Introducing Ephesians
Author and Date
The words “in Ephesus” (ἐν Ἐφέσῳ), in the first verse, are absent from some of the earliest MSS. This text-critical issue has caused a large number of modern critical scholars to cast doubt on Paul being the author. Peter O’Brien reminds us that, “we should hold anyone who claims to be the author of any letter coming to us from antiquity to be just that unless there is very strong evidence to the contrary.”1
Other than the absence or presence of the words in 1:1, six other reasons have been put forward by the critics:
(1) The author’s style is inconsistent with that of Paul.
(2) Around fifty hapax legomena (“said once words”).
(3) Its themes evidence later ecclesiastical development.
(4) Its polemic against Gnosticism (esp. 3:1-9) evidences a second century composition.
(5) Its similarity to Colossians, combined with its lack of a definite audience, and fact that Colossae is near Ephesus, suggest Colossians came first, referencing a circular letter to several neighboring cities (cf. Col. 4:7-9, 16), with Ephesians as the later elaboration.
(6) Similarities to other letters also suggests a forgery.2
By “circular letter” what is meant is that it was written to several of the churches in the vicinity of the larger city of Ephesus. This would include at least Colossae, Hierapolis, Laodecia, and Miletus. F. F. Bruce says, “A comparison of Eph. 6.21 f. with Col. 4.7 f. makes it evident that Ephesians was sent to its destination by the hand of Tychicus at the same time as Colossians.”3 When we consider that Revelation 2 and 3 contains a group of mini-letters contained with an apocalyptic book, we are suddenly unimpressed that such a circular letter would in any way rule out multiple purposes. We will come back to that.
What is meant by the style of Paul? Andrew Lincoln summarizes that Ephesians “lacks the marks of the typical Pauline letter's addressing of particular and immediate issues. It contains no list of personal greetings, and its themes and their treatment are more general than specific.”4 So as to demonstrate their own collective confusion, often the same scholarly spirit of the age will take both of two mutually conflicting opinions. If it is said that the Ephesians author was combating a Gnostic error that did not yet exist—a dubious blanket assertion, incidentally—it is equally said that this letter is itself Gnostic! Out of the Tübingen school, the likes of F. C. Baur, following Hegel’s dialectical thought, began to suppose that the original Christianity, out of Jerusalem, was Ebionism, and that in order for Paul to branch out to the Gentiles, his was essentially a Gnostic Christianity.
For one of the more influential among this class of academics, Werner Georg Kümmel, it boils down to what he sees as the Epistle’s (1) clear literary dependence on Colossians, yet (2) substantive theological difference in what was improvised. So, the Ephesians author committed violence to what was Pauline in Colossians, whether by incompetence or deliberate agenda. Kümmel added to these that the view of the church in Ephesians is always (a) universal—usually local in Paul’s epistles as a whole—and (b) grounded in “apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20) rather than on Christ, whereas Colossians 2:7 has this ground in Christ. Given the text-critical problem with “in Ephesus” (1:1), a circular letter makes more sense. Incidentally, the orthodox have no problem with a circular letter, but such a letter can be circular while one place (Ephesus) is the ultimate, intended audience. In spite of his critical view, Kümmel acknowledged in the last generation that the number of those scholars who accepted Paul’s authorship was “equally high” compared to those who rejected it.5
That said, there is sufficiently good reason to believe that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians. A defense would include at least these points of consideration:
(1) The letter itself records Paul as its author (1:1; 3:1).
(2) Pauline attribution is early and undisputed—e.g., Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian.
(3) Its teaching is perfectly consistent with the Pauline letters undisputed by higher critics.
(4) The style and word-use arguments are frankly shallow.
(5) Amendments and redactions are usually inferior in majesty and unity of composition; yet all critical views presuppose a literary superiority of Ephesians to Colossians.
(6) The parallel texts reveal significant differences in emphasis.
R. C. Sproul asked a very good question about such critics: “Is it not arrogant to assume that the apostle Paul's knowledge, linguistic skills and vocabulary were so limited that he did not have the capacity to write a letter in which he uses forty-nine words that he does not use elsewhere?”6 As to the criticism that Ephesians lacks the personal greetings typical of other letters to churches with whom Paul had relationship, Sproul catches the inconsistency: “This argument falls, however, if this letter was intended to be a circular epistle to a large number of churches.”7 The critic cannot have it both ways. If it was a circular letter—rather than one addressing the peculiarities of an individual local body—then one cannot expect it to be like the others Paul writes to the locale.
