Ephesians 1:15-23 Sermon Commentary
Proper 29A
I am physically near-sighted. But I grew up in an era before schools did systematic vision-testing. So neither my parents nor I knew that I was near-sighted until we went to a Detroit Tigers baseball game when I was in the sixth grade. When I told my mom and dad that I couldn’t read its…
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
2nd Sunday after Christmast C
Few Scripture passages are theologically weightier than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. In fact, in an earlier commentary on it, Scott Hoezee remembers once asking the congregation he served about how it would feel if he were from then to on base every sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14. He notes that while most would call it a…
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
Proper 10B
Christians know that God didn’t create us to “eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.” Yet that popular philosophy raises a number of interesting questions. It makes us wonder how God’s people should evaluate the purpose of our lives. How do we think about why God has put us here? Something in a…
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
Christmas 2B
Christians know that God didn’t create us to “eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.” Yet that popular philosophy raises a number of interesting questions. It makes us wonder how God’s people should evaluate the purpose of our lives. Something in a sermon by the Rev. Fleming Rutledge stimulated my thinking about that…
Ephesians 1:15-23 Sermon Commentary
Proper 29A
I once heard my colleague Jack Roeda compare going to church to visiting an opthamologist. After all, worshipers have a very hard time seeing what’s really going on. Six days a week we see much chaos. We see a global pandemic shadowing our lives, racial injustice rattling our world and political turmoil roiling our countries….
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
Christmas 2A
Christians know that God didn’t create us to “eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.” Yet that popular philosophy raises a number of interesting questions. It makes us wonder how God’s people should evaluate the purpose of our lives. How do we think about why God has put us here? Something in a…
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
Proper 10B
Years ago when I was a pastor, I once asked my congregation what they would think if I announced one week that from then on, every single one of my sermons would be based on Ephesians 1. Most would chalk that up to a huge mistake! Yet if you look closely at Ephesians 1:1-14, you…
Ephesians 1:15-23 Sermon Commentary
Proper 29A
If you walk into most any Protestant or Roman Catholic church sanctuary, the likelihood is that the dominant symbol you will see is the cross, usually front and center. But if you go into just about any Eastern or Greek Orthodox church sanctuary, you will be overwhelmed by a huge icon, or painting, of Christ…
Ephesians 1:3-14 Sermon Commentary
2nd Sunday after Christmas C
On this first Sunday of the New Year, it can feel like we are entering “the bleak mid-winter.” All the holiday celebrations are over, so now it’s just one cold, grey, snowy day after another, at least here in West Michigan. But that’s not where our lectionary lesson from the Epistles takes us today. This…
Sermon Commentary Library
Our weekly sermon commentaries are Lectionary-based, which across its three-year cycle, encompass a vast array of biblical texts. Filter the Sermon Commentary Library to search Scripture texts by book and chapter to find commentary, illustrations, and reflections to spark ideas.
Looking for something else? View our Heidelberg Catechism sermon resources and our Reformed Connections to the RCL section that traces Lectionary texts to specific parts of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession.