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How do you define yourself? How would you describe your identity? Paul is writing a letter to a group of Christians he had helped establish in Ephesus, about seven years earlier. It is 60-62AD. He is under house arrest in Rome. They live in a bustling cosmopolitan port town, with many different pressures on their identity: the temple on the hill to the Greek goddess Artemis, the Roman currency in their possession, their birth family. Paul lays before them two ideas that trump all these: ‘God’s will’, which drives the whole universe (just think of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9!); and being ‘in Christ Jesus’, the most desirable postcode in the world. In laying down these two identity-markers, Paul wants his readers to consider deeply who they are. How do you define yourself? Question: In thirty words (the same number of words Paul used in the original Greek), try to write down your identity… Prayer: Dear God, thank you that you intervene in this world, that your actions affect our identity. Thank you that your actions give us peace and grace. Amen.