Knowing Jesus
Teachers
Lesson Summary
The class explored the opening passages of Ephesians, focusing on verse 11 and the surrounding verses that list the blessings believers receive through Christ—predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit. The teacher emphasized that knowing Jesus is more important than any other knowledge because it secures our inheritance and identifies us with the body of Christ, the church, which God designed before the foundations of the world. Further teaching linked this theological truth to practical church life. By comparing the church to the temple described in 2 Chronicles 5‑7, the instructor showed that believers are together a holy dwelling for God, called to express positivity toward one another, embrace humble power, and fulfill our purpose heroically. The lesson concluded with an appeal to maintain a grateful and unified attitude in worship, reminding the congregation that the church is the visible manifestation of Christ’s presence on earth.
Key Scriptures
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of times, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have also obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
And he subjected all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.