The church is his chosen instrument for showing the cosmic powers, good and evil, “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). The reality and existence of the church—this seemingly unimpressive, lowly, ignoble, unwise, unwealthy, unaccomplished body of local Christians, covenanted to each other—his ragtag church, this otherwise unremarkable church shows Satan and his minions that their time is short.

The word priority refers to “precedence in time or rank.” A priority is the “thing regarded as more important than another or others.”
Interestingly, according to the Google Books Ngram, the use of the word priority in English spiked in use around 1940 (leading up to and during WWII), then plateaued in the fifties. Then usage rose again sharply in the sixties and seventies, and priority enjoyed its heyday in the eighties and nineties. Since around 2000, usage has declined precipitously and returned about to where it was in the 1960s. And I can’t help but wonder if our ability to prioritize well, or the energy and attention we give to prioritizing well, may have declined with the use of the word. (And how it relates to the advent of the Internet in the same twenty-five-year period!)
Priority can be a tricky concept. To prioritize one entity over another clearly means something, but it services a range of applications. And in this session of talking about the priority of the church, however theological we take it, this inevitably relates to our priorities, both as Christians, and in particular as pastors—since this is a pastors conference. It would be one thing to speak to the priority of the church in a local-church congregation—or imagine this, to a gathering of Christian lawyers or athletes. And we could. I hope we will.
But brothers, this is a pastors conference. This is a message for lead officers in local churches (variously called pastors, elders, overseers—three names for one lead office in the New Testament). And the applications here of “the priority of the church” are especially significant for those whose breadwinning vocation is leading and teaching the local church. I know there are nonvocational pastors in the room with other breadwinning jobs. But for the vocational guys, the full-time pastors, there is no vocational disconnect between Christ’s priority of his church and ours. If Christ’s priority is echoed practically and substantiated anywhere, where will that be if not first and foremost in the lead officers who are the church’s preachers and teachers?
Paul’s Pastoral Priority
And so, we come to Ephesians 3, and especially verse 10, which is not a complete sentence:
…so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
In chapter 2, the first half (verses 1–10) has celebrated our salvation in Christ by grace through faith, and then the second half has marveled at the stunning (horizontal) development of Gentile inclusion. For centuries, God focused publicly on the Jews. He prioritized Israel. By and large, Gentiles were separated from the true God, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (2:12). They were “far off” (2:13, 17).
But now, amazingly, in Christ, even Gentiles “have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (2:13). Jesus “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [between Jews and Gentiles] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two” (2:14–15).
This reality, this “one new man,” made up of believing Jews and Gentiles, Paul has already called “the church” in 1:22, and that’s the term he uses again in 3:10 (and then 3:21 and then six times in 5:23–32).
In 3:1, Paul starts moving toward a prayer. He writes, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles . . .” Then he breaks off and gives us the glorious aside of verses 2–13. He’ll come back to his prayer in verse 14, but first he wants to make sure we understand his special calling, and then the church’s. Paul’s is “the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you” (3:2). He then speaks about “the mystery of Christ”—which is not an unsolved mystery but one that now has been made known. Previously it was hidden, until Jesus came. Now, it’s revealed. What is this mystery, once unsolved, now made known? Verses 6–11:
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I take it that our focus in this session is this: What is the priority of the church for Christians? And in particular, for pastors: What’s the priority of the church for us? That’s where we’re headed: “The Church Prioritized” in the hearts and habits of her members and her ministers.
But might we first get our bearings, and spend our best focus, on a far more important prioritizer? Ephesians 3 is not concerned with our prioritizing. Not yet. Rather, here we marvel at God’s prioritizing of the church. And not just God as one, but also God as three.
So, before we get to us, as Christians and as pastors, let’s look at the priority of the church for God the Father, for God the Son, and for God the Spirit. (And hopefully this will be an exercise in proper prioritizing!) So, four truths about the priority of the church, with our hearts and habits coming last.
