New Testament · Pauline Epistles · Book 49 of 66
Ephesians
Paul writes from prison of what God has done in Christ, making Jew and Gentile one body, and of how that body is to walk.
- 6 chapters
- 155 verses
- About 14 minutes to read
- Letters to the Churches, c. AD 48–96
Ephesians begins with blessing. In Greek, 1:3–14 is one sentence: the Father chose and adopted, the Son redeemed, the Spirit sealed, and three times the praise returns to God’s glory. The first three chapters tell what God has done. He raised those “dead in trespasses and sins” (2:1) together with Christ, saved them “by grace … through faith” (2:8), and built Jew and Gentile together into “an habitation of God through the Spirit” (2:22). Paul prays for the readers twice, at 1:15–23 and 3:14–21.
Then the letter turns: “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (4:1). The last three chapters work that calling out in speech, anger, work, marriage, children and service, and end with the church standing in “the whole armour of God” (6:11). Watch the small words “in Christ,” “in him” and “in whom”: what the readers are given, they are given there.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Ephesians 2:8 KJV
Before you read
- Who wrote it
- Paul names himself in the greeting (1:1), and again as “the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles” (3:1).
- When it was written
- From prison: Paul is “an ambassador in bonds” (6:20). Tychicus carries the letter (6:21–22), and his commendation is nearly word for word the one in Colossians, which he also carried (Colossians 4:7–8).
Those who place it in Rome Paul wrote during his two years under guard at Rome, in his own hired house, where he received all who came and preached “with all confidence,” the boldness he asks prayer for in 6:19–20.
Those who place it in Caesarea Paul wrote during the two years Felix held him at Caesarea, with liberty for his friends to come to him.
Grounds Acts 24:23Acts 24:27
- To whom
- “The saints which are at Ephesus, and … the faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1), addressed as Gentiles “in the flesh” (2:11). Paul had taught at Ephesus for three years (Acts 20:31).
Those who read it as written to Ephesus Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, where he had taught for three years, and the address names the city as most copies read it.
Grounds Ephesians 1:1Acts 20:31
Those who read it as a circular letter It was sent to several churches of Asia, Ephesus among them. Some of the oldest copies lack “at Ephesus”; Paul writes as one who has heard of their faith (1:15) and asks if they have heard of his charge (3:2). Some take it to be the epistle “from Laodicea.”
How Ephesians is laid out
7 movements · 19 passages · 155 verses
Every spiritual blessing
Chapter 1 · 23 verses
Paul greets the saints at Ephesus and blesses the God who has blessed them in Christ: chosen before the foundation of the world, adopted, redeemed through his blood, and sealed with the Spirit of promise. He prays that they may know the power that raised Christ from the dead and set him far above every power, head over all things to the church.
Made alive, made one
Chapter 2 · 22 verses
Once dead in trespasses and sins, the readers have been quickened with Christ, raised and seated with him, saved by grace through faith and not of works. Gentiles once far off are made nigh by his blood: he has broken down the middle wall and made of twain one new man. Jew and Gentile grow together into a holy temple, Christ the chief corner stone.
The mystery made known
Chapter 3 · 21 verses
Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, tells of the grace given him to preach the mystery hidden from ages: that the Gentiles are fellowheirs and of the same body. By the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the powers in heavenly places. He prays that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, and ends in a doxology.
One body, many gifts
4:1–16 · 16 verses
Paul beseeches them to walk worthy of their calling and keep the unity of the Spirit: one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. The ascended Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “for the perfecting of the saints,” until the whole body grows up into him, speaking the truth in love.
Put off, put on
4:17–5:21 · 37 verses
They are not to walk as other Gentiles walk, but to put off the old man and put on the new. Lying, lasting anger, theft and corrupt speech give way to truth, honest labour, kindness and forgiveness. They are to walk in love, as children of light, and circumspectly, filled with the Spirit, giving thanks always, and submitting one to another.
Christ in the household
5:22–6:9 · 21 verses
Paul charges wives to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The one flesh of marriage is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church. Children are to obey their parents, fathers to nurture them in the Lord, servants to serve as unto Christ, and masters to remember their own Master in heaven.
The whole armour of God
6:10–24 · 15 verses
Paul’s last charge: be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armour of God, for the fight is against principalities and powers, not flesh and blood. Its pieces are truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the word of God, with constant prayer. Paul asks prayer for himself, an ambassador in bonds, sends Tychicus, and closes with peace and grace.
The words Ephesians turns on
In stands in 87 of the 155 verses. The blessings, Christ’s throne and the powers are all in heavenly places, and the second half turns on walk.
