Ephesians 3 Mystery
:3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
:9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
This word mystery most often conjures ideas of Sherlock Holmes or murder mystery novels but in our verses today it is not something that a man is trying to hide but something that God had been keeping hid away until the appropriate time of revelation. This mystery is something Paul wrote about throughout his epistles. This is not a mystery that is hidden any more but a mystery that was revealed to Paul and he shared with his congregates and young preachers and now to all believers that will read his epistles. Even in his qualifications of a deacon he said they must hold the mystery of the faith in good conscience. These mysteries should not be mysteries to the mature Christian but will be a mystery to the unbelieving and sadly many times it is a mystery to the unstudied Christian. People look at the Bible and the Old testament and the new all run together, they see prophets in the Old Testament and no more after the Gospels, they see God speaking to men in a audible voice and wonder why that isn't happening any more, or perhaps they try to emulate what they read about in the Old Testament or even in the book of Acts. The Bible is a mystery is like a someone trying to put a puzzle together with a quarter of the pieces missing. The mystery Paul is speaking of is the missing pieces, if you will study his writings you will can see the whole picture. I'm going to leave you with a portion of what Warren Wiersbe said about this mystery:
" In August 1799, a Frenchman named Boussand discovered the Rosetta Stone about thirty miles from Alexandria. This discovery gave to archeologists the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics. It opened the door to modern Egyptian studies.
The “mystery” is God’s “Rosetta Stone.” It is the key to what He promised in the Old Testament, what Christ did in the Gospels, what the early church did in the book of Acts, what Paul and the other writers teach in the Epistles, and what God will do as recorded in the book of Revelation."
Warren Wiersbe (BE Rich)
According to the riches of His Grace!!