Category: Ephesians

Written by Jackson Ferrell

Married to Our Interpretations – Ephesians 5:21-33 [God’s Little Deconstruction Book]

So every fifth week or so, the Triad study eschews the “passage of the week” format. Instead, it allows time for the Triad to reflect on the unit they’ve just completed, review the passages from the unit, and do a practical application activity together for their weekly meeting. Here on Chocolate Book during these interludes, I suppose I could revisit previous material, but in the interests of keeping things fresh, I want to introduce a new study: God’s Little Deconstruction Book.

Written by Jackson Ferrell

Limited Personal Guarantee – Ephesians 1:3-14, Day 5

Sometimes, Pastor Stephen Kirk is a man after my own heart. Commenting on Ephesians 1:13-14 in the Multiply book that accompanies the Triad study program, he goes to absolute town on the Greek. I could never be a pastor; I imagine that unless your congregation is either extremely generous or nerdy, you only have so many Original Greek Language Points to spend per sermon before they start losing interest. I, on the other hand, had half a mind to just start looking up Greek words from this week’s passage and see what I found, until I realized I’d kinda already done that back in All the Paul.

Written by Jackson Ferrell

A Blog of Chill Orientation – Ephesians 1:3-14, Day 3

Remember Walter Brueggemann’s classification scheme for the Psalms: orientation, disorientation, and new orientation? I feel like you could apply the same scheme to my blog here. You’ve got your (i.e. my) posts of orientation, posts of disorientation…and sometimes a move from one mode to another. Take yesterday, where I took a step back, looked at myself and Ephesians 1:3-14 here, and moved from disorientation to new orientation. I’ve got a feeling I might manage a post of disorientation before we close out the week, but man, sometimes I get so tired of trying to whip up some thoughts for the blog. Sometimes I just wanna rest.

Written by Jackson Ferrell

Deontology vs. the Gatorade Bucket – Ephesians 1:3-14, Day 2

Real talk: I often come away from Paul’s words here feeling obligated. In my mind, it’s as if Paul is trying to get us to worship God, or to make us feel like praise is the proper normative response to the blessings he describes, and thereby to make us feel compelled to praise. And that’s odd, because the passage is far more about what God has done for us than what we should do for God. Why do I react to it this way? I think we might get something out of this, so let’s sit me down on the couch with this slice of Ephesians 1 and talk about my feelings.

Written by Jackson Ferrell

The Big Inheritance – Ephesians 1:3-14, Day 1

Welcome to a new week in the Triad study, with a new passage to investigate every last corner of, like a room in an adventure game where you’re stuck on a puzzle and just start hunting for item and verb combinations in some desperate hope of advancing your progress. Well, okay, hopefully it doesn’t go down like that. We have the first handful of verses in Ephesians locked and loaded for study today, and the Triad study identifies this week’s theme as “guarantee.”

Written by Jackson Ferrell

Conspicuous Absences of Thankfulness – Leviticus 7 & 22 [Totally Hip Gratitude]

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled trip through the minor prophets to bring you a new series: Totally Hip Gratitude. In this study, we’ll examine the topic of thankfulness, and we’re going to intersperse installments of it between prophets. To kick the study off, we’re going to look at a few passages from Leviticus, as well as a few passages where thankfulness doesn’t directly come up.

Written by Jackson Ferrell

Titus 3 – Good News for Bad News Bears

Yesterday my uncle shot me a link to this video series from RightNow Media: The Book of Titus. In the intro video, pastor Chip Ingram encourages viewers to read through the entire book of Titus and take note of every time Paul uses the word “good.” I couldn’t help reading the third chapter today with that in mind, and it struck me that this really is a book about encouraging the church to do good deeds.