Observation Demonstration

One of the things that this Blog is attempting to share is the need, importance, and primacy of observation in our personal approach to the Word.  A few days ago I shared that I had gotten sidetracked on Ephesians 1:4 while I was supposed to be doing an overview of the book.  For the next few posts I thought I would walk you through some of the observations I made on Ephesians 1:4.  You might want to stop reading now and take some time to make your observations before you read mine.  That way you can see if I got it right…

The first two words in Ephesians 1:4 are “just as.”  If you look at the list of structural markers I shared earlier in this blog, “just as” indicates comparison.  So the first thing I look for is to what is Paul comparing.  That throws me back to verse 3.  Specifically that “He has bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”  So, that tells me that what is about to follow is a comparison or probably better an extension in this case of what Paul just told me in verse 3.

So the first observation is that verse 4 flows as an extension of verse 3 and that what is about to follow is at least one of the blessing with which we have been blessed…

That may seem simple.  Hold on.