"What Will It Profit a Man?"

The most consequential rhetorical question ever asked, according to Philip Anthony Mitchell, is Jesus's own: "What will it profit a man to gain the entire world and then lose his soul?" The answer is nothing. And if the answer is nothing, Mitchell argues, then there must be blessings far greater than anything material—blessings that Paul unpacks in Ephesians 1:3–6, the longest single sentence in the Greek New Testament.

Mitchell opens the series "In Christ" at 2819 Church by walking through these four verses, which he calls "probably some of the most profound in the New Testament." The letter was written to a church in Ephesus, a city entrenched in the occult and the worship of Artemis. Paul wrote from prison, and before he even lists the blessings, he bursts into praise: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Mitchell notes that Paul starts with praise before the testimony—the blessing was so staggering that praise came first.

Already Blessed with Every Spiritual Blessing

Paul writes that God "has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms." Mitchell stresses the tense: "who has blessed us"—past tense, already finished. "You are, not you will be. Right now, as I'm talking to you, you are fully blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus."