What the book is

Ephesians has two halves. The first three chapters are praise and prayer: a single long sentence of blessing (1:3–14), the riches of God’s grace, and the mystery now made known, that Gentiles are fellow heirs with Israel in one body. The last three chapters turn to how that one people should live: in unity, with each one’s gift, putting off the old self and putting on the new, in their households, and standing firm in God’s armour. Its most quoted words are about grace:

For it is by this grace that you have been saved, through faith. None of this comes from you; it is God’s gift.

Ephesians 2:8 · Open Word Bible, Balanced Read it with the reasoning →

Who wrote it, and when

The letter names Paul as its author and says he writes from prison (3:1; 4:1; 6:20). The church has read it as Paul’s from the beginning, and many scholars still do, dating it to his imprisonment in Rome, around AD 60–62. Many others think it was written after his death by a follower writing in his name, around AD 80–90, because its long sentences and vocabulary differ from the letters no one disputes, and because so much of it runs parallel to Colossians.

It may not have been written to Ephesus alone. The words “in Ephesus” (1:1) are missing from the earliest manuscripts, and the letter has none of the personal greetings Paul would be expected to send to a church where he had lived for three years. Many think it was a circular letter, meant to be read in several churches of the province.

How the book is laid out

  • Praise for God’s plan (1): every spiritual blessing in Christ, chosen, redeemed and sealed with the Spirit, and a prayer that the readers will know the power that raised Christ.
  • Saved by grace (2): once dead in wrongdoing, now raised with Christ; once far off, now brought near, Jew and Gentile made one new humanity.
  • The mystery revealed (3): Paul’s calling to the Gentiles, and his prayer that they will know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
  • One body (4:1–16): one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and the gifts Christ gives so that the body grows up.
  • The new life (4:17–5:20): putting off the old self, walking in love and in the light, and being filled by the Spirit.
  • The household (5:21–6:9): wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters.
  • The armour of God (6:10–24): the struggle against the powers of evil, and closing greetings.

How Open Word Bible translates Ephesians

”In Ephesus” (1:1). The draft keeps the words, as its Greek text does, and the footnote gives the reading of the earliest manuscripts without them.

The gift (2:8). “None of this comes from you; it is God’s gift.” What is the gift: grace, faith, or the whole of salvation? See “Not from you”: what is the gift in Ephesians 2:8?.

The mystery. For Paul, a mystery is not a puzzle but something hidden in God until now made known: that the Gentiles share in the promise in Christ (3:6). The draft keeps the word the same throughout.

Filled by the Spirit (5:18–21). In Greek, “be filled” is followed by a string of participles: speaking, singing, giving thanks, submitting. The draft reads them as what being filled by the Spirit produces, and the decision on the Spirit’s part (the one who fills, or what fills them) is marked uncertain and footnoted.

Submitting (5:21–22). The household instructions grow out of “submit to one another in the reverent fear of Christ”. In the Greek text the draft follows, verse 22 has no verb of its own and borrows it from verse 21, which ties the two together; the footnote gives the manuscripts that add one. A further decision notes that “to one another” has also been read as each submitting to those placed over them.