Ephesians 1.3-14 is a liturgical blessing in praise of what God has done for us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But, throughout the Blessing, Paul uses a lot of vocabulary that is unusual in the New Testament and that, put together, sets it apart as being particularly ‘cosmic’ in scope. Though the teaching … Continue reading Cosmic Questions in Ephesians 1.3-14
The most recent post in this Bible Study series on Ephesians looked at the wonderful liturgical blessing (1.3-14) with which Paul begins the letter. It’s a beautiful passage that boldly describes both God’s activity on our behalf and our vocation to become “holy and blameless in love” in response. But, some of the language Paul … Continue reading On Election and Predestination: Ephesians 1.4-6
It is customary for Paul’s letters to begin with an often dense exploration of the theological themes that he will unpack in the rest of the text. In this way, Ephesians is no exception, as 1.3-14, the passage we’ll look at today (and in the next few posts), is a single, complicated, two-hundred-word sentence in … Continue reading Blessing God: Ephesians 1.3-14
In the previous post in this series on Ephesians, we looked at who we meet in the text: who the author is, and who the recipients are — and what the author has to say about both. Today, we’ll explore the second half of the greeting, which can be found in 1.2: Grace to you … Continue reading On Grace and Peace: Ephesians 1.2
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God To the saints who are [in Ephesus] and are faithful in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1.1) In the post introducing this series, I mentioned that it would be front-heavy and today’s post is a good example of this, focusing as it does on this single verse. … Continue reading Getting to Know You: Ephesians 1:1
