the lake?
And they said, no, nobody threw us in the lake. He said, go back, you didn't preach. So there is something of embedded in the roots of revival Christianity, of revival and riot. Ephesus had both.
What happened was because practical Christians, and I'm leading to something specific, so stay with me.
The issue at Ephesus was the outworking of Christianity.
Nobody in Ephesus was angry. When people turned to Christ, they were, okay, you want to believe in Jesus, you want him to be God, We've got a million gods, we've got all the Roman gods and goddesses, fine, you want Jesus then, great.
But it was when the people put feet on their Christianity that it went south.
They realizing that their lifestyle had to change, that they could not live the way they used to live, they began to change. They burned their magic books, they turned away from ledger domain witchcraft, and then they turned away from the worship of. The patron goddess of Ephesus was Diana, the Roman name, Artemis, the Greek name. And the belief was that there was a statue to Diana in the temple. This huge temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was the temple to Diana or Artemis in Ephesus.
And the folklore that had developed over the centuries was that this statue had fallen from the heavens, that Jupiter had dropped it down into the bay. And they dredged it up. Of course it had been carved and decorated and it was totally man made, obviously, but it was there. And as people came, tourists came to tour the great temple and see the wonder of it. And then while they were there, they would buy little, largely made of silver, little silver statues of Diana.
And it was a major part of both their religion and their economy.
So when practical Christianity put the ax to the root of that and the trade began to fall off and people weren't buying as many statues. And then the silversmiths led by the sort of the head of their guild, a man named Demetrius, when they began to say what's causing all this, he said, it's those Christians, they don't believe in Diana. And he led what became known as the silversmiths riot.
And it was a had to be stopped by threat of Roman intervention. It was a big thing. And Paul the apostle was going to go into the midst of the riot and only his associates implored him and held him back. And they said, no, you know, your presence will not make anything better.
Paul's presence almost never made anything better.
Paul was just a lightning rod and they wouldn't let him go in.
So the church at Ephesus was well established. It was established in revival. It was baptized in fire.
So the letter that we call Ephesians, it may not have even been written to the church at Ephesus.
It may have been written to the church at Laodicea.
And as with several of Paul's epistles, he said, have this letter read at some of the other churches, because there is a reference to a letter written to Laodiceans, but we don't have that, that no copy of that is extant.
But we do have this letter and it is possible that it was shared between the churches at Ephesus and Laodicea. It's one of the prison epistles.
It was written probably around 60 or 62 AD, which means that it was about between 10 and 15, probably 13 years after Galatians, which we studied last Wednesday night.
It is different from several of the other epistles. It's not very personal.
It's a.
It's a more theological letter.
It's not trying to straighten out a fight like Galatians or some of the others. You know, you need to quit fighting with him and you all behave yourselves. And don't allow this in your church. And don't allow that, as in Corinthians, when he's kind of rebuking them and dealing with the excesses of one kind or another in the church.
This is a book about great Christian themes, the theme of the grace of God in redemption.
Let me just read a little bit.
If you'll turn to chapter one, beginning with verse 12.
That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted. After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed you were sealed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise. Look at verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. Is there a real estate agent in the house?
Any. Anybody here sells real estate?
No. All Christians? No. Sorry, sorry.
Just a joke. Sorry.
Stay calm.
This is real estate language. This is real estate language. Don't you understand? He says you've been purchased at a great price, but until that purchase is claimed and taken to heaven, here is the earnest money.
And the earnest money of that purchased redemption is the Holy Ghost. So he says, the purchase has been made. But here's the earnest. He says the earnest of our redemption, the earnest money, the down payment. Here it is, is the Holy Spirit.
He deals with the Church itself, the triumphant nature of the Church that we are seated together with him in the heavenlies. It's translated, by the way, heavenly places in the King James Bible. If you will notice this, just a side note, but always watch for words in the KJV that are in italics. When you see the word printed in a different font in italics, it's the editor telling you that is not in the manuscript.
That word is not in the manuscript, but being translated from Greek.
They said it doesn't make any sense without some words in English added, but they want you to know they are added.
