Have You Ever Read Ephesians?

There is a note in Henry Alford's New Testament for English Readers in the section on 'Its Authorship': Donald Guthrie mentions in his New Testament Introduction: Alford's introduction to the book also addressed all the questions I had regarding the destination of the epistle. He concludes the section on 'For what readers, etc." with: (His 'caps')I obviously do no attempt to list all the details of his argument, but from this I infer a stong case can be made for Pauline authorship and Ephesus as the destination. Personally I am satisfied with these two conclusions.P.S. The '20' above means that that is the 20th point on that topic.Edited by Richh, : Edits, etc.Edited by Richh, : Added an intiial quote

I like the idea of verse by verse.I was spending some time recently in Eph 1:1-14. There are some marvelous words there ascribed to God the Father, for example, grace, wisdom, prudence, love, peace and counsel.Then there are words like will, good pleasure, purpose and economy.Then there are words like blessed, chose, predestinated, redeemed, forgave, designated as an inheritance (one word in Greek), made known and sealed. These are the issue of His grace, wisdom, will, purpose and economy, etc., and they demonstrate His love, purpose and good pleasure.This section doesn't speak of the church is so many words, but of the members of the church and their individual blessings.I think it is a sweet section.His good pleasure is my good pleasure.But I also think it is also challenging to digest.I found a lovely song on this section: Source: Hymn: The divine dispensingEdited by Richh, : No reason given.

This opening portion of praise in the beginning of Ephesians is truly unique and heavenly. I have read through some of the posts and I cannot imagine any motivation for someone to 'forge' something like this. I don't think someone will a low morality could do it.The section speaks of blessing God on account of His blessing to us. 'To us' here is 'to the believers'. Ephesians is written 'to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.' As such in might not be easy for some to relate to this mutual, bi-directional blessing. But for those who believe, who have experienced God's blessing, this section is moving. It is packed with consolation and challenge.I read a note somehwere that the word 'spiritual' (used in verse 3) always implies the working of the Holy Spirit when used in the New Testament. I agree with this.God has not just blessed with with a lot of things, but with Himself. The Holy Spirit is God reaching man. He coming is called 'the blessing of Abraham' in Gal 3:14. And if this is so, God always intended to bless man with Himself.In verse 14 the Holy Spirit is called 'the foretaste of our inheritance'. We do have a taste of the divine blessings mentioned right now and a more full inheritance planned for our future.I have just scratched the surface of this portion and I am only up to verse 3.Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

I had noticed these phrases in the verses in Ephesians 1 too.(Apologies to Phat - I am only up to chapter 1.)I had a count of 8 occurrences of 'in Christ', etc., excluding verse 1, but I missed verse 6. Some commentators also mention that the phrase in verse 9 'which He purposed in Himself' could be translated 'which He purposed in Him'. That could be a 12th occurrence in this short section.I agree - in our experience Christ is a realm, and in our experience sometimes we are 'in' Christ experientially and sometime out.Furthermore, I think phrases like 'He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world' show something above and beyond our daily experience, but perhaps bearing on our 'future' behavior, c.f. Eph 2:10, 'For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works...'Somehow it is 'in Christ', not anywhere else, that God can create His masterpiece, His 'poiema', as witnessed by these many occurrences of this phrase here.I think the words of this hymn express it well: Witness Lee & Watchman Nee HymnsEdited by Richh, : No reason given.Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

There is definitely an aspect of our being in Christ, but maybe what you speak of is like the counsel of the Godhead in Gen 1:26, 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...'Perhaps that is why some translators translate 'purposed in Himself'.My unscientific comparison of about 20 translations showed a slight edge to phrases like 'purposed in Him', but it was pretty evenly divided.Perhaps in a later post I will list them all out. It is an interesting study, and highlights that it is not that easy to understand or translate the Bible. (But it is worth the effort.)Here are a few:ASV - 'which he purposed in him'
DBY - 'which he purposed in himself'
DRA - 'which he hath purposed in him'
ESV - 'which he set forth in Christ'
GNV - 'which he had purposed in him'
KJV - 'which he hath purposed in himself'
NAB - 'that he set forth in him'
NAS - 'which He purposed in Him'
NIV - 'which he purposed in Christ'
TNT - 'purposed the same in hym silfe'
WEB - 'which he hath purposed in himself'
YLT - 'that He purposed in Himself'

Very true. 'Present communion' sanctifies us. That reminds me of I John 3:2-3 and Romans 5:3-4. I John 3:2-3 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is. And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.

