Prayer: Dear God, we praise you that we can be a part of the body of Christ. May we as your church continue to live and serve you in a way that shows you have set a seal of your promised Holy Spirit in our hearts. In your holy name we pray, Amen.
Reading: Ephesians 1:11-23 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: This passage sits at the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and frequently before Paul gets into the meat of his letters he presents a thanksgiving for whom he is writing to (here that is verses 15-23). This is a great way to encourage the hearers, and assure them that him and the Lord care for them before he starts to give them the important information. Here Paul also encourages hearers by reminding them of their belonging in Christ (verses 11-14). In this portion, Paul uses the metaphor of seal to show our belonging in Christ. In the second half of verse 13 it says, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” During the time that this epistle (letter) was written, it was customary to use wax seals on documents as proof of ownership and authenticity. It is like having a signature sticker that you place on all your letters, and when the recipient takes the letter out of their mailbox, they know that it came from you and that no one else opened it before them because the sticker is intact! How cool is it that God wants you and wants to show everyone that you are his! Paul thought this was an awesome thing for the Ephesians to hear, and that it would encourage them to live as a part of Christ, to show others that the Holy Spirit lives within their hearts. May this encourage you as well! --Anne Harshbarger
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