So, for example, we are Seated together with him in heavenly places. The word places is not in that sentence and probably is a bad addition.
It should read, we are seated together with him in the heavenlies, in another dimension, in the heavenly realm. Heavenly place almost makes it sound like, you know, Baskin Robbins or something, which everybody has their own view of heaven.
I'm only saying.
But what I want to zero in on tonight. Oh, let me give you one other thing. Turn to the end of Ephesians and look at verse chapter 6 and verse 12. Because if you are a creative writer, if you've done any creative writing at all, you know that you don't follow a thread through the whole thing and then suddenly say, oh, by the way, let me talk to you about this.
And that's what Paul does in the end of the book of Ephesians. He deals with the whole, this great treatise on the church and on redemption and on grace and on personal relationships. And then out of nowhere, he starts listing all of this, all of this armory stuff.
It doesn't really fit.
Starting in chapter 6 and verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loins gird about with truth and having the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Now that's. It's just an odd little thing. At the end of the book of Ephesians, he suddenly starts talking about armory, armament.
In the 1990s, an archaeological discovery was made in Cushadase in Ephesus. It is one of the most remarkable and significant archaeological finds relative to the lifestyle of gladiators.
We know that gladiators existed Rome, of course, the Colosseum was the principal gladiatorial domain. But there were other contests, there were other places where gladiators fought. One of these was at Ephesus. There is a pretty good, well preserved amphitheater there at Ephesus is there. But not far from that amphitheater they found a cemetery all for gladiators.
Their. Their headstones have the carvings of the special kind of equipment. There were some of the gladiators that fought with tridents. There were some that fought with swords. There were some that used axes. And so they know how these guys, what these guys wore, because it's. This cemetery is preserved just for gladiators.
And then they did. They did forensic archeological study on the bones of these guys, and they found the diet of gladiators. They had a very special diet.
They found out all kinds of things about them. They found out that they had injuries and that they were treated with pretty sophisticated surgery.
And because they were valuable commodities.
And so there's this whole cemetery. So Paul comes to the end of the letter to Ephesians, and he says, look, I know you live in one of the cities that has the most gladiatorial fights of anywhere in the world. So let me talk to you about the Christian struggle in terms of what your heroes in the gladiator field were into battle.
So it's as if I wrote an epistle. I'm not putting myself as if some pastor Joey Grizzle, wrote a letter to the church at Athens, Georgia, not Athens, Greece. And he's writing to them, and he writes to them about God's work and the redemptive purpose and all that God is doing in the church and how to live in relation to one another and how to walk in love. And then at the end of the letter, he says, look, let me tell you what it's like to struggle as a Christian.
You put on your helmet and fasten your chin strap, you put your shoulder pads on and you hunker down.
That's what happens at the end of the letter to the Ephesians.
Now, having said all that, I don't want to deal with any of that.
I want to show you a practical aspect that shows up in the book of Ephesians where he talks, how do we live in the Spirit?
Furthermore, the complicating factor of living in the Spirit is that we're not alone on a desert island.
The problem is, see, like all these other people, I'm a Christian. When I'm alone, it's the guy that takes my parking space when I circle and I'm coming around to get that space and a guy in a Fiat pulls in there.
Then my Christianity, we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
So Paul, in the middle of the book that we call Ephesians, deals with life in the Spirit in the context of human encounter. So if you'll take your Bibles and turn, if you will, to Ephesians 5 and 18, and be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit. Now, yet again in verse 18, we encounter a translation problem.
We have very few tenses in English, but Greek has very complicated tenses. And this is a.
What you might call a present tense operative tense. That's here in Greek, but it doesn't work in English. It would be complicated to translate it. So Paul says, be being filled, but in English, that's awkward. So it says, be filled, but in Greek it's an ongoing thing.
Live in the condition of being constantly filled. Be filled with the Spirit.
Verse 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now pause after 21.
