Introduction to Ephesians

Title and authorship

The letter names Paul twice — in the greeting and again at the head of chapter 3, where he calls himself the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles Ephesians 1:1 Ephesians 3:1. Near the end he names one other person, Tychicus, sent to report how he is doing Ephesians 6:21.

And that is everyone. For a letter addressed to a congregation where Paul spent years, the absence of personal greetings is striking: no list of names, no household saluted, no messages for individuals. The other letters to churches he knew well end in a crowd of names; this one ends with a benediction to the brothers in general Ephesians 6:23.

One textual detail bears on that impersonality, and it is a matter of the oldest copies rather than of the English. The two words naming Ephesus  in the first verse are absent from some of the earliest witnesses, which read simply to the saints who are. The translations here all print the name. What the observation explains, if it holds, is the letter's general tone — a circular for the churches of the province rather than a letter to one address.

Nothing in the letter's argument depends on the question either way. What the text plainly gives is a writer in chains Ephesians 6:20, writing to gentile believers Ephesians 2:11 about a mystery he says was disclosed to him by revelation Ephesians 3:3.

Date

The letter supplies its writer's circumstances rather than a year. He is a prisoner, and he says so three times — the prisoner of Christ Jesus Ephesians 3:1, the prisoner in the Lord Ephesians 4:1, and an ambassador in chains Ephesians 6:20.

That last phrase is the sharpest thing in the letter about his situation. An ambassador is a state's representative, protected by custom and unbound by definition; the two halves of the phrase do not belong together, and Paul sets them side by side without comment.

What the imprisonment does not produce is any anxiety about the outcome. There is no request for release, no defense of his case, no instruction about what to do if he dies. The one thing he asks prayer for is utterance — that he may speak boldly Ephesians 6:19.

The congregational picture is settled rather than new. Apostles and prophets are spoken of as a foundation already laid Ephesians 2:20, gifts are distributed and offices named Ephesians 4:11, and the readers are assumed to have been taught Ephesians 4:21. Gentile inclusion is not being argued for as a contested novelty but expounded as an accomplished fact.

So the letter belongs to a period of imprisonment late in Paul's ministry, written to congregations already established. A closer date would rest on harmonizing it with other letters rather than on anything this one says.

Backgrounds

The readers are gentiles, and the letter says so at the point where it matters most: remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision Ephesians 2:11. Their former condition is described in four terms — separate from Christ, alienated from Israel's commonwealth, strangers to the covenants, having no hope and without God in the world Ephesians 2:12.

What divided them from Israel is named with a word that occurs only once in Scripture: the middle wall of separation, broken down Ephesians 2:14. Whatever image stands behind it — and a temple court with a barrier beyond which gentiles could not pass is the natural one — the letter's interest is that it is gone.

The old life is described concretely rather than abstractly: walking in the futility of the mind, darkened in understanding, callous, given over to greedy uncleanness Ephesians 4:17–19. And the new one is given equally concrete instructions — stop lying, work with your hands so you have something to give, no rotten speech, be kind Ephesians 4:25–32.

The unseen background is as prominent as the social one. The letter names a prince of the power of the air Ephesians 2:2, principalities and powers in the heavenly places Ephesians 3:10, and wrestling that is not against flesh and blood Ephesians 6:12. Its distinctive phrase, in the heavenly places, occurs five times in Scripture and all five are here — the same realm holds the readers' blessings, Christ's throne, their own seat, and their enemies.

Theology and purpose

The letter divides cleanly in half. Three chapters of statement, three of instruction, joined by the therefore that opens chapter 4 Ephesians 4:1. Nothing is asked of the readers until everything has been announced to them, and the order is the letter's method rather than its accident.

The opening announcement is one long Greek sentence running from verse 3 to verse 14 — the longest in the collection — and it is structured by three refrains to the praise of his glory and by the phrase in him or in Christ, which falls twenty-four times across the letter.

What it announces is an eternal purpose: chosen before the foundation of the world, marked out for adoption, redeemed, forgiven, let in on a mystery, sealed with the Spirit as a down payment Ephesians 1:4–14. And the purpose has a stated goal — to sum up all things in Christ Ephesians 1:10, gathering what is in heaven and on earth under one head.

The center of the letter's argument is that this gathering has already begun visibly, in one place: two peoples made one. Christ is our peace, having made both one, having created one new man of the two Ephesians 2:14–15. And the audience for that demonstration is not only human — the manifold wisdom of God is made known through the assembly to the principalities in the heavenly places Ephesians 3:10.

So the instruction of chapters 4 to 6 is not a separate subject. Unity, truthful speech, honest work, forgiveness, marriage, and the armor are all what a summed-up people looks like while the summing is under way — and the conflict in chapter 6 is against the powers who are watching.

Additional notes

Note — chosen before the foundation of the world Ephesians 1:4–5. Two things in the passage govern how far its language reaches. First, what the choosing is for is stated in every clause: that we would be holy and without defect, for adoption, to the praise of his grace. The purpose named is character and sonship, not a roster. Second, the whole announcement is addressed to people already believing, as a description of what has happened to them, rather than as information about who is excluded.

The letter itself never draws the negative inference. It says nothing anywhere about anyone being marked out for loss, and its companion letters state the opposite reach plainly — God desires all people to be saved 1 Timothy 2:4, and the ransom was given for all 1 Timothy 2:6. A reading of these verses that makes God's choice exclude those he elsewhere says he wants saved has to import the exclusion, because this passage does not supply it. Honest readers have differed here for centuries, and the difference does not change what these two verses actually say.

Note — the household instructions of Ephesians 5:21 to Ephesians 6:9. Two features of the passage are structural. The instruction to wives has no verb of its own in the oldest copies; it depends on the participle of verse 21, subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ, which introduces the whole section — one translation here brackets the supplied verb for that reason. And the proportions are lopsided in a direction worth noticing: wives receive three verses, husbands nine, and what husbands are commanded is to love as Christ loved and gave himself up. In each pair the party holding the power gets the longer and harder instruction — fathers told not to provoke, masters told to stop threatening and reminded that they have a Master with no partiality.

One translation difference in the closing verse is worth naming: the wife is told to respect her husband in some English versions and to fear him in others, rendering one Greek word whose range covers both reverence and dread.

Outline

---

Read Ephesians · About this commentary