Bible Readings
Explore our daily and weekly Bible readings to grow in your faith and stay rooted in God’s Word. Find guided Scripture reflections, and spiritual encouragement for every season.
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- Josh Breslaw
- Nov 14
- 1 min read
The letter to Ephesus is probably written during the time of Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea, which would have been during Acts 23:23-26:32. After Paul says goodbye in Acts 20, he is indeed arrested in Jerusalem as the Ephesians thought he would be. At some point, a year or two after that goodbye, he writes Ephesians to continue to pastor one another.
These words in the second half of Ephesians 1 show the heart that Paul had for the Ephesians. He regularly prays and gives thanks for those in Ephesus. He is grateful for the good reports he has had about their faith, and he continues to encourage them to tap into the power of God, who can do even more than what has already been accomplished.
A community that cares about one another prays for one another. Paul regularly prayed for his churches (as we will see next week). We need to regularly pray for one another. Not just when we have a prayer request in front of us, but it should be a regular habit to go before the Lord for our fellow church members. Pray that God will build each of us up in the faith and that we will daily remember the power of God. If you want to have a strong connection with your fellow church members, pray for them, and God will make the connection.
- Josh Breslaw
- Nov 13
- 1 min read
Today is a longer passage of Scripture, so we will have a shorter devotion. Paul brought together the elders of the church in Ephesus so that he could say goodbye. And it is in that goodbye that we realize the connection and community that Paul and the church in Ephesus had. They knew they would never see one another again, and that caused great emotion for everyone involved. But even in this time of great emotion, they kept their focus on God and prayed for one another in this final farewell.
Farewells and goodbyes are the hard part about building a strong community with one another. It’s easier to move along when you have no connections. But when you take the time to become part of one another’s lives, goodbyes become difficult. But this is the way it should be. A strong, productive community means hard, difficult goodbyes, but the time you have with one another is worth the hard goodbye.