From 21, following on into chapter six, you do no violence at all to the text. And if you insert, for example, so I'm. I'm. Now we. Paul has given us the statement, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now he starts with exemplary statements. For example, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands everything. Husbands, for example, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, etc. Etc. Etc. Then he goes on, for example, here's how children live in the Spirit with relation to their parents. Here's how parents live in the Spirit with relation to their children. Here's how employers live in relation in the Spirit to their employees. Here's how employees live in relation to employers.
So the whole passage in there is about the practical outworking in human relationships of life in the Spirit.
So this whole series is called you've got Mail.
So this is not just a letter to the church at Ephesus or Laodicea. You've got mail because why?
You have people in your life.
You. You have that husband that makes you crazy sometimes. You love him. You love him. You would do anything in the world for him, but you realize he's not normal.
You've got this wife and you love her. You love her, but how do you deal with her?
That's what this whole middle section is about.
So there are words which carry an emotive power far greater than their mere definition.
Here is one that works with evangelical Christians. Are you ready Submission.
The minute I say submission in a room full of married Christians, the air crackles with electricity because about a third of the people in the room say, oh, here it comes.
I knew he was going to stick it to me sooner or later.
A third of the people in the room say, yeah, now he's going to straighten her out.
And about a third of the people in the room are clueless. They just feel the end. They say what? What it is. Because in my view, a perfectly valid and important biblical truth about submission in human relationships has been misapprehended, hijacked largely by male teachers and therefore mistaught, which causes an unnecessary knee jerk reaction largely by female listeners.
So what does Paul mean when he uses the word submission? Look at Ephesians 5:22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Every man in the place say, hallelujah.
It's a delicious verse, isn't it?
Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord.
The only problem is verse 21.
You can't read verse 22 without reading verse 21. Submit yourselves to each other in the fear of God.
Now I know God didn't mean that. If you'll take a pen and let's just.
You can tell God's joking with verse 21, we'll just mark that one out.
No, what he's saying is the ground and foundation of all valid spirit filled relationships is mutual submission.
But what does he mean when he says submission? We have taken submission to mean subjection. Paul does not say. He's not talking about dogged subjection. He's not saying wives are supposed to be floor mats.
What is he talking about? Let's take it out of the context of husbands and wives. Let's suppose this is the first day of a class at some university and I'm your professor. I say, please note, at the bottom of your syllabus it says, on the last day of class you're to submit to me a 30 page double spaced term paper with a bibliography and footnotes. This is not high school. I'm not mentioning it again till the last day. On the last day of class, you submit it. You work all semester, you prepare your paper. You have it, right? It's a flawless manuscript. You put it in your briefcase and take it with you to class.
And on the last day of class, I say, all right. I told you judgment day was coming. Submit your papers. You have it, it's prepared, it's flawless. All you have to do to fail is one thing. Who can tell me what it is.
Just don't turn it in.
The fact that you have it, the fact that it's right, will not save you if you keep it to yourself.
So when that professor says, submit your term paper, take that verb out and put in a more basic American type verb, what is he saying? Submit it. He says, say it out loud.
Give it to me. So if A equals B, then B equals A. Paul says, here's how you live in the spirit, singing and making melody to yourselves and the Lord. Walking in the spirit, not living in the excess of alcohol. And with each other live giving yourselves.
The essence of all spirit filled relationships rests in giving.
Now then, some say, so the greater burden of that must lie on wives because Paul mentions them first.
Now true, Paul was not only a brilliant theologian and a brilliant creative writer, he was a brilliant student of human psychology and of human nature. He knew that unless he dealt with the women first, the men wouldn't listen.
So he says, he says, wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. And the men will say, amen. Amen. This brother's got it.
Amen. Amen.
And he says, and now you husbands, you also must love your wife as Christ loved the church. And now he actually takes out the verb submit and inserts the word give. Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.
So here's the contradiction. It's inherent in the statement.
Is the husband the head of the household? Yes. Look, girls, we're not voting on this. This is in scripture.
The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. But what does that mean? Guys, it's not as juicy a thought as you think it is.
How did Christ become the head of the church? Did he ascend to the pinnacle of the temple and say, all, all right, down you dogs. Worship me or I'll melt the lot of you.
