Ephesians 6 Part 3 – Prayer, The Gospel, and Farewell!

by Michael Robson

This Episode is the last instalment of the Ephesians Series, covering vv.18-24. In the previous sermon we talked about the spiritual battle we are in and the armour of God. It is hard to split up the text between v.17 and v.18 where Paul spoke about prayer, and some teach that prayer is part of the whole armour of God. But one way of looking at it is that the armour is for our protection and therefore it is for our defence, whereas prayer is part of our offence! In fact some take “offence” at our prayers.

Here Paul urged the need for us to pray for all the saints (not to “the Saints”), meaning those believers throughout the world who are suffering persecutions or hardships because of their faith. Then he includes his own need of prayer. But strangely, Paul does not ask that prayers be offered for his release from imprisonment! If we had been around at the time and knew of Paul’s situation and were asked to pray for him, no doubt we would “assume” that it is God’s will that he should be set free. That’s why we need the aid of the Holy Spirit in our prayers, something that Paul wrote about in Rom.8:26-27.

Actually what Paul really wanted was the opportunity and the boldness to preach the Gospel wherever and whenever he would be given opportunity. He was being taken to the rotten core of the Roman Empire and hoped to speak even to the high ranking officials within Rome. He assured also his Philippian readers that the fact that he was in chains and in Rome were actually turning toward a favourable outcome for the Gospel and other believers were becoming bold themselves (See Phil.1:12-14). Even though he was in chains, Paul still saw himself as an Ambassador For Christ (vv.19-20; 2 Cor.5:20-21).

Thankfully Paul had a friendly brother and a faithful minister called Ty-Chi-cus (I jokingly thought of a martial arts expert) who could be sent to Ephesus and the other churches with this letter ‘To the Ephesians‘, and the letter to the Colossians, and the one to Philemon.

Michael Robson