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Romans 5:3-4 ...knowing that tribulation produces endurance; And endurance, approvedness; and approvedness, hope...

I don't think there is anything ceremonial in these verses in Ephesians 1. It begins with Paul's (and our) response and reaction to such a marvelous set of blessings - 'Blessed be the God and Father...' Some versions translate it to 'Praise be to God...' When someone has some realization of the blessings, 'how can we restrain our praise'.Then the blessings which motivated this praise are in no way ceremonial.I read this summary: ‘The Father in His eternal love has chosen us to holiness (v. 4), ordained us to sonship (v. 5), bestowed grace on us in the Beloved (v. 6). In the Son we have redemption, which is forgiveness, according to the riches of His grace (v. 7), knowledge of the mystery of His will (v. 8-9) and inheritance under Him, the One Head (v. 10-12). Through the Spirit we are sealed by hearing and believing the word of salvation (v. 13), by receiving the earnest of our inheritance to the redemption of the purchased possession (v. 14).'I'd like to call your attention to the words on purpose mentioned in this portion. One of the blessings bestowed on Paul (and us) is that God made 'known to us the mystery of His will.' It says He predestinated us 'unto sonship ... according to the good pleasure of His will.' Furthermore His making known to us the mystery of His will was 'according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself' (or in Him).It is a great blessing to know the mystery of God's will. It is not completely detailed in this 'eulogy'. However, I believe it is revealed in many facets in the book of Ephesians. If we desire to please God, we need to know His will.Can you make a statement of what the will of God is?In this book it is not just personal. It is 'according to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord,' (Eph 3:11).Edited by Richh, : Adding more...

I like the three points you picked from this chapter:1. Sonship for us
2. Heading up all things in the fullness of the times for Christ
3. Christ, Head over all things to the church nowTo this I would add:4. For us to holy and without blemish before Him
5. To the praise of the glory of His grace and to the praise of His gloryIsn't that wonderfully comprehensive!(Maybe the 'holy and without blemish before Him' is an aspect of sonship.)In this we get: I appreciate the mention of all these points in the reference where I found this quote. I don't think I would have picked them all out. I believe they are all scriptural.Also as the church, we get all that Christ is and the operation of God's demonstrated power given to the church.In this God gets the universe restored to its rightful state in the future, and much glory and praise, both now and in the future.Let me mention a few other things about these verses and this portion. I don't think the Bible is easy to translate. I mentioned this is a previous post where I listed alternative translations of the phrase 'which he purposed in himself'.The word for sonship here is 'huiothesia' in Greek. It means to be placed into the position of a son; hence it is most often translated adoption. The RSV translates it 'to be His sons', the TEV translates it 'bring us to Himself as sons' and the BBE translates is 'we were designed before by Him for the position of sons to Himself'. Only the Recovery Version translates it 'predestinating us unto sonship'. Wuest has, 'He placed us as adult sons through the immediate agency of Jesus Christ.' I like that translation too. It gets the the heart of the matter.To translate it as adoption emphasizes the process that must take place for God to make one 'dead in trespasses and sins' a son of God. To translate it 'sonship' or 'to be His sons' emphasizes the end state. God's 'adoption' process is not like ASPCA adoption of a pet. God actually makes those who were 'dead in trespasses and sins' to become sons in life, having, as noted above, 'the Spirit of the Son, the life of the Son, the position of the Son, the image of the Son', etc.More later on 'head up'...Edited by Richh, : Adding more material...

