The wisdom of God revealed in Scripture is His gracious invitation to know Him, trust Him, and walk in His ways, culminating in the revelation of Jesus Christ and empowered by the Spirit for a life that reflects His glory.
In the beginning, before there was light or land or life, there was God—and with Him, His wisdom. Scripture opens not with chaos overcoming, but with wisdom speaking order into being. God’s wisdom shaped the heavens, sets boundaries for the seas, and breathes life into humanity. Creation itself becomes the first classroom where God’s wisdom is displayed: structured, purposeful, beautiful, and very good.
In Eden, we see that God’s wisdom is relational. God walks with His image-bearers, teaching them how to live in harmony with Him through obedience. But the serpent whispers the poison of a rival wisdom—self-exaltation, autonomy, the illusion of knowing better than God. The first couple reaches for this false wisdom and embraces it, and the world fractures around them.
But before the foundations of the world were laid, before light pierced the darkness or the first star burned in the heavens, God already held the entire story of redemption in His wisdom. Scripture tells us that Christ was foreordained before the creation of the world, meaning the cross was not a reaction to human failure but part of God’s eternal, wise purpose. Redemption was not Plan B. It was the plan written into the heart of God’s wisdom from all eternity.
So when the serpent deceived, when humanity fell, and when judgment entered the garden, God was not caught off guard. His wisdom did not falter. Instead, His wisdom shone through the judgment with a brilliance that only divine mercy can produce.
In the very moment when sin first scarred creation, God spoke a promise—not to the man or the woman, but to the serpent. A promise of conflict, of crushing, of victory. A promise that the Seed of the woman would one day strike the serpent’s head crushing him. This was not merely a prediction; it was the unveiling of the eternal plan already held in God’s heart: To destroy the power and fear of death that the Serpent held over mankind.
Even as death entered the world, God was already pointing to the One who would conquer death by Redeeming those subject to it.
Even as humanity was driven from Eden, God with His “Secret Wisdom” was already preparing the way back to Himself.
Now let’s turn to today’s Sunday School lesson which directs us to Ephesians where God’s secret wisdom is revealed and explained. The focus of the lesson is Ephesians chapter 3 and how it shapes our understanding of God’s wisdom.
But we can’t fully grasp why Paul writes what he did in chapter 3 unless we first understand what he laid out in chapter 2. We often treat each chapter in this letter as if Paul is starting a brand‑new idea, when in reality the chapters flow together. Chapter 3 continues the line of thought that began earlier, so we need the former to make sense of the latter.
You may not know that the original manuscripts of Scripture had no chapter or verse divisions. Those were added much later. Chapter separations in the 1200s and verses in the 1500s. These divisions were created to help clergy and translators find passages more easily, to support systematic reading of the Bible, and to make teaching and preaching clearer and more organized.
At this time, Paul was under house arrest in Rome awaiting his hearing before Caesar. This was the imprisonment described at the end of Acts, where he lived in a rented house, chained to a Roman soldier, yet remarkably free to receive visitors and preach the gospel.
Even though he was confined, Paul was not silenced. In fact, this period became one of the most productive writing seasons of his life. During this imprisonment he wrote what we now call the Prison Epistles: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
In Ephesians chapters 2 and 3 we see that Paul is not merely teaching doctrine. He is revealing the wisdom of God as it unfolds — a wisdom that raises the dead, heals ancient wounds, unites the nations, and reveals the purpose and glory of Christ to the universe.
Paul begins chapter 2 by reminding believers that they were once spiritually dead and shaped by the world’s culture, driven by uncontrollable sinful desires, and under the shadow of God’s righteous judgment. But into that hopeless condition, God through His Wisdom acted with overwhelming Mercy.
He made us alive with Christ. He took what was once dead and raised us with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms. Salvation, Paul insists, is in its entirety rooted in God’s Grace, received through faith, and not the result of human effort. We are God’s workmanship, newly created in Christ for a life shaped by good works that God prepared in advance. Imagine that!