What Ephesians teaches
proorízō · predestinate
Chosen in him
The blessing begins before time: “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (1:4), “having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ” (1:5). Holiness is the aim of the choice, not its cause. Jerome: He chose us that we might become saintly and unblemished
. Faithful Christians have differed on what the choice rests on. Ambrosiaster set it in God’s foreknowledge: God, foreknowing all, knew who were going to believe in Christ.
Fulgentius set it in God’s predestinating will, which fixes the number of the elect: No one of that full number may lose his eternal grace
. Paul names its end: “the praise of the glory of his grace” (1:6).
cháris · grace
By grace, through faith
Chapter 2 sets the readers’ past beside God’s act. They were “dead in trespasses and sins” (2:1), and “by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (2:3). “But God, who is rich in mercy” (2:4), quickened them together with Christ, raised them up together and seated them in heavenly places. What he wrought in Christ at 1:20 he does for those in him. Paul names the cause twice: “by grace ye are saved” (2:5), and “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works” (2:8–9). Good works are the purpose of the new creation, not its price: “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (2:10).
mystḗrion · mystery
The mystery of one body
A mystery in Paul is not a riddle but a purpose once hidden in God and now revealed. He states its content plainly: “That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (3:6). They had been “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (2:12). Christ “hath broken down the middle wall of partition” (2:14), “for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (2:15), and the strangers become “fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (2:19). By this one church “the manifold wisdom of God” is made known to the powers in heavenly places (3:10).
peripatéō · walk
Walk worthy
The readers once “walked according to the course of this world” (2:2), and were created in Christ for good works, “that we should walk in them” (2:10). From the turn at 4:1 the same verb opens section after section: worthy of the calling, “not as other Gentiles walk” (4:17), “in love” (5:2), “as children of light” (5:8), and “circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (5:15). The commands rest on what the first half has said is already true. They are to put on “the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (4:24), and forgive “even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (4:32).
Christ in Ephesians
Ephesians reads three psalms as fulfilled in the risen and ascended Christ. God “set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places” (1:20), the seat to which the LORD called David’s Lord (Psalm 110:1), and “hath put all things under his feet” (1:22), the dominion of Psalm 8:6. Psalm 68 sang of God ascending on high and leading captivity captive, and Paul reads it of the ascension: “he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men” (4:8). The psalm says he “received gifts for men” (Psalm 68:18). Both are true of Christ, who, “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,” shed it forth at Pentecost (Acts 2:33).
The first marriage, “they two shall be one flesh,” is “a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (5:31–32). Christ loved the church “and gave himself for it” (5:25), to present it to himself “holy and without blemish” (5:27), the end for which it was chosen “before the foundation of the world” (1:4).
Where Ephesians reaches
The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it
Ephesians 2:20 Isaiah 28:16 1 Peter 2:6
The stone the Lord GOD lays in Zion: Paul and Peter both name Christ the chief corner stone of God’s building.
Isaiah’s “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near,” preached by Christ to Gentile and Jew.
The psalm of God ascending on high, read of Christ’s ascension and the gifts he gives his church.
The breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation are first the LORD’s own armour, put on to save.
Tychicus carries this letter and Colossians, and is commended in nearly the same words.
Books Ephesians links to most
The Church Fathers on Ephesians
914 quotations from 52 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order
- Irenaeus202
- Clement215
- Tertullian220
- Origen253
- Cyprian258
- Gaius Marius Victorinus370
- Ambrosiaster384
- Chrysostom407
- Jerome420
- Theodoret458
Irenaeus, on the corner stone that joins the far and the near.
He, appearing in these last times, the chief cornerstone, has gathered into one, and united those that were far off and those that were near;
Theodoret, on how riches called unsearchable can be preached at all.
The divine apostle says not only that Christ’s nature is divine but also that “his riches are unsearchable.” “And how does one preach if his riches are indeed unsearchable?” “I preach this very thing,” he says, “that they are unsearchable.”
Chrysostom, on what God’s forgiveness cost, the pattern Paul gives for ours.
"Even as God," saith he, "also in Christ forgave you." And this, moreover, contains a high allusion. Not simply, he would say, hath He forgiven us, and at no risk or cost, but at the sacrifice of His Son; for that He might forgive thee, He sacrificed the Son; whereas thou, oftentimes, even when thou seest pardon to be both without risk and without cost, yet dost not grant it.
Methodius, on the Word who left his Father to be joined to his wife, the church.
For thus will it be most certainly agreed that the Church is formed out of His bones and flesh; and it was for this cause that the Word, leaving His Father in heaven, came down to be "joined to His wife; "
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