Introduction

“Pound for pound” Ephesians may well be the most influential document ever written. It has been instrumental in shaping the life and thought of Christians (Snodgrass 44,383).

Apart from a few terms and the treatment of slavery, Ephesians could have been written to a modern church. It is about us. It describes human beings, their predicament, sin, and delusion, but much more it describes God’s reaching out to people to recreate and transform them into a new society (Snodgrass 44,387).

Most of the letter is about two subjects: power and identity. It describes the power God’s Spirit gives for living. It shows who we really are without Christ and who we become both individually and corporately with Christ. It is about how we understand ourselves and how we can get along with each other and God. The focus on God’s new society also makes Ephesians one of the most important works for understanding the church (Snodgrass 44,391).

Who are we really, and what holds us together? We all have a need to belong, but to what? Is there anything that merits our commitment? This life is hard. Where will we find the resources to make it? Our society’s moral guidelines have been erased. Are there boundaries and values that function as legitimate guides? What is a human life for anyway? (Snodgrass 44,394).

The Message of Ephesians

God is not some remote being; he is the prime actor throughout the letter. From the beginning the letter shows we were always meant to belong to God and that God has been and is at work to make the reality of our relationship with him happen (Snodgrass 44,404).

All the privileges of life are found in union with Christ and conveyed by the Spirit. Ephesians presents a gospel of union with Christ more powerfully than any other New Testament letter. Nothing short of attachment to him will rescue us from the human plight, and nothing can define us as human beings more than attachment to him. From living with him we learn how to live for him (Snodgrass 44,408).

Author. The apostle Paul was the writer of Ephesians.

Date. Paul likely wrote this letter in the early AD 60s, some thirty years after Jesus’s crucifixion and only a few years before his death.

Theme. God’s new society.

Historical Background. Paul is in prison once again, and Epaphras has come to visit him bearing disturbing news about the church at Colossae. Since Paul is about to send back the runaway slave Onesimus (now converted) to his owner Philemon, a member of the Colossian church, he takes this opportunity to send along a letter in which he addresses the Colossian heresy. He also writes two more letters: one to Philemon and one to a neighboring area, the Ephesians. These three letters (Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon) form the core of what we now know as the “Prison Epistles.” It is unclear which imprisonment produced these letters (2Co 11:23), but most likely Paul was at Rome (Ac 28). The fourth Prison Epistle, Philippians, was written in prison on another occasion.

Ephesians and Colossians are more similar in language and content than any other two letters in the New Testament. Together they give us a clear understanding of the nature of Christ and the unity of the church in him.

Characteristics. We see Christ creating the church, his body, and a new social order of love and unity that transcends the racial, ethnic, and social distinctions between people. God calls people to be reconciled to himself and to one another through the cross of Christ. The cross provides forgiveness of sins, a new life, and a new people. Between Paul’s greeting (1:1–2) and salutation (6:21–24), the letter divides easily into two parts. Part one (chapters 1–3) focuses on doctrine, specifically, the new life and new society God has created through Jesus. Part two (chapters 4–6) focuses on ethics, specifically, the new standards and new relationships expected of believers.

Paul’s Visits to Ephesus. Paul’s first visit to Ephesus was brief. Later, he returned during his third missionary journey and spent over two years there. His ministry was both effective and controversial. After three months in the synagogue, he was forced out and took up residence in the lecture hall of Tyrannus (Ac 19:8–9). News of his message spread throughout Asia Minor (Ac 19:10). Extraordinary things happened. Handkerchiefs touched by him were used to cure the sick (Ac 19:11–12). Demons were cast out in the name of Jesus, even by Jewish exorcists (Ac 19:13–17). Pagan converts burned their books of magic (Ac 19:18–20). Eventually, a riot broke out in Ephesus because of Paul. Demetrius, a silversmith, organized a citywide protest. He charged that Paul’s success posed a threat to the economic well-being of craftsmen who made their living from the worshipers of Artemis (Ac 19:23–41). As a result, Paul moved on to Macedonia.

Paul never visited Ephesus again. He did, however, stop at the nearby port of Miletus on his return to Jerusalem. He called the Ephesian elders to him there and gave a moving farewell address (Ac 20:13–38).