Drinking From More Translations EP89

From the transcript...

I got William Barclay. I like William Barclay. Barclay’s good. Barclay’s good.

Let me read it. I wasn’t going to, but—well, no, no, no, I got it. There was a reason I brought it. You’ve got to hear what he says.

Ephesians 1 (William Barclay Translation)

This is a letter from Paul, who became an apostle of Jesus Christ because God willed it so.

To God’s consecrated people in Ephesus, the loyal Christians in the Lord Jesus Christ:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He, in the heavenly places, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing because our life is bound up with the life of Christ. It was through this connection with Christ that, before the creation of the world, God chose us to be His own consecrated people and to live lives faultless in His sight.

In His love, He had already destined us for adoption into His own family through the work of Jesus Christ. For this was the purpose of His will. All this He did that men might praise that glorious grace of His which He gave us in His Beloved—and through no merits of our own.

It is in and through Christ and the sacrifice of His life that we have been liberated—a liberation which means the forgiveness of sins. It all happened because of the wealth of His grace.

This grace He gave us in superabundance to equip us with all wisdom and insight. He revealed to us the secret of His will and of the purpose which long ago He had in Christ.

This purpose is finally to bring to their conclusion all the events in history and to make of all things—things in heaven and things on earth—one perfect whole in Christ.

And we too have received a share in Him, for this was our destiny, in the intention of that God who works out everything as the purpose of His will directs. The purpose of all this was that we Jews, who were the first to set our hopes on Christ, should cause His glory to be praised.

And it is through Him that you Gentiles too have heard the message of the truth—the good news of your salvation. It is in Him that you took your decision to believe and received the promised Holy Spirit, who marks you out as His— that Holy Spirit who is the first installment and the pledge of all that one day you will possess.

That’s a good one. The final end of all this is the liberation of God’s own people, so that His glory may be praised.