Not Rand Paul or Ron Paul but the apostle Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians, expounded by N.T. Wright:
Paul is well aware of the challenges that will be faced by a people claiming to belong to the family of the Messiah, the Jewish 'royal family' as it were, and claiming to tell the Jewish story and so to claim the inheritance of the world: all history had been waiting for this moment, not the birth or accession of Caesar; all space, time and matter was summed up in this King, not the putative world ruler in Rome! This Messiah, raised from the dead, is the one who has been exalted
above all rule and authority and power and lordship, and above every name that is invoked, both in the present age and also in the age to come. [1.21]
The creation of a single family, the new humanity and new Temple, is thus a major political act, with resonances out into the world of power. This worldview is not adopted without full awareness of the challenge and the risk. Paul is already suffering the consequences, but that only makes him the more determined. My task, he says,
is to make clear to everyone just what the secret plan is, the purpose that's been hidden from the very beginning of the world in God who created all things. This is it: that God's wisdom, in all its rich variety, was to be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places -- through the church! This was God's eternal purpose, and he's accomplished it in Jesus the Messiah, our lord. We have confidence, and access to God, in him, in full assurance, through his faithfulness. So, I beg you: don't lose heart because of my sufferings on your behalf! That's your glory! [3.9-13]
From: N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Parts III and IV (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 731.
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