Paul's prayer for the Gentiles in Ephesus is that they would learn the truth of God and be able to enjoy their relationship with Him. Recognizing that they were not raised Jewish, he slowly introduces them to the idea that they are not an anomaly and that God has always planned to extend salvation to the Gentiles.
God created His chosen people, the Jews, for the purpose of communicating his presence, will, and nature with the world. He did not chose them solely for salvation. Recall that the first of the patriarchs were not even Jewish. Abraham and Isaac were not a part of any organized culture or religion, they just knew God. It wasn't until later that Israel was born and the Jewish religion was even later than that.
Somewhere along the way, the message was tainted and the Gentiles were believed to have no part in the inheritance of heaven, but Christ changed that and through revelation to Paul made it clear that the Gospel must be preached to the world. The question that we must ask ourselves after reading this passage is whether or not we believe that God can and will save anyone or if we try to keep the Gospel within our own circle of friends and make our judgments about who can and will be saved?
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