No, he did not become the head of the church by ascending to the pinnacle of the temple. He became the head of the church by ascending to the cross.
You're the head of the household? Yes.
That means you get to be the most crucified person in the family.
Isn't that great news?
So here's how it works.
This guy goes off with the men's group from this great church to some Church of God men's convention. He's lost as a ball in high weeds. He's been drunk as cooter Brown for 20 years. His wife and kids are at home praying, oh, God, save Daddy. Oh God, save Daddy. Save Daddy. And the last Night of the men's convention, he gets saved.
He gives his life to Christ. Is he saved? No, this is not a trick question. Is he saved? Yes, he's saved. Is there a difference between saved and walking in spirit filled maturity?
The difference is oceanic.
In the van on the way home, some nincompoop shows him Ephesians 5:22.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. He says, if you'd have shown me that verse, been a Christian years ago.
All I ever wanted was what I wanted.
I just wanted my way.
Now I can get my way in the name of Jesus.
He goes home and says, daddy's saved. Yay, Daddy's saved. Nobody wants Daddy to go to hell. We're all thrilled.
The problem is it doesn't take them two weeks to realize that this is the same selfish swine he was before he got saved. He's just a saved pig.
He wants his way, so he bends them backward over the Bible with all of his arrogant male talk. If you disagree with me, you're not fighting me. You're fighting the word of God.
And now they realize they're up against a male God who's on their dad's side. And it's unreasonable and unthinking because he has completely misunderstood.
Husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church and gave his life that she might be sanctified and beautified.
So what it means is to understand the essence of Christian marriage, in the Holy Spirit, we must understand what it means to live giving.
So, wives, give yourselves unto your husbands as if you were married to Jesus.
That's a bigger stretch for some of you girls than for others.
But give yourselves. Surrender yourself to your husband. Giving is the essence of it.
Husbands, give yourselves for your wives.
So you got this guy clunking around his house trailer and his cowboy boots. Got a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate and a brain the size of an English pea.
And he says, it's the opening day of deer season. I'm gone. You can color me gone. And she says, oh, baby, please don't go. Don't leave me, please. The power company's ready to turn the lights off. Two of the children have got diphtheria. The take back man's coming for the car. Please don't leave me here. And he says, I'm the head of the household.
Now. Listen to me, brother. That's not King Jesus, that's King Kong.
So the essence of being the leader is that you have to, yes, you have to make decisions. But those decisions must necessarily imply a deep and profound self sacrificial concern for those that you lead.
So take it out of the context of marriage. Let's talk about children. Because Paul goes on, he says, how do you children express spirit filled living? Obey your parents in the Lord, honor them. That's a promise from God that you have a long life.
Obey your parents. How do you parents. How do you express loving and spirit filled life to your children?
How can I be submitted to my children and be in authority over them at the same time?
It feels like a contradiction.
So here's the scene.
So here's the, Here's a guy watching the World Series.
It's the Braves and the Yankees.
It's the bottom of the ninth inning, the Braves are up by two runs and there's two outs and it's 32 on the batter and there's a Yankee on every base. You can put any adjective before Yankee that makes you feel good. And one strike. One strike and the Braves win the World Series. One strike. Little Johnny over here, five year old is playing with a priceless Ming vase that his wife inherited from her great great grandmother. So the guy says, johnny, put that vise away. You know you're not supposed to have that. Daddy's watching the ball game. He turns back to the game and smash.
The vase is destroyed.
Now he jumps up and he's got to deal with it. He turns the TV set off, he grabs Johnny and spanks him all over the house. And he says to himself, that's a biblical spanking. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Right?
Sin is bound in the heart of the child, but the rod driveth it forth. The only problem is you cannot con a kid.
Johnny knows exactly why he got the spanking.
He didn't get the spanking because he broke the visor. Even because he disobeyed his father. He got the spanking because he dared to be inconvenient.
He got between his dad and the ball game.
Now how can I make a command decision? How can I deal with that being in authority and yet be submitted for the good of my child?
So the dad says, okay, let me turn this thing off.
The Braves will figure out some way to lose this anyway. So let me turn this off.
