"1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realised in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory."
Ephesians 3:1-13
In view of all that has been written thus far in the epistle Paul now proceeds to draw certain inferences and come to some conclusions in the light of the teaching he has given. This is the force of the words in 1 'For this cause ...'. However, such is the richness of his mind and thought that he goes off on a tangent for some verses, and does not come to the logical 'next step' (which the words 'for this cause' in 1 lead us to expect) until 14, where he repeats the words 'For this cause'. It is important for us to see this and to realise what he draws as an inference from his teaching, particularly at the end of chapter 2. We shall look at this for a moment, before focusing our attention on the 'tangent' in his thought which begins at 2 and stretches to 13. Paul says in 2:22 'Ye are ... an habitation of God through the Spirit', and now in 3:14 he says, in effect, 'I pray that you may realise this in your experience and be this' and utters the wonderful prayer in 16-19 about Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith, that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. Such is the sequence of Paul's thought - a wonderful sequence indeed!
But we must leave this wonderful prayer for the moment, and concentrate on the 'tangent' in his thinking (2ff). This tangent is not an irresponsible one, the product of a mind that is disorderly and indisciplined; nor is it a 'non sequitur', but something integrally linked to the theme Paul has been unfolding, enriching it and giving it further depth of meaning (one has only to look, for example, at the wonderful words in 8 about his preaching 'the unsearchable riches of Christ' to realise how full these verses are of rich and enriching teaching). We shall look in detail at what the Apostle says in this tangent in tomorrow's Note.