Ephesians 3:8: “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,”

June 18th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

We can’t help but see the humility of the Apostle Paul in this verse as he calls himself the “least of all the saints.” Modern translators find it difficult to translate this into English, as he was bending the Greek language. The closest way to make sense of it in English might be to create a new word, something like “least-er.” It is also a play on words with Paul’s Latin name Paulus. It could be translated, “little in name, little in height, little in status, so just call me small Paul.” He was pointing out the wonder of God, that He would even use him for the great privileged job of revealing the mystery of His will to others. We can join Paul in this wonder since we too are called by the grace of God to do the same thing.

Paul continues the thought by calling the message he was given to preach the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” One might ask, if it’s unsearchable, unfathomable, how can you teach anyone about it? And therein lies the beauty of the gospel of grace. At best we will only scratch the surface of all that it means here on planet earth. This truth moves us to learn more about God, which makes us wonder even more, which moves us to appreciate all of what we have in Him even more. Sound like a circle? It is, and it is intentional on God’s part. God’s riches, extended to all believers, are so extravagant they are overwhelming and beyond our grasp. But the more aware we are of that fact, the more we love Him. As Christian musicians Terry and Nancy Clark sang so well: “God, You’re so good to me / You’ve always been so good to me / I’ll sing it through eternity / God, You’re so good.”

“LORD, You are so good to us, so help us to speak of Your goodness to others today.”