How Paul sees his lock-up
His body and the walls about him are of Roman construction. Even so, he does not hint at Roman involvement. He considers himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
I think that when you and I read this chapter, and I suspect when the Ephesians got his letter the mystery we first take to heart is not that of Christ. I do not think that we immediately wonder on God’s eternal purpose or how it is rolled out to humanity.
Does not the word prisoner snag us like a magnet? Does it not flash its reality in our minds even as we read on through the things Paul writes? Do we not begin to wonder about the mundane in Paul’s life? Food, bathroom, boredom, daily activities? How would I make it if I were in jail? Since half of my clinical week is spent behind the bars of the Augusta State Medical Prison I get regular reminders of how life can be restricted.
Paul does not pick up any of these issues. They seem irrelevant to him as he connects his lock-up to his Lord. Jesus Christ is in charge of his life; he would not be in jail if God intended it otherwise. From that vantage point, Paul lives.
13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. (Ephesians 3:13–ESV)
He hardly touches on incarceration between the first and the thirteenth verses. He bracketed those intervening verses, though, with a comment about his suffering. It was real; he calls it that. Imprisonment and suffering are not idle constraints. They bear down upon the human soul.
Paul could not just ignore these restraints but had to endure them. They hemmed him in. In the midst of this, though, Paul saw God’s big picture. He chose to make that his focal point. God’s big picture is always of the biggest scope even though we may see only bits and pieces of it. Paul saw that God was churning into shape a multinational, eternal church. The stigma of imprisonment did not stymie that project of God.
The suffering of prison did not stymie the life of Paul. In the midst of these things he had learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Look, next, at what he wrote toward the end of the book of Philippians:
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13–NIV)
So God’s purpose was not stymied but advanced by the lock-up of Paul. Both Paul and God’s church grew and matured through these things. Suffering is there, but there is
Paul has matured, and as he writes these middle passages of his letter to the Ephesians Paul asks them for a response. He wanted the men and women of Ephesus to lift up their eyes and gaze above Paul’s prison, his sufferings. He hoped to inflate a picture before their minds big enough to establish their souls. “Yes, I am suffering. It is real and uncomfortable, but it is by God’s design. That design is so good that you will be an honor, glory, an example of good from now until the end.” That is where they should let their thoughts simmer, not on whether his food was tasty.
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