Now there is also an intertextual argument against forgery. There are the words of Revelation 2:2, which praise the Ephesian church for a few qualities, one of which was that they “have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.” John Eadie comments on this, “Nor can we imagine that the Ephesian church would not detect the plagiarism. This ‘discerning of spirits’ was one of their special gifts, for the keen and honest exercise of which the Savior eulogizes them.”8 In short, to claim that Ephesians was forged in the Apostle’s name is to cast shade on both the inspired status of Revelation and Christ Himself.
There is a record of discussion about the canonical status of several of the “catholic epistles” and of Revelation, and some of that because of authorship. There is no such record regarding Ephesians. Frank Thielman writes that,
By the second century, letters to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians were circulating in support of Marcion’s heresy, but as the Muratorian Canon puts it, they were ‘forged in Paul's name’ (63-65, trans. Metzger 1987:307). A different letter from ‘Paul’ to the Laodiceans appeared around the same time and is itself an attempt to deceive but nevertheless urges its readers not to ‘be deceived by the vain talk of some people who tell tales that they may lead you astray from the truth of the gospel which is proclaimed by me.’9
This highlights the reality that the early church was in constant, open, and rigorous discussion that was forced to apply criteria to contenders. And for all of that, there was no disagreement on Paul’s authorship of Ephesians.
Who have critics suggested as an alternative author, if not Paul? Usually, no specific name is proposed, only that “an unknown follower or imitator of Paul”10 took up the mantle, or used him as their mouthpiece, as later Platonists had done with Plato, or as some think Plato himself used Socrates. E. J. Goodspeed, The Meaning of Ephesians (Chicago, 1933); The Key to Ephesians (1956); C. L. Mitton, The Epistle to the Ephesians (Oxford, 1951), are a few examples of those who have taken this view.
The letter is even disdained for the scope of its doctrinal vision. One example of such a disdain is found in Ernst Käsemann who suggested that it was “just a theological tract barely disguised as a letter.”11 This brings to mind another shallow dimension of the critic’s thinking. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was certainly an authority on literature, and he called Ephesians, “the divinest composition of man.” This gives us pause about redaction and forgery theories. Such are usually inferior to the genius of the man they either imitate or amend.
Ephesians is grouped with Colossians and Philippians as “the prison epistles.” A main factor is that Paul mentions being in prison three times (3:1; 4:1; 6:20). Bruce affirms that this “was written at some point during Paul’s Roman imprisonment, between the beginning of A.D. 60 and the end of A.D. 61.” To be more specific, “We have the evidence of Acts for two periods of imprisonment which Paul underwent, each of two years’ duration, one in Caesarea (24.27) and the other in Rome (28.30). The single night’s imprisonment in Philippi (Acts 16.23 ff.) naturally does not enter into the reckoning here.”12
Close similarities granted, it is worth noting the divergences. A few common ones are:
(i) unity in Ephesians 2 and 4, versus completion in Colossians (2:9-10) in terms of what we have in Christ;
(ii) the mystery being the union of Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians (3:3-6), yet in Colossians the mystery is “Christ in you” (1:26-27);
(iii) Christ is Head over the church in Ephesians 1:22-23, yet Head, or Lord, over all in Colossians 2:15-17; and
(iv) Paul is constructive with a softer tone to the Ephesians, yet reactionary toward error with a stronger tone to the Colossians.
Audience and Setting
Ephesus was the greatest city on the western coast of Asia Minor. Paul had previously trained this church for roughly “three years” (Acts 20:31), after letting Priscilla and Aquilla do much of the “planting” (Acts 18:19-21). It was there that this couple took Apollos aside (Acts 18:24), so that he had at least some hand in the formative stages of the discipleship of these new believers. While it is true that no specific heresy or immorality is targeted as in other letters, this is not to say that the Ephesian believers did not have a specific “spirit of the age” to overcome. Simply start with what the city had become most famous for—namely its cult.
Artemis is Greek for Diana. She was most prominently a fertility goddess, but also goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, and the moon. According to Hodge, the alterations were not just linguistic. The Greek attributes “seem to have been combined with those which belonged to the Phoenician Astarte.”13 Eadie remarked, “The temple of Diana or the oriental Artemis had long been regarded as one of the wonders of the world.”14 “Four time the size of the Parthenon, it was the largest temple the Greeks ever built,”15 writes Andrew Louth. Paul’s mission in Ephesus endangered the business of one “Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis” (Acts 19:24).
