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Ambrosiaster

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · 1,043 passages across 16 books

Commentary

501–520 of 1,043
Colossians 3:22

Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:

Paul implies that God has created all persons to be freeborn and says this to keep masters from arrogance. Slavery is itself a sign of iniquity in the world, of the curse of Cain. In fact, the wise person is always free, though a slave outwardly, while it is foolish sinners who are the true slaves. .

Colossians 4:5

Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.

Since we must live among unbelievers and mix with them in worldly business, Paul urges us to be wise about the possibility of creating a stir, lest we give these folk an opportunity for blaspheming God or engaging in persecution. Why then should you carry on business with anyone that you know to be a source of contention and trouble? Thus, Paul admonishes us to use religious speech opportunely both as to time and place. But if anyone is difficult, be silent. Different courses of action are suitable for dealing with powerful people, with people of middle or lower stations in life. One deals one way with gentle persons, another way with those who are filled with anger. This is what it means to redeem the time. .

Colossians 4:7

All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord:

However much Paul insists that he is present with them in spirit and sees them, he nonetheless still makes use of a messenger for reporting. .

Ephesians 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

He writes not only to the faithful but to the saints to show that they are truly faithful insofar as they have been sanctified in Christ. For a good life is worthwhile and is called saintly if it is lived in the name of Jesus. Otherwise it is polluted, because it injures the Creator.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1

Ephesians 1:2

Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

He calls God our Father because all things are created and restored in him. He calls Christ Lord because he redeems us, offering himself on our behalf.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

He means not with an earthly but a heavenly blessing, not corruptible but eternal, because Christ’s glory is not in earth but in heaven and in Christ. For every gift of God’s grace is in Christ. If someone who despises Christ imagines that he is blessed by God, he is wrong. Yet God is blessed in one way, humans in another. There is indeed one term blessing, but it should be understood as is proper to the recipient.… God is blessed when he is extolled with due praises, but the way in which God blesses human beings is to impart to them the gift of his grace, not according to their merits but according to his mercy.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.3.1-2

Ephesians 1:4

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

God, foreknowing all, knew who were going to believe in Christ. … Therefore those whom God is said to call will persevere in faith. These are the ones whom he elected before the world in Christ, so that they might be blameless before God through love—that is, so that the love of God might give them holy lives. For no one can show greater respect toward another than when he obeys in love.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.4

Ephesians 1:9

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

The pleasure of God, whose counsel cannot be changed, was to show in Christ the mystery of his will. This happened at the time when he chose that he should be revealed. Now his will was this, that he should then draw close to all who were in sin, either in heaven or in earth. God gave Christ to bring believers the gift of forgiveness of their sins through faith in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.9.1

Ephesians 1:12

That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

What he means is that God first allotted the task of preaching to those believers in Christ who were from a Jewish background. Therefore no one of Gentile background was chosen to be an apostle. It was fitting that the first preachers should be chosen from those who had previously hoped for the salvation that had been promised to them in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.12

Ephesians 1:14

Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Just as it is the glory of a doctor if he cures many, so it is to the praise of God’s glory when many are won for the faith. And so it is part of God’s glory to have called the Gentiles that they might obtain their salvation through the faith promised to the Jews. The Gentiles have as a sign of their redemption and future inheritance the Holy Spirit, given at baptism.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.14

Ephesians 1:17

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

The hope of their faith lies in a heavenly reward. When they truly know what the fruit of believing is, they will become more eager in acts of worship.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.18.1

Ephesians 1:22

And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

He says that the Father has subjected all creation to the Son, so that he may be the head and Lord of all on account of being the one through whom he made all things. He “made all things subject to him” when he generated him before all things, that through him all that had not been might come into being.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.23

Ephesians 2:2

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

He indicates that the prince of power, that is, the devil, has corrupted the understanding of the world to make it depart from the one God and conceive a belief in many gods. In this way the devil made them associates in his own conspiracy, seeing that they were found to exhibit the same impiety in their denial of the one God.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.2.1-3

Ephesians 2:3

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

He is speaking of a great deception when he brings to mind the “passions of the flesh.” For the pleasure of the flesh means being delighted by the visible, so that it gives the name of gods to the elements that God appointed as his means of ordering the world. But this name [God] belongs rightly to the one and only God, from whom everything derives.… If anyone imagines that the “passions of the flesh” mean anything else, let him reflect on how the apostle led a pure life. He lived without blemish according to the righteousness of the law. But because he had persecuted the church he includes himself in the “we”—“we lived in the passions of our flesh.” For every sin, according to Paul, has something to do with the deception associated with living according to the flesh, which is the mother of all corruption.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.3.1-3

Ephesians 2:4

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

These are the true riches of God’s mercy, that even when we did not seek it mercy was made known through his own initiative.… This is God’s love to us, that having made us he did not want us to perish. His reason for making us was that he might love what he had made, seeing that no one hates his own workmanship.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4

Ephesians 2:5

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

God made us in Christ. So it is through Christ once again that he has formed us anew. We are his members; he our Head.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.5

Ephesians 2:9

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

All thanksgiving for our salvation is to be given only to God. He extends his mercy to us so as to recall us to life precisely while we are straying, without looking for the right road. And thus we are not to glory in ourselves but in God, who has regenerated us by a heavenly birth through faith in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.10

Ephesians 2:13

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

He reminds us that we were brought close to God by the blood of Christ in order to show how great is God’s affection toward us, since he allowed his own Son to die. We too, enduring in faith, should not yield to despair in any of the agonies inflicted on us for his sake, knowing that what he deserves from us exceeds all that our enemies can bring upon us.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.13

Ephesians 2:14

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

The passion of the Savior made peace between the circumcision and the uncircumcision. For the enmity, which was between them like a wall and divided the circumcision from the uncircumcision and the uncircumcision from the circumcision, was abolished by the Savior. His command is that the Jew should not so presume on his circumcision as to reproach the Gentile, nor should the Gentile trust in his uncircumcision, that is, his paganism, so as to abhor the Jew. Both, made new, should maintain in Christ their faith in the one God.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.14.1

Ephesians 2:15

Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

The law that he abolished was that which had been given to the Jews concerning circumcision and new moons and food and sacrifices and the sabbath. He ordered it to cease because it was a burden. In this way he made peace.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.15

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