The second half of chapter 2 widens the lens. Paul turns to the Gentile believers and reminds them that they once lived outside God’s covenant family— and separated from Christ, ignorant of the promises, without hope and without God. But through the blood of Christ, those who were far off have been brought near. Jesus Himself is our peace, breaking down the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile and forming one new humanity in His body. The result is a reconciled people who share one Spirit and one access to the Father. No longer outsiders, they are now fellow citizens and members of God’s household, being built together into a holy temple wherein each person has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Paul then begins chapter 3 saying in effect that “as a consequence of” the reasons he stated in chapter 2, he was writing to them on behalf of Jesus Himself to bring them this important message.
Let’s read Ephesians 3.
Ephesians 3:1-13
1 It is a consequence of this that I, Paul, am a prisoner of the Jesus Christ on behalf of you Gentiles.
2 I assume that you have heard of the work God in his grace has given me to do for your benefit,
3 and that it was by a revelation that this secret plan was made known to me. I have already written about it briefly,
4 and if you read what I have written, you will grasp how I understand this secret plan concerning the Christ.
5 In past generations it was not made known to mankind, as the Spirit is now revealing it to his emissaries and prophets,
6 that in union with the Messiah and through the Good News the Gentiles were to be joint heirs, a joint body and joint sharers with the Jews in what God has promised.
7 I became a servant of this Good News by God’s gracious gift, which he gave me through the operation of his power.
8 To me, the least important of all God’s holy people, was given this privilege of announcing to the Gentiles the Good News of the Christ’s unfathomable riches,
9 and of letting everyone see how this secret plan is going to work out. This plan, kept hidden for ages by God, the Creator of everything,
10 is for the rulers and authorities in heaven to learn, through the existence of the Christian Community, how many-sided God’s wisdom is.
11 This accords with God’s age-old purpose, accomplished in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
12 In union with him, through his faithfulness, we have boldness and confidence when we approach God.
13 So I ask you not to be discouraged by the troubles I endure on your behalf – it is all for your glory.
Now, let’s examine each verse for Paul’s intended message:
Verse 1 — Paul identifies himself and his situation
Paul begins by describing himself as a prisoner because of his mission to the Gentiles. Though he is physically confined in Rome, the chains that brought him there began in Jerusalem where the Jewish leaders sought to kill him for preaching Christ and welcoming Gentiles into the family of God. While Paul was being held under Roman protection to shield him from those who wanted his life because of his testimony, Jesus Himself appeared to him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” Because of this, Paul never viewed his imprisonment as something controlled by Rome. He saw himself as a prisoner of Christ instead, sent and positioned by the Lord so that he might bear witness and proclaim the gospel in the very heart of the Roman empire.
Message: His imprisonment and suffering is directly tied to his calling, not to failure or wrongdoing. In his bonds, Christ is spreading the Gospel through Paul by this and other letters.
Verse 2 — He reminds them of the grace given to him
Paul points out that it was through Grace that God entrusted him with a special responsibility: bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul knew who he had been. He was a persecutor of the church, an enemy of Christ, a man violently opposed to the very gospel he now proclaimed. That God through His Grace would not only save him but entrust him with the sacred responsibility of revealing God’s Wisdom through the mystery of Christ to the nations overwhelmed him. For Paul, this grace was both forgiveness and commission.
Message: His ministry is a stewardship of grace, not something he earned at all.
Verse 3 — The “mystery” was revealed to Paul by God
He explains that God personally revealed a hidden truth to him.
Message: The gospel’s full scope wasn’t discovered by human reasoning — it was revealed by God in His Wisdom to those he sent on His behalf to bring the news.
Verse 4 — Readers can understand the mystery by reading Paul’s words
Paul says that when they read what he’s written, they can grasp his insight into this mystery.
Message: Scripture gives believers access to God’s revealed plan without the need for someone to interpret it for them. And like all Scripture, it is not a secret code, nor is it reserved for an elite class of interpreters. God reveals His plan plainly enough that His people can read, hear, and obey it.
Verse 5 — The mystery was not revealed in earlier generations
Paul emphasizes that previous ages didn’t know this truth, but now it has been revealed through the Spirit.
Message: God’s plan unfolds and is revealed progressively, and the apostles are part of a new and final stage of revelation that was first prophesied in the Old Testament but using words that hid exactly what God was planning to do. Knowing what God has revealed to us through Paul, think of what could only be understood by those who read that God said to Abraham in Genesis “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” God did not say this once but three separate times to establish its certainty. We can see how even then God revealed a plan of salvation, but its true meaning was hidden.