The reasoning of Demetrius to the assembled money-makers is telling of how clear and profound the Christian message was:
These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, ‘Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship (Acts 19:25-27).
The money-makers knew, and they knew that others would now know, that the money-makers were the god-makers, which shows plainly that their products are no God at all.
Some things can be said about the church of Ephesus after the time of Paul’s letter. In the first place, he left one of his two trusted young proteges there to complete the mission. As Titus was left in Crete to “put what remained in order” (Titus 1:5), so Timothy was the man to complete the mission in Ephesus.
As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine (1 Tim. 1:3).
While we do not know exactly how long he stayed, it could easily have been more than a year or two, as the second letter bears witness: “You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes … may the Lord grant [Onesiphorus] to find mercy from the Lord on that day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus” (2 Tim. 1:15, 18). Just when one may think that the reference to Asia is generic, and could locate Timothy in any one of those cities, Paul concludes with a few helpful hints: “Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus” (2 Tim. 4:12), and “Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus” (v. 19). Those are three of the people that Acts and Paul’s earlier words to Timothy locate in Ephesus.
One Onesimus was their bishop when Ignatius wrote to them in the second decade of the second century.16 Was it the same Onesimus as the slave of whom Paul spoke to Philemon? That would have only been fifty years before, so that if Onesimus was a young man (teens or twenties) then, he would still be in his sixties or seventies by this point. He certainly was in the vicinity, traveling with Tychicus to the neighboring Colossian church in the early 60s (Col. 4:7-9), just after gaining his freedom. In any event, we do not know.
Structure and Outline
Lincoln suggests that,
“This letter to the Ephesians falls into two distinct, though not totally separate, parts—chaps. 1-3 and chaps. 4-6—with the ‘Amen’ at the end of chap. 3 and the change to direct exhortation at the beginning of chap. 4 as clear division markers. Recognition of these two parts is determinative for discussion of each of the areas of content, structure, genre, and style. The two parts reflect the writer’s two major concerns, often described loosely as theological or doctrinal and ethical. But particularly the former label of ‘theological’ or ‘doctrinal’ does not do enough justice to either the form or content of chaps. 1-3.”17
My own preference for an outline is to begin with a woodenly literal labeling of the breaks already provided.
I.1-2 Greeting
I.3-14 The Father elects, Son redeems, Spirit seals.
I.15-23 Paul's first prayer.
II.1-10 Raised by grace, through faith, for good works.
II.11-22 Reconciled to one people, one building.
III.1-13 The mystery of the gospel.
III.14-21 Paul’s second prayer.
IV.1-7 The unity of the body for living out.
IV.8-16 The diversity of the body for its maturity.
IV.17-32 Put on the new man.
V.1-21 Imitate God, walking in the light in Christ, filled with the Spirit.
V.22-33 Marriage as an analogy of the gospel.
VI.1-9 The “house code” — children and parents; slaves and masters.
VI.10-20 The armor of God.
VI.21-24 Final greetings.
If the first half of Ephesians is doxological in this teaching sense, then the second half may rightly be called practical or ethical. The Apostles uses a word signifying exhortation. That word is “walk.” Lincoln designates Chapters 4 through 6 as the clear ethical part of the letter, evidenced by ‘the major sections of which employ the writer’s favorite term for believers’ conduct, the verb περιπατέω, ‘to walk’ (cf. 4:1; 4:17; 5:2; 5:8; 5:15).”18 This word is used by other New Testament authors. We should ask whether it has the same connotations throughout. Was there anything typically ancient that would make that word a fitting synonym with one’s ethical or practical life? Is there anything typically modern that prevents us from catching its imagery?
While the matter of the Ephesians-Colossians symmetry is fodder for the critics, it is better to analyze here. While we may find the critics’ argument to be shallow, we do not want to fly to the other extreme and pay no mind to parallel passages for the sake of exegesis and for the Bible’s own emphasis. Anything stressed twice or more by the Holy Spirit is worth our careful attention.
Let us take a smaller slice of the parallel relationship: 1:15-23 and 5:22-6:9 in Ephesians, compared with 1:3-19 / 2:12 and 3:18-4:1 in Colossians.
Note that the first half is a division of Paul’s singular prayer in Ephesians to four scattered locations in Colossians. It is not verbatim and about an understandably persistent desire for all under his care. The second half is just the so-called Roman house code. These would naturally place the details in the same order because the order of authority and submission would be reflected in the order of address.
