The Epistle to the Ephesians is one of the books of the Bible in the New Testament. It is traditionally said to be written by Paul while he was in prison in Rome (around AD 62). If this is the case, then it was written about the same time as the Epistle to the Colossians (which in many points it resembles) and the Epistle to Philemon. More recently, however, biblical scholars have questioned the authorship of the letter.

It has been described by William Barclay as the "Queen of the Epistles".

Purpose

Ephesians does not seem to have originated in any special circumstances, but is simply a letter springing from Paul's love to the church there. It is an indication of his desire that they should be fully instructed in Christian doctrine. However, unlike Romans, which is an exposition of Paul's gospel of salvation, Ephesians unfolds the consequences of salvation, particularly in relation to the church.

Outline

Ephesians contains:

• 1:1, 2. The greeting
• 1:3–2:10. A general description of the blessings that the gospel reveals. This includes the source of these blessings (Christ), the means by which they are attained, the reason they are given and their final result. The first part of this section (Eph 1:3–1:14) is one continuous sentence in the original Greek. It ends with a fervent prayer for the further spiritual enrichment of the Ephesians.
• 2:12–3:21. A description of the change in the spiritual position of Gentiles as a result of the work of Christ. It ends with an account of how Paul was selected and qualified to be an apostle to the Gentiles, in the hope that this will keep them from being dispirited and lead him to pray for them.
• 4:1–16. A chapter
  
  
  
  on unity in the midst of the diversity of gifts among believers.
• 4:17–6:10. Instructions about ordinary life
• 6:11–24. The imagery of spiritual warfare, the mission of Tychicus, and valedictory blessings.

Founding of the church at Ephesus

Paul's first and hurried visit for the space of three months to Ephesus is recorded in Acts 18:19–21. The work he began on this occasion was carried forward by Apollos (24–26) and Aquila and Priscilla. On his second visit early in the following year, he remained at Ephesus "three years," for he found it was the key to the western provinces of Asia Minor. Here "a great door and effectual" was opened to him (1 Cor 16:9), and the church was established and strengthened by his assiduous labours there (Acts 20:20, 31). From Ephesus the gospel spread abroad "almost throughout all Asia" (19:26). The word "mightily grew and prevailed" despite all the opposition and persecution he encountered.

On his last journey to Jerusalem, the apostle landed at Miletus and, summoning together the elders of the church from Ephesus, delivered to them his remarkable farewell charge (Acts20:18–35), expecting to see them no more.

The following parallels between this epistle and the Milesian charge may be traced:

1. Acts 20:19 = Eph 4:2. The phrase "lowliness of mind" occurs nowhere else.
2. Acts 20:27 = Eph 1:11. The word "counsel," as denoting the divine plan, occurs only here and Heb 6:17.
3. Acts 20:32 = Eph 3:20. The divine ability.
4. Acts 20:32 = Eph 2:20. The building upon the foundation.
5. Acts 20:32 = Eph 1:14, 18. "The inheritance of the saints."

Author and audience

The first verse in the letter is:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. (Eph 1:1 NIV)

Hence the letter explicitly designates the Ephesian church as its recipient and Paul as its writer.

However, there are a few problems with this:

• The earliest known manuscripts omit the words "in Ephesus", rendering the phrase simply as "to the saints .. the faithful in Christ Jesus" (NIV alternative translation).
• The letter lacks any references to people in Ephesus, or any events Paul experienced there.
• Phrases such as "ever since I heard about your faith" (1:15 NIV) seem to indicate that the writer has no firsthand knowledge of his audience. Yet the book of Acts records that Paul spent a significant amount of time with the church in
  
  
  
  Ephesus, and in fact was one of its founders.

There are several theories which try to explain these problems.

• Ephesians was not written by Paul. The letter was written by someone who used Paul's writings extensively, hailing him as the author in order to give him proper credit. However, this theory fails to explain the omission of the phrase "in Ephesus."
• Ephesians is a circular letter. Paul sent several copies of the letter to several churches in Asia Minor, changing the greeting as was fit.

For more details, see the article Authorship of the Pauline epistles.

Place, date, and purpose of the writing of the letter

If we accept that Paul was the author, then it was probably written from Rome during Paul's first imprisonment (3:1; 4:1; 6:20), and probably soon after his arrival there. This was around the year AD 62, four years after he had parted with the Ephesian elders at Miletus.

There seems to have been no special occasion for the writing of this letter, as already noted. Unlike his epistle to the Colossians, which was written to refute doctrines which had sprung up in that church, Paul's object in writing Ephesians was plainly not polemical.

Ephesians could have been written to sum up Paul's teaching to the church in Ephesus, or even to several churches he had founded in Asia Minor. The major theme in the letter is the Church and, in particular, its foundation in Christ as part of the will of the Father.

In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul writes from the point of view of justification by the imputed righteousness of Jesus; here he writes from the point of view specially of union with Christ, who is the head of the true church.

Relation between this epistle and that to the Colossians

The style and subject matter of this epistle is very close to that of the epistle to the Colossians. There are about 42 passages in Ephesians which appear to be expansions from the epistle to Colossae. Some of these parallel passages are given below:

• Eph 1:7; Col 1:14
• Eph 1:10; Col 1:20
• Eph 3:2; Col 1:25
• Eph 5:19; Col 3:16
• Eph 6:22; Col 4:8
• Eph 1:19–2:5; Col 2:12,13
• Eph 4:2–4; Col 3:12–15
• Eph 4:16; Col 2:19
• Eph 4:32; Col 3:13
• Eph 4:22–24; Col 3:9,10
• Eph 5:6–8; Col 3:6–8
• Eph 5:15,16; Col 4:5
• Eph 6:19,20; Col 4:3,4
• Eph 5:22–6:9; Col 3:18–4:1

Two explanations for this are commonly given:

1. If we accept that Ephesians was written by Paul at about the same time as he wrote Colossians, then he may have written Colossians first as a more specific letter to deal with particular problems in the Colossian church. He then may have expanded on some of the material in this letter in order to write a more general letter to either the Ephesian church or to a group of churches.
2. If the letter were written by someone else in Paul's name or style, then that person may have used material from Paul's letter to the Colossians.

Style

"The letters of the apostle are the fervent outburst of pastoral zeal and attachment, written without reserve and in unaffected simplicity; sentiments come warm from the heart, without the shaping out, pruning, and punctilious arrangement of a formal discourse. There is such a fresh and familiar transcription of feeling, so frequent an introduction of colloquial idiom, and so much of conversational frankness and vivacity, that the reader associates the image of the writer with every paragraph, and the ear seems to catch and recognize the very tones of living address." "Is it then any matter of amazement that one letter should resemble another, or that two written about the same time should have so much in common and so much that is peculiar?

The style of this epistle is exceedingly animated, and corresponds with the state of the apostle's mind at the time of writing. Overjoyed with the account which their messenger hadbrought him of their faith and holiness (Eph 1:15), and transported with the consideration of the unsearchable wisdom of God displayed in the work of man's redemption, and of his astonishing love towards the Gentiles in making them partakers through faith of all the benefits of Christ's death, he soars high in his sentiments on those subjects, and gives his thoughts utterance in sublime and copious expression.

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.