Let me take a crack at this.If I started a rumor that Plato didn't write the Republic and perhaps that Socrates did not even exist, could you disprove me?That is one line of inquiry.The second related line is, does it matter who wrote the Republic? If so why, and if not, why not?To disprove me you'd need to resort to some historical evidence. And even if you did not do that, there is something about the works of Plato and Socrates that 'stand on their own two feet'.Along the first line let me quote from a book by F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable? I think a double-standard of historicity is applied to these two classes of writings.Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

Do you consider this an open-and-shut case, an irrefutable conclusion or are there two sides to the argument - that this epsitle is pseudepigraphical?Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

I am discussing the question of authenticity and scholarship on the line with purpledawn, not ignoring that.But it sounds like you are saying, and I am trying to understand your position, that because the providence of Ephesians is called into question, there is no possibility of its being genuine in terms of Pauline authorship, etc. Is that correct?I'd like to say that I don't think that is the case. Just because some doubt the authorship of Ephesians, that does not make it 'non-Pauline'.If you're interested, I can quote more from the book I mentioned in message 78.

I reject the basic premises of modern scholars. I believe you could find abundant historical examples of people who have written different things at different times to different people based on different situations at different times in their lives and whose view may have actually matured over time. If you used the same principles on these, I believe you could easily pick some phase you liked based on some arbirtary criteria and call these genuine, while calling all the rest forgeries.As jaywill mentioned the universal church was most assuredly in the thoughts of early Christians as evidenced by his quotes from Acts and Matthew. Universal in this sense is as opposed to local -the concept of many churches in many cities, not a single church in a single city, and a composite of all believers. I believe the verses in Matthew also include all time, not limited to believers living on earth.That being the case, I don't find any issue if, after 3 or 4 years of reflection during his imprisonment, and to a church in which he himself had personally labored for 3 years, and which did not have any pressing issues, Paul would write something that begins with a transcendent vision, to use jaywill's words from post 87. Romans and Ephesians were written at different times, in different circumstances and for different reasons.

Sorry, jaywill - I forgot about this one (post 75). I hope to get to it, but let me pose an unrelated question to you (apologies to Phat again - still in Eph 1).Why does 1:13 of all the verses in this section mention 'you' and not 'we' or 'us'?Someone had mentioned that chapter one has only three sentences and chapter two begins with 'And', connecting it to the apostle's prayer at the end of chapter one. Chapter two begins with 'Any you...'Any ideas?Edited by Richh, : No reason given.Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

I think what I mentioned in post 77 has bearing on your post 75 too. In Genesis it seems like when God saw man in His image He blessed. He creates man in His image and then blesses that man to carry out His purpose to express Him and represent Him.In Ephesians He has not given up His original purpose. His blessing carries out His purpose to the extent of making men who need redemption to become His sons. He gives man participate in His plan (Weymouth translation), 'for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it - the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one head in Christ'. Man being holy and without blemish in His sight. And all of this to the praise of His glory.And if we really want to bless Him we will want to bear His image now in reality.What Phat has been mentioning several times regarding Eph 5 and 6, 'Be imitators of God as dearly loved children...' is right in line with this. The last 3 chapters of Ephesians are some details on how to bear that image in a practical way.

From this, I imagine you don't like the gospel of John either, for example, where Jesus says (John 4:21-23): The Christ did not come immediately upon the fall of man (although He was promised), but many years after (Gal 4:4-5): So the 'delay' included the thousand plus years when God dealt mainly with Israel and the patriarchs.I still prefer to marvel at what has been preserved and for how many years - you know - the cup being half full versus half empty.
For example (I quote from F. F. Bruce again): I included the three verses from John because they also bear on your question to Phat in post 94. God uses (at least) two means to manifest Himself to man - by man's spirit and by His word. These should be in agreement. John 6:63 shows both are intimately related: So we both read and pray.