Purpose and Themes
As suggested, while there is no obvious controversy he is responding to, as in the case of 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians or Colossians, that does not mean that Ephesians lacks a set of characteristic doctrines. This is written with a big picture of the church’s mission in view: what it is in the world, how it should live as a reflection of God’s glory. On the other hand, doctrine may also sometimes be doxological. In other words, it may be an expression of one’s praise. It can be meant to encourage others to experience a broader or deeper horizon that, so to speak, changes everything. Ephesians is such a book.
Eadie writes,
“It seems as if the heart of the apostle, fatigued and dispirited with the polemical argument and warning to the Colossians, enjoyed a cordial relief and satisfaction in pouring out its inmost thoughts on the higher relations and transcendental doctrines of the gospel.”19
I suggest four themes that Paul meant to impress upon the growing worldview of his readers: (1) a Trinitarian causal analysis of salvation; (2) from many to one; (3) from old to new; and (4) from darkness to light. I will explain each of these in a general way.
A Trinitarian Causal Analysis of Salvation
Ephesians 1:3-14 and 2:1-10 are two sections separated by the first of Paul’s two prayers, and yet there is a common thread. Paul is making plain who does what in salvation and for what. The first section has been called one of the most famous run-on sentences in the whole canon of world literature. Guy Prentiss Waters sees “the centerpiece of the divine purpose,” namely, “the exaltation of Jesus Christ at ‘the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth’ (1:10) as something of a lens for what follows. Thus,
the saving work of Jesus Christ dominates Paul’s message in this letter. Jesus took on our flesh in time (4:9). In love for his people, he shed his blood on the cross to atone for their sins (1:7; 5:2, 25) and to reconcile them to God (2:13). He rose from the dead that we might share in his resurrection life, the life of the age to come (2:4-10). He is seated in glory over ‘all things’ (1:22; cf. 1:19-23). Having ascended on high, he labors in glory even now to build his church (4:7-16) until he presents the church to himself in mature perfection (5:25-27).20
Although there is not one doctrinal theme to Ephesians, as there clearly is in Galatians and, at least in an overarching way, in Hebrews, it is not for nothing that Paul roots his lofty doctrine of the church in the sovereign grace of God. There could not be all those subordinate “ones” in chapter 4, nor the putting on of the new man, nor victorious spiritual warfare, if there were not first one way of salvation in which all that the Father elects are the same that are redeemed by the Son, and so are the same that are sealed by the Spirit (cf. Jn. 6:37-40; Rom. 8:29-30).
From Many to One: Unifying the Church and the Cosmos
On our coins, we read the Latin phrase E pluribus unum—that is, “out of many, one.” This is the idea of the “melting pot,” which may be interpreted either narrowly or broadly. The broader it is conceived, the more utopian it could become. A new nation from every tongue, tribe, and so forth, to use the language of Revelation 5:9. Come to think of it, that is probably why we are careful to not use such language, lest we reveal another way that we attempt to do something that only Christ can do in the end. This is no rabbit trail. We make much of “racial justice” today, which, at its most harmless, comes to mean “racial reconciliation.” We speak about it as if it were the norm in human history until our uniquely evil system of modern American racism came around. Not only are such impressions ignorant, but Bible-believing Christians, of all people, ought to remember that the most contentious racial divide that ever existed was the one that God Himself initiated between Jew and Gentile. Granted that the people of Israel took their chosen status in a sinful way. They failed to be a blessing to the nations (Gen. 12:2-3), or that “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6), and were typified by Jonah’s flight from being God’s witness to Nineveh. We can miss that “ground zero” of that divide was not even the ethnocentric pride of Israel. It was the law of God itself. Note Paul’s exact words about the work of Christ.
[He] “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” (2:14-15).
How exactly was the “law of commandments” and “ordinances” the source of such tension? It was not the moral law, which even the Gentiles have written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). It was the ceremonial law. It was that which signified the Jew as separate unto God.
Unsurprisingly, N. T. Wright speaks of the difference between 2:1-10 and 2:11-22 as representing “the two ‘halves’ of Pauline gospel emphasis.”
Ephesians 2:1-10 is the old perspective: sinners saved by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:11-22 is the new perspective: Jews and Gentiles coming together in Christ.21
Here was a way for Wright to pay lip service to the “old way” being there all along, even if the emphases of both Rome and the Reformation butchered it into their late medieval fight. In this way, Wright could say that Paul, at least, encompassed both the cosmic and the individual aspects of the gospel.