Take that vase. There's no reason a 5 year old would be playing with a vase unless he's bored. So let me put it up on a high shelf where you can't reach it. And you run, get your bat and ball and glove. Because the real World Series is in the Backyard.
Now I've made a command decision. I'm in leadership. I have demonstrated authority. But I have shown what spirit filled living is in relation to being submitted for those, to those under my authority.
Paul then says, let's talk about the employer employee relationship.
He says, what about, how do you show your boss that you're a spirit filled Christian?
He says, don't work just with eye service. We don't use that term anymore. It's Old English. It means, don't just work when somebody's watching you, but do your job. Work hard, demonstrate your submission to authority by doing your job. Don't gripe about your pay. Work hard and be a faithful servant. Then he says, what about you masters, you owners?
Don't exploit your people's labor. Pay them what they're worth. Don't browbeat, don't threaten, don't treat them like garbage. Treat them with dignity and concern for their lives and pay them what they're worth, a living wage and take care of care of your people.
And then Paul ends with this. He says, because you also have a master and he is no respecter of persons. Let me give you the revised Rutland translation. You big shots, remember, God is a bigger shot than you are and he is not impressed with you.
So the essence, Paul says, the essence of living spirit filled. Yes, it begins with being filled with the spirit Spirit.
But that's, that's theoretical. That's, that's in us being, living filled with the Holy Spirit. But how do I live in the Holy Spirit and make that, how do I turn that into a human relationship?
How do I be spirit filled with my wife? How do I be spirit filled with my. With my kids? How do I be spirit filled with my husband? That's the. At the very heart of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus.
So you've got mail.
You've got mail. It's popping up on your computer.
You've got mails telling you you have relationships, you have people in your life.
How you treat your teacher at school, how you talk to your students, how you treat your pastor, how you talk to your family.
These things are not somehow separate from life in the spirit.
Life in the spirit is incarnated, becomes flesh in the way we talk to one another and live and relate to one another.
I preached a funeral some years ago as a man who seldom came to my church. The wife was committed.
He came occasionally. He was there with her, usually kind of unhappy about being there. And he made it kind of clear he was grouchy. When he was at church, she was very dedicated, sweet Christian lady. But she loved him and she stayed with him regardless of his difficulties.
She pre deceased him.
And when I got to the viewing the coffin, her coffin was covered in a blanket of roses.
It was like what you might see at the Kentucky Derby. It was a blanket of roses. I'd never seen anything like it. Over her coffin, right down to the floor.
And I said, howard, who sent these roses? He said, I did.
He said, you know, Margaret always liked roses. And she used to say to me, buy me some rose. Buy me some. He said, well, that's not the. That's not the kind of guy I am.
I'm not into that squishy romantic stuff. I'm not into that. So I knew, I never did it. He said, but I'm making it up to her now.
I thought, I bet she's delighted.
No, if the book of Ephesians has anything to say to us a real practical way, it is this how we treat one another right now.
Not. Not whether you care for the poor in some vague and theoretical way.
But how do you treat your wife?
How do you treat your kids? How do you respond and honor your parents?
How do you.
How do you make spirit filled life work with difficult people in your life?
Everybody has somebody in their lives that's got rough edges.
How do you deal with that?
That's the real deal about the book of Ephesians.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we do have these people in our lives.
In some of our lives they are difficult for us. And Lord, we acknowledge humbly that in some people's lives, we're the difficult ones. They're struggling to try to figure out how to deal with us.
God have mercy on us. Come, Holy Spirit, earnest of our redemption, fill us.
We want to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We want to make melody in our hearts to you, oh Lord, we want to worship you.
But Lord, we don't want to worship you in church and fight all the way home in the car.
God, make the Spirit filled life real to the real people in our lives.
God, we receive this epistle tonight.
We receive it, we accept it as mailed to us, not just to the church at Ephesus 2000 years ago.
This message is to us.
Pour it into us, carve it in us, and may it be real in the way we talk and act and submit to one another.
Come, Holy Spirit, in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen and amen. God bless you.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on
[email protected] or visit his website, Dr.markrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
