Ephesians 6:19 Commentary and Bible Study

So much is told us here about how the apostle viewed the ministry. ‘That utterance may be given unto me’ – he does not simply mean that he will have the opportunity to speak. The apostle is now prisoner. He has already been given the opportunity to speak to rulers, and he also speaks to Jewish leaders who are against him. Then he has opportunity to speak to Roman soldiers who guard him and people who come to him seeking direction. He knows he cannot succeed without the prayers of God's people. But is he not an apostle? Yes, but in the mystery of God's will he cannot succeed without the prayers of God's people. He calls for prayer often for this reason. People assume that God will uphold him, but God's way is to uphold him as the people pray. It is the same with all preachers, with all witnessing Christians and Sunday school teachers. Unless our efforts are accompanied by prayer, nothing can be accomplished. People are hero worshippers, and although the apostle Paul was much disparaged, there were those who hero worshipped him. ‘He is the apostle Paul. I came to the Lord through him. He has founded churches. I can afford to forget to pray for him, he will win through.’ But no, he will be stripped of his instrumentality, if the people of God do not pray. Paul particularly singles out something here: that utterance may be given unto me. ‘When they deliver you up,’ says the Lord, ‘take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak’ (Matthew 10:19). This applies even in the midst of persecution and opposition so that whenever we are in trouble, should we be arrested, brought before tribunals, magistrates, judges, God will help us. But that is not the only fulfilment of the promise. Think of the apostle Peter in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost. He has never given a sermon before; he is a fisherman; he doesn't know how to do it. Yes, he has been under the instruction of Christ and he has followed him for nearly 3 years, but he has never preached, and now here he is in the temple precincts and there are thousands of people listening to him. There are all those educated scribes and Pharisees, and it falls to Peter to give to sophisticated Jewish people who are intensely against him, the first sermon of the Christian church. Where are his notes? He hasn't any; there hasn’t been time. He stands to his feet and he gives the most magnificent sermon, the first in his life. God uphold him. It is the fulfilment of the promise. Not only does he convince them intellectually, but then he touches their hearts with a great call to repentance and the fact they have crucified the Messiah. These are the preacher’s aspirations and aims and objectives. We dare not make any claims for ourselves, but here is our target.‘The mystery of the gospel’ – he does not mean that the gospel is a kind of secret in the sense that it is only understandable to the initiated, as though we were some secret message cult. He means the gospel is a mystery for two reasons. Firstly, man would never have thought of it. Ask anybody who is not a Christian, ‘What do you think you have to do to be accepted by God?’ Their natural answer will be, ‘Oh, to live a holy life, to turn over a new leaf, to be better.’ ‘Wrong’, you would say. ‘The answer is you have to receive salvation as a free gift because it cannot be earned or deserved.’ You see, the gospel is a mystery because it is not what anyone would have thought. How forgiveness would be purchased by God, was kept a relative secret until Christ came. In the Old Testament they were taught there needed to be a sacrifice, but they did not know quite how. Sometimes in the Old Testament God comes fairly close to showing them: that famous prophecy in Isaiah chapter 53. A suffering Saviour, but still they did not see how. It was taught in the Old Testament that salvation would be by faith, by trusting in God's free provision. But it was not until the New Testament that we saw that the key to it all was Christ Jesus the Lord, the eternal Son of God who would be personally incarnate into the world and would become the God man, and would live a perfect life, and then would suffer and die on Calvary, taking the eternal weight of punishment for our sin. The mystery, exactly how it would be done, is kept secret until then but now is opened up and made known. Another aspect of this mystery has to do with the call of the Gentiles. In the Old Testament it was prophesied that one day Gentiles would be blessed, but only in the New Testament are we shown the extent to which they are blessed: that the Gentiles are in the church on exactly the same terms as the Jews, and we are all one in Christ Jesus. That is the mystery, and Paul has the privilege of making it known.