Upon our arrival to Ephesians 4, we come to an epistle that many believe was penned by the Apostle Paul while being held in prison. In writing this letter, his primary audience is to a group of churches in 1st century Ephesus. It is important to note that in the historical context in which this letter is written, Christianity was not the popular religious belief of the nation. But rather, Ephesus was an extremely diverse culture in its religious practices throughout the city. As a result of this cultural norm, seemingly anything and everything was deemed acceptable, and any attempt of creating a moral compass was met with vast opposition by the majority culture. This cultural paradigm eventually began to infiltrate the church as well in several ways, both implicit and explicit. For due to the plethora of moral doctrines sweeping the culture, many who inhabited the city of Ephesus found themselves being exposed to beliefs, doctrines and practices that were plain heretical in nature simply because in OT language, “everyone (was doing) what was right in their own eyes.” (Judg. 21:25) Consequently, many of those who attended the church found themselves wavering in their theological foundations. In doing so, Paul writes this narrative in an attempt to challenge the church at Ephesus to redirect their lifestyle focus back to the Word and ways of the God who, by grace, saved them. The literary structure of Ephesians is one similar to other Pauline epistles in that it both commences
When it comes to love and respect and what the bible says about this many look in Ephesians 5:21-33, many significant points can be taken from here to create a happy home environment. There are so many things to consider when being in a marriage with a man or a woman. Whether it is how to love, how to treat one another, and even how to respect each other.
The book of Ephesians is one of Paul’s many New Testament letters, or epistles, to the Christian church still in its infancy. At the time of its writing, Paul is in Rome, imprisoned for championing the purposes of Christ and growing the church. We see numerous occurrences where Paul, being a man of little concern for the status quo, is either imprisoned or fleeing capture by Jewish or Roman officials for usurping the latter (Acts 19: 23-41). The date of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is dated 60-61A.D., depending on differing research. While this is certainly one of his epistles known as the “prison letters”, Ephesians was penned prior to Paul’s first roman
Ephesians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul during his imprisonment in Rome. This is the same Paul who had previously persecuted the church. He is not writing to a particular church body, rather his intended audience was various churches in the surrounding vicinity of Ephesus. To encourage
Paul wrote to the Ephesian Church to open their eyes to the true battle of Christians, to the war that is before them in Christ. He tells them, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”, (Ephesians 6:12). Our Battle is not from without the body, nor is it physical in nature, but it is from within the body, the mind, it is absolutely spiritual in nature for the overcoming of the desires and sinful lust of our
The theme of his letter to the Ephesians is that believers have been unified in salvation by grace and are called to live like Christ. Ephesians 2:1-8 focused mainly
The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:10-20 takes the opportunity to convey to the Church at Ephesus, the growing threat of the spiritual issues confronting the body of Christ. The central beliefs implant and reside in the texts, seem to be a battle cry that resounds from the heart of the Apostle Paul. Paul's aim in the texts is to shade light on the spiritual warfare that's outside of the eyesight of the believer. Furthermore, the battle that is in question is a spiritual battle that seizes eternal ramification involving every believer. As noted by author Warren Wiersbe, when he stated that "sooner or later every believer discovers that the Christian life is a battleground, not a playground and that he faces an enemy who is much stronger than he
Slavery was introduced by the Roman Empire during the era of the New Testament. In this period of time, almost half of the children born into the dynasty were quickly transformed and molded into the slaves of the current state. But unlike the ones of later times, salves of the current time period of 60 A.D. had more of a roller coaster ride with their masters, meaning that certain owners developed different relationships with them and had different views upon what was expected. The book of Ephesians, written by Paul the Apostle, was created and put forth solely or the purpose of relaying information to the church of Ephesus regarding God’s plan was to bring all authority and power to Christ himself. As he addresses different people such as children and parents, and large crowds, he reaches out to the slaves, for whom he has a soft spot.
The genre of Ephesians 2:1-10 is an Epistle. The Epistles were letters teaching specific churches or groups of people; often inspired by God. They are split into two categories: Pauline Epistles, written by Paul and traditionally Paul was the first word of the book in Greek, and General Epistles, often referred to as the Catholic epistles and were written to the universal Church. The Pauline Epistles consist of: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. The General Epistles consist of: Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. The interpretive principles of this genre are that it is meant to be read as a whole and in one sitting in order to get the main idea of the passage, one must view the paragraphs as the main unit of thought in the passage, one must know the structure to understand the letter, and one must do background reading to fully comprehend the main concept and the history and culture of the setting.
Paul claims to be the author of Ephesians. In fact, the letter was spread around the world recognizing Paul as the author, early in the church history. However “Since the nineteenth century Pauline authorship of Ephesians has been doubted”(The Baker Bible Handbook, 835).This is because notable differences in language and style have been found between Ephesians and other letters claimed to be written by Paul such us Colossians. Anyways, those who believe it was written while Paul , have concluded that he wrote
In my passage Ephesian 1:15-23, this is Pauls prayer to Jesus of giving thanks, God has given us so much, and when God gives us a lot our perception can be changed based on how much we get from God, but we are blind because we can never be satisfied so we ask for more. We can build a wall of ungratefulness and never see the “light of God”.
In the beginning of the book of Ephesians, Paul specifically states that he is the author of the letter to Ephesians, though the authenticity of Paul’s authorship has been questioned. Signing the name of an influential person of the period was common practice from “the third century BC to the first century AD.” Though it would not be the first time that Paul’s name was forged, Ephesians is not a controversial letter, so if the author did not want to include his own name, he could have written the letter anonymously; also, given moral influence of the text, the author would not have lied for no cause. Ephesians is a bit different from the other letters of Paul in that it does not follow the normal structure he has previously used: “salutation, thanksgiving, prayer, body, ethical exhortations, greetings.” Paul also makes many personal references throughout the book of Ephesians including sharing that he is in prison.
The apostle Paul foresaw at the end of his life a great tsunami of attacks coming against the church of God. He responded with three letters. We call them the Pastoral Epistles: 1, 2 Timothy and Titus. After Paul’s first imprisonment, he visited different places including the Island of Crete, an Island only 160 miles long south of Greece and Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea. He wrote this letter to Titus around 62 A.D. from somewhere in Macedonia. Paul’s main objective is to encourage Titus and give instructions about Godly living as a young pastor. The churches in the Island of Crete needed leadership, correction and order thus Paul could not be everywhere. Paul at some time had visited the island of Crete for he says in Titus 1:5 “I left you
A literary analysis is the practice of looking closely at small parts to see how they affect the whole. Literary analysis focuses on how word techniques are used by the author to create meaning. One of the reasons that Paul penned his letters in Ephesians was to bolster areas that were weak in the church. In addition to that, Paul wanted to clarify central beliefs that may not have been well-defined. Probing Paul’s letter with such a supposition, reveals several frailties among the Ephesian that Paul needed to encourage and reinforce. One of these weaknesses are amalgamated with the word riches, which is present throughout the letter in Ephesians. In this portion of the essay I will break a portion of the text down into parts, in order to examine the different elements of this piece of literature, by analyzing a portion of the text.
Ephesians 3:14-21 “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with the power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in
Our source of knowledge of the apostolic work of Paul comes first from the Book of Acts. The epistles written by Paul serve to further our knowledge of his mission. These letters were written to churches that he had founded or churches that were known to him. Luke’s account of Paul introduces us to the basic facts about this important biblical figure. A more complete understanding of Paul’s journeys can be gleaned from his letters. These epistles were written almost at the time they occurred and they comprise some of the earliest works contained in the New Testament.