Verse 6 — The mystery or secret revealed and defined
This is the heart of the entire passage:
Gentiles are full heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promises in Christ just as Israel is. Paul in other letters likens Christ as a vine with Israel as the branches by Nature and Gentiles as the grafted-in branches by Mercy. God the Father is the vinedresser who prunes, grafts and restores the vine. It’s a beautiful picture of how we relate to each other and Christ to His Father. The established order is God through Christ to us and us through Christ to God.
Message: The gospel creates one unified people of God — no second‑class citizens as all are equal in God’s eyes.
Verse 7 — Paul became a servant of this gospel by God’s power
He explains that his role came through God’s grace and empowerment.
Message: His ministry is God‑given and God‑enabled. The Holy Spirit works miracles through Paul and guides his ministry and puts in him the truth to be written down in his letters. The Holy Spirit leads Paul to those God has granted to believe and be saved.
Verse 8 — Paul marvels at being chosen despite his unworthiness
He calls himself the least of all the Apostles yet entrusted with proclaiming Christ to the nations.
Message: We know God delights in using unlikely people and unlikely ideas to accomplish His purposes. Sometimes He sees beyond what we are to what we will become when he gives us His Grace. God anointed David to be King of Israel while he was yet a mere boy shepherding his father’s sheep while using a sling and rocks to chase away predators. So too did God in His Wisdom deliberately choose an unlikely messenger with a message the world would dismiss as unbelievable, weak, irrational and foolish—the crucifixion of a condemned man and his resurrection from the dead—as the very means by which He would reveal His power to not only save those who would believe on His name but also to give them hope.
Verse 9 — Paul’s mission includes revealing God’s hidden plans
He is to make known the mystery that was hidden in God for ages.
Message: The gospel is not a new idea — it is the unveiling of God’s eternal plan. Think about what we read in our first study for this month: It was God’s revelation of salvation through His “servant” hidden in the first six verses of Isaiah 49. And, not only there but in many other books in the Old Testament.
Verse 10 — The church displays God’s wisdom to spiritual powers
Through the church, God’s multifaceted wisdom is revealed even to heavenly beings.
Message: The church is central to God’s cosmic plan, not just a human community. It is not a human invention and not a voluntary association because Christ never really left us, rather, he’s in us spiritually and speaks through the Holy Spirit as it is written of another mystery, “Christ in You, the hope of glory” and because of this, we are known to God as “The Body of Christ.”
Verse 11 — This was God’s eternal purpose accomplished in Christ
Paul roots everything in God’s eternal plan fulfilled through Jesus.
Message: The unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ is not an afterthought — it’s the plan from the beginning. Who said this to whom? “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
Verse 12 — Believers have bold access to God through Christ
Because we belong to Christ, we now stand before God with a confidence we could never earn and a freedom we could never create for ourselves.
Message: When Paul says that believers now have boldness and confident access to God through Christ, he is describing the very reality symbolized at the moment of Jesus’ death. When Christ breathed His last, the veil of the temple—the massive curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place—was torn in two from top to bottom. That veil had stood for centuries as a barrier, declaring that sinful humanity could not freely enter God’s presence. Only the high priest, once a year, and only with blood, could pass beyond it. But when Christ died, God Himself tore the barrier apart, showing that the way into His presence was now fully open. What the torn veil displayed in the temple, Paul explains in doctrine: through Christ’s sacrifice, every believer—Jew or Gentile—can come to the Father freely, confidently, and without fear. The torn veil is the visible sign; Ephesians 3:12 is the spiritual reality.
Verse 13 — Paul encourages them not to lose heart over his suffering
He tells them that his imprisonment is for their benefit and should not discourage them
Message: Suffering for the gospel is not accidental — it is meaningful and woven into God’s plan. Paul reminds the Philippians that God has graciously granted us not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake. And when Ananias hesitated to go to the newly converted Paul, the Lord told him, “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” From Paul’s calling to our own discipleship today, suffering for Christ is part of how the gospel advances. God uses it to bear witness, strengthen faith, and bring the message of Christ to others.