The theme of the letter that was written, “To the saints in Ephesus,” is the church, the body of Christ. When we think of the church, we often think of a building with walls, a roof, perhaps a pulpit and some pews, but that is not what the church is. People will say on Sunday morning, “I’m going to church.” No, you are not going to church, you are going to worship. You might be wondering what I am saying. The church is not a building that we go to on Sunday mornings and evenings and Wednesday evenings. It is just a building that for the sake of expediency, we gather at in order to worship our Lord and Savior. The church however comes from two Greek words that refer a group of people who have been called out for a purpose. In fact, the term “church” has not always had a religious connotation to it. In fact, in Greek culture, the word where our English word “church” comes from was used to refer to the City council because they were a group of people who had been called out for a purpose, the purpose of helping to run the City. So now, when we say the church of Christ, or the body of Christ, we are referring to a group of people who have been called out for a purpose, a purpose to serve Christ, a purpose to live for Christ, a purpose to do the work of the Lord. We are the church of Christ. We are not a building, we are a group of people who strive to love and serve the one true Lord. Herein lies the theme of the Book of Ephesians as found in our New Testaments today, the church: its doctrine, and its duty.