1. The Father prioritizes the church in his plan and purpose.
Verse 9 mentions his “plan”; verse 11, his “eternal purpose.” Let’s pick it up at verse 9:
[Paul’s calling is] to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things….This was according to the eternal purpose that [the Father] has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. (verses 9, 11)
Verse 11 mentions God’s “eternal purpose” (prothesin), and verse 9, “the plan [oikonomia] of the mystery hidden for ages [and now revealed] in God, who created all things.” It’s the same language Paul has already used in Ephesians 1:9–11. In the gospel, he says,
[God has made] known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan [oikonomian] for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose [prothesin] of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
God the Father has an eternal purpose, before creation, and he has a plan that he works out, in his perfect timing, in history—as Lord of creation and Lord of history.
What is this eternal purpose and plan? Now we need chapter 3, verse 10. Paul says he preaches to bright to light God’s plan,
that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
We have three parts here to verse 10 (working backward): (1) the rulers and authorities, (2) the manifold wisdom of God, and (3) how all that relates to the church.
Rulers and Authorities
In Ephesians 6:12, Paul will write—and this might be a helpful reminder in times when algorithms condition us for digital “culture war”—“We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And we have “in the heavenly places” here in Ephesians 3:10 as well.
“The rulers and authorities” are minimally, or mainly, “spiritual forces of evil,” the devil and demons, “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” They are not earthly creatures, but heavenly ones, in the upper register or another dimension (however it works). And we might assume that good angels are looking on as well, as Peter says of the good news of Jesus—of his sufferings and subsequent glories, of his grace and our salvation—these are “things into which angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:12).
So, Ephesians 3:10 expands the audience. Previously, Paul has talked of (potentially) preaching “for everyone” (3:9) on earth, Jews and Gentiles, but now he says that also in view (presently) are “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
Manifold Wisdom of God
God’s wisdom is what lies behind and is revealed alongside this mystery long hidden and now revealed in Christ. Remember what we saw in verse 6: “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
God’s wisdom becomes evident in the great unveiling that is the preaching of Christ. And God’s wisdom is said to be manifold, many-sided, varied. The gospel may be a simple message, and yet the divine wisdom it reveals is no simple, basic, one-dimensional wisdom.
The gospel of Christ overturns and surpasses and puts to shame the wisdom of man, and does so over and over again. That God would become man, with an ignoble birth and childhood in a backwater; that he would live in obscurity for three decades, and be despised and rejected by his own people at the height of his influence, and be crucified (of all deaths!) as a slave; then, after rising from the dead, that he would ascend and be enthroned in heaven (not in Rome), and pour out his Spirit, and bring the far-off Gentiles near with believing Jews into his new-covenant church—this is stunning, multifaceted, many-sided wisdom!
In the simple gospel of Christ, the manifold wisdom of God is on display in turning upside down the world’s wisdom and strength and nobility. Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23–24).
And that phrase “both Jews and Greeks”—in one body, one new man from the two—is at the heart of what makes the wisdom of God so horrifying to “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (As Paul preached in Athens, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,” Acts 17:30.)
Which leads us to the last key phrase in verse 10: “through the church.”
Through the Church
How does God’s making known his manifold wisdom, to the hosts of angels and demons, relate to the church?
My prayer here, for us as pastors, is that God might be pleased to lift our eyes up from the ordinariness and the smallness and the annoyances and the frustrations of everyday practical church life—that we might see the church more like our God sees his church. In the immeasurable riches of his divine and Trinitarian fullness—infinitely happy, and overflowing in joy and creative energy and redeeming grace—our God, in the gospel of his Son, is making known his manifold wisdom to the spiritual forces of evil.
And how does he do it? Verse 10 says “through the church”—not armies, not technology, not sports, not entertainment, not political maneuvering—but “through the church the manifold wisdom of God [is] now be[ing] made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
The church is his chosen instrument for showing the cosmic powers, good and evil, “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). The reality and existence of the church—this seemingly unimpressive, lowly, ignoble, unwise, unwealthy, unaccomplished body of local Christians, covenanted to each other—his ragtag church, this otherwise unremarkable church shows Satan and his minions that their time is short. In effect: “You see the church, believing Gentiles joining with the Jews as one body? Checkmate.”
