Entrusting Ourselves to God

Paul commends the Ephesian church to God, and then wraps it up with a final summary of the upright character of his life and work in Ephesus. What do these two parts of the speech have to do with each other? As we have observed, both of them speak to the reality that the Kingdom continues after Paul departs the stage. On the human level, the church is maintained and carried forward by the elders. On the divine level, the church is God's, and in His keeping. Paul mentions both of those, and then reminds the elders one final time, through his own example, about how to minister in the church. What we'll see here is that God keeps His people through His word and through His people's hard work, and that both sorts of keeping are only possible through the radical generosity of Jesus Christ.