InterVarsity staff members are immersing themselves in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in preparation for December’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention. Ephesians is the scriptural focus of Urbana 06 and each attendee will be a part of an in-depth Bible study in the book of Ephesians during Urbana.

Ephesians contains some of the richest theological concepts in the New Testament, including verse 12 of chapter one which says “we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory [RSV].”

Highlighting this phrase in a chapel presentation for employees at InterVarsity’s National Service Center, president Alec Hill said that each Christian has a specific calling on how to serve God. But all Christians share the general calling “to live for the praise of his glory.”

He posed four questions about InterVarsity, each of which have a variety of specific answers:

• Why do we share the Gospel?
• Why do we want to grow our ministry?
• Why do we sponsor Urbana?
• Why do we hold so tenaciously to our access to campuses?

The ultimate, unifying response to each of these questions was, he said, “for the praise of his glory.” We honor and obey God when we do these things. “It’s not about our reputation,” he said. “It’s about his reputation. The key for us [as Christian believers] is to live for the praise of his glory.”

Alec Hill’s chapel talk on Ephesians 1:1-14 is this week’s InterVarsity podcast. To listen to this talk and learn more about InterVarsity’s audio resources, go to our audio page.