The “many to one” theme does not end with the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile. Two metaphors continue the theme. These metaphors are two of several that are used to describe the church throughout the Scriptures. One is of a building and the other is of a body. There is not only unity in diversity, but the diverse things would not be what they are—they could not be “parts,” nor could they properly function at all—apart from the unity for which they are made. We could say that both the building and the body are irreducibly complex. Of course that idea can only go so far because Christ Himself would be all that He is apart from that which He upholds, but it is still a useful way to catch Paul’s point.
In between the two metaphors, and following Paul’s second prayer, a series of “ones” is set forth (4:4-6). This is a call for unity.
From Old to New: Sanctifying the Christian
The church cannot be the vehicle for the revelation of God’s mysterious purposes (3:10) if it remains as the world. As much as Christians often leave behind personal piety for a social cause, the reality is that false converts make terrible culture warriors; and even genuine Christians who exist on the extremes of despair or pride will also have limited witness. Because of this, Paul places in between growing up and being light that theme of putting off the old man and putting on the new (4:22-24). This theme is one of many that parallel with the same in Colossians. One chief difference is that, while in Colossians, the new man is an immediate consequence of a new mindset of beholding Christ, in Ephesians there is more of a contrast to the pagan who walks in darkness and to a series of characteristic sins, especially those sins of speech and sexual misconduct.
From Darkness to Light: Fighting Sin and Evil
To walk in the light is a piece of imagery used by other New Testament authors. When John uses it in his first epistle, it is in the context of personal sin. That is not absent from Paul’s use in Chapter 5; but he goes beyond that.
“Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light” (5:7-14).
Sin is not only something to avoid, but also something to expose. According to this metaphor, the life of the Christian—in both word and deed—serves as a kind of exposing-agent to the world’s evil. In a culture that is either pre-Christian or post-Christian, such a light becomes all the more pronounced. It is fashionable to suppose that we are only to worry about our own sin and leave the world’s very much alone. What else would we expect of them! And we certainly do not want to communicate that their becoming a Christian calls for moralism. But such shallow truisms miss the point. There is a prophetic element to even the Christian’s evangelism, let alone our civic involvement. It is not only faith, but repentance, that is called for: but how to call to repentance those sins that we afraid to expose, lest we come across as hypocritical or judgmental? It is just as Jesus said directly following His teaching to, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Mat. 7:1). By the time the reader gets to 7:15-20, he is suddenly hearing Jesus give principles for judging people by their fruits. It is not hard to reconcile these two things. Do not judge hypocritically, but do shine the light on sin.
The aforementioned “house code” (5:22-6:9) and spiritual warfare (6:10-20) each have a whole section devoted to them, and any useful outline should mark them accordingly. They are extensions of the themes already discussed. In fact, the Christian home and the attention the Christian draws from the demonic realm are what they are because of that wider terrain in which God is reconciling the church and the cosmos to Himself in Christ.
We can see why this was “John’s Calvin’s favorite letter.”22 Here we have both the grace of God in salvation and the glory of God in the big picture of His church. If one wants to drop the hammer against any system of works righteousness, they may turn to Romans or Galatians, or if they are beginning to reform a church, they may turn to the Pastoral Letters. However, if one is ever in the place of reforming the church precisely against the backdrop of a false gospel, then Ephesians is a perfect place to start.
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1. Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 4.
2. William Hendriksen chronicles examples of those making this argument: Exposition of Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1967), 34-41.
3. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Ephesians (London: Pickering & Inglis LTD., 1961), 13.
4. Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians: Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 42 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), xxxix.
5. Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 357.
6. R. C. Sproul, The Purpose of God: An Exposition of Ephesians (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 15.
7. Sproul, The Purpose of God, 15.
8. John Eadie, A Commentary on the Greek Text of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (Birmingham, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2005; op. 1853), xx-xxi.
9. Frank Thielman, Ephesians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 2-3.
10. ESV Study Bible, 2257.
11. Lincoln, Ephesians, xxxviii.
12. Bruce, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 12.
13. Charles Hodge, Ephesians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2003, op. 1856), i.
14. Eadie, A Commentary on the Greek Text of Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, xvii.
15. Andrew Louth, Introduction to Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians, in Early Christian Writings, (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 60.
16. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.
17. Lincoln, Ephesians, xxxvi.
18. Lincoln, Ephesians, xxxvii.
19. Eadie, A Commentary on the Greek Text of Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, xvii.
20. Guy Prentiss Waters, “Ephesians,” in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament, ed. Michael Kruger (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 267-68.
21. N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 168.
22. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 15.
