So the apostle Paul, he is in prison. He's in jail as he writes 4 separate letters. We call them the prison epistles. Paul himself, he is in chains, but his heart is not.
in chains, his heart is unchained. his love for Christ and the church prevails even while he is in jail, in prison. His circumstances did not hinder his concern for the advancement of the gospel and the growth of the church. Paul maintained and he manifested a God-exalting gospel-centered approach to life and ministry.
One of Paul's prison letters was written to the believers at Ephesus, and I want you to go ahead and turn in your copy of God's word to Ephesians chapter 2. We're gonna begin in verse 1. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul spends the 1st 3 chapters proclaiming gospel truth before ending the final 3 chapters applying gospel truth proclamation. Application.
He begins with the indicatives of the gospel before ending with the imperatives or the commands of the gospel. He wants his readers to understand and embrace the gospel, the good news of Christ, who he is and what he has done. He wants them to embrace the gospel so that they might then walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which they have been called, and we see that in chapter 4, verse 1. And so this is the broad outline of the book....