How does that work? God the Son takes human flesh and lives a lowly life in obscurity for thirty years. Then, just when he really begins to turn heads, Jews and Gentiles conspire to cut him down and end the story. The crucifixion looks like utter folly, not manifold wisdom. Then he rises again! But forty days later, he ascends to heaven and is gone. Now what? From heaven’s throne, the risen Christ pours out his Spirit, his gospel spreads through faith and repentance, and the church begins to grow and increase and multiply, and not only among Jews, but also Gentiles.
Read More
Related Posts:

Godly sorrow involves a hatred of sin, includes a fear of God, a longing for holiness, a zeal for the truth, and a willingness to receive appropriate punishment…Such confession and repentance could never be compelled. As Charles Spurgeon famously said when commenting on David’s confession in Psalm 51, “Honest penitents…come to the point, call a spade a spade, and make a clean breast of all.”

Coaxing a Confession
The desire is good. We all want to see people confess and repent and walk in newness of obedience before the Lord. But the execution can often be forced. We are so used to walking with people, coming alongside of counselees, and shepherding them in blessed directions, that we may fail to realize when we “do the work for them.” Never is this more problematic than when coaxing a confession and subsequent repentance out of someone.
The Scriptures are clear that repentance is the Holy Spirit’s business, as Acts 11:18 and 2 Timothy 2:25 reveal. To compel an admission of guilt very well may be the jurisdiction of police detectives, but it is certainly unbecoming of biblical counselors. Far worse than mere admission of wrongdoing, however, would be coaching someone on what repentance would look like in a given situation, so much so that we find ourselves functionally “repenting for them,” as it were.
Forcing the Matter
A coerced confession is not repentance. Yet all one has to do is stop for a moment to consider how such a situation naturally happens. The counselee is having a hard time seeing his sin, though he can concede to some elements as the counselor points them out or asks good questions. So the counselor offers some additional coaching. There is resistance and vague concessions along the way. With a little more coaching and direction, the counselor has massaged the “confession” to a point where the counselor feels satisfied. It passes muster as far as the outward biblical forms are concerned. The counselor then coaches the person on how to go about repenting for such sins, and before long, the counselor is relieved. Repentance has been achieved. The only problem is that this is not biblical confession or biblical repentance. It is mere concession and a parroting back of the counselor’s understanding of the situation.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Any Christian leader who manages to separate mercy from rules in such a way as to prioritize the former over the latter would not really be merciful at all. Rather, he would be seriously delinquent in his duty. He might even be merely pandering to the spirit of this age.

Announcing the death of Benedict XVI on its Saturday front page, the New York Times drew a contrast between his papacy and that of his successor:
The two men were reportedly on good terms personally, but it was at times an awkward arrangement, and Francis moved decisively to reshape the papacy, firing or demoting many of Benedict’s traditionalist appointees and elevating the virtue of mercy over rules that Benedict had spent decades refining and enforcing.
As a Protestant and (at best) an amateur observer of things Catholic, I cannot comment on the fairness of this analysis. What is interesting, however, is the way the language, in its contrast of mercy with rules, points to deeper issues within society as a whole, Catholic and Protestant, religious and secular. In fact, mercy is incoherent if there are no rules, rules that are rightly believed and applied. Only if there is a rule, and a just rule, can forgiveness for its transgression be seen as an act of mercy.
More pointedly for Christianity, underlying the comment is the notion that rules can neither be motivated by nor embody mercy in themselves. This is a common but dangerous idea that, if true, would prove lethal to the faith. It is also rather selectively applied today. Christianity makes it clear that human beings are designed to be a certain kind of creature. We are free and self-determining in a way that other creatures are not: The swallow instinctively builds a nest but we design houses freely and intentionally. Our freedom, however, operates within certain parameters as set by the limits of human nature. I cannot jump off the Empire State Building and fly, for example, or dive into a cauldron of boiling oil and expect to emerge unscathed.
Read More
Related Posts: