Apostle – sent one (“missionary” from Latin). Paul has the authority to write this to the saints because he is an apostle of Christ Jesus.

• I Cor 15:3-10 – not everyone that saw Christ is an apostle of His – but rather those that were personally sent to preach the gospel by Jesus Christ.
• Paul never called Titus or Timothy “apostles,”
• Barnabas:
  • In Acts14:14 he's called an apostle
  • In Acts 9:27 he’s not an apostle. What happened?
  • Acts 13:2-4 Paul and Barnabas are sent out by the church at Antioch and by the will of the Holy Spirit. So, while Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ, Barnabas is an apostle of the church of Antioch.
• Missionaries are apostles of their church, but we call them “missionaries” to avoid confusion.
• The Pope is not an Apostle of Jesus Christ because he was not personally sent by Christ to preach the gospel; we know that because he doesn't preach the same gospel that Paul did.

Saints – “holy ones” – people set apart.

• Paul, Peter, Luke and John all use the term to refer to all true Christians.
• Saints are not (as the Catholic church, Movies, and TV would have you believe) some sort of super-Christian or just those Christians that were killed for their faith.
• “...who are faithful” is a compliment not a conditional statement. He's not saying that only those that are completely, 100% faithful all the time are saints.
• Those of us that are Christians are saints and therefore this book of the Bible is to you and me. We need to take the Bible personally.

• Grace is God’s undeserved favor
• Peace can be achieved only through knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord

The proving by two.

• Paul’s apostleship is from Christ Jesus because God the Father willed it (double authority).
• Saints are saints and faithful (double committed) because of Christ Jesus.
• Grace and Peace are from the Father AND from Jesus Christ (duel gifts from two, unified sources).

Application:

• Just as God the Father and God the Son are unified, we has believers are supposed to be unified.
• Ephesians is going to give us many good, practical examples of how to do that. You can probably think of some on your own. That is our goal as we look at the book of Ephesians.
• What is the basic problem that gets in the way of our unity as Christians? Sin.
• So, we are here to learn … what? How to change. Change into what? To change into saints that are faithful in all things.