Ephesians 1 King James Version (KJV)

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

² Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

⁶ To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

⁷ In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

⁸ Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;

⁹ Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

¹⁰ That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

¹¹ In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

¹² That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

¹⁵ Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

¹⁶ Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

¹⁷ That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

¹⁸ The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

¹⁹ And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

²⁰ Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

²¹ Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

²² And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

²³ Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Commentary

The letter of Paul that we know as Ephesians is more general than his other letters. Much of it is concerned with the union that exists between Christ and the church, and the results that this union should produce in the lives of Christians. Paul says nothing specific about his relations with the church in Ephesus or with individuals in the church, even though he spent more time with the Ephesian church than with any other.

At the time Paul wrote this letter, a particular kind of false teaching had caused trouble among the churches in and around Ephesus. Paul’s special messenger apparently took a number of copies of the same letter and distributed them around these churches. Someone may have written the name of the receiving church into the introduction as copies were distributed. If this was the case, it would explain why some ancient manuscripts include the word ‘Ephesus’ in the opening greeting, but others omit it (Eph 1:1; see translators’ note). Paul’s letter to the church in the nearby town of Laodicea may have been another copy of this letter (Col 4:16).

The Ephesus region

Christianity probably came to Ephesus when Paul visited the city towards the end of his second missionary journey. He could not stay long, but left his friends Aquila and Priscilla there, and as soon as possible returned (Acts 18:18-23; 19:1). Ephesus was the chief city of the Roman province of Asia (in western Asia Minor; see map in the commentary on Acts), and Paul saw that if Christianity was established in Ephesus it would spread throughout the province.

Paul’s ministry in Ephesus lasted three years and was the major work of his third missionary journey (Acts 20:31). In strengthening the church he trained many disciples, and these, it seems, were the people who took the gospel to the scattered towns and villages of the province (Acts 19:8-10). This outreach was probably the cause of churches being founded in Colossae, Hierapolis and Laodicea (Col 1:7; 2:1; 4:13; Rev 3:14), and possibly also in Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia (Rev 2:8,12,18; 3:1,7).

Ephesus was a centre for some of the pagan religions of the region (Acts 19:35). This meant that the Christian converts came from a society where superstition and false religious ideas were widespread (Acts 19:18-19,26-27), and Paul knew that sooner or later the church in Ephesus would be troubled by false teaching (Acts 20:17,29-30). He knew also that a society with false religious beliefs usually has low moral standards, and his letter to the Ephesians deals with the sorts of problems that arise when a church is planted in such a society.

Purpose of the letter

It seems that Paul wrote this letter during the time of his first imprisonment in Rome, when he was under house arrest for two years (Acts 28:16,30; Eph 4:1; 6:20). Tychicus was about to go from Rome to Colossae with letters from Paul to the Christians there, so Paul thought it worthwhile to send this more general letter, which Tychicus could pass on to Ephesus and other churches of the region (cf. Eph 6:21- 22; Col 4:7).

A kind of false teaching was spreading around the region and creating much confusion among Christians. It was an early form of Gnosticism, a religious philosophy that regarded Jesus Christ as neither fully human nor fully God, but as a sort of semi-angelic being. This teaching asserted that, although Jesus Christ was superior to the Christians who followed him, both he and they needed help from unseen angelic powers if they were to reach perfection. Paul deals more specifically with this false teaching in his letter to the church in Colossae, a town not far from Ephesus. In that letter Paul shows that Christ is supreme over the universe, and needs no help at all from angelic beings. Christians, being already complete in Christ, likewise need nothing to be added to them. (For further details see introductory notes to Colossians.)

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul repeats his assurances that Christ is supreme over the universe, and this includes all the angelic powers, good and bad. They can add nothing to him (Eph 1:20-21). There is no possibility that anything in the universe can fill up some lack in Christ. On the contrary he fills the

universe (Eph 1:23; 4:10). By his death and resurrection he has triumphed over all the evil spiritual forces of the universe. Because of this, Christians likewise can have victory in their battle against evil (Eph 2:2- 6; 6:12).

Paul considers not only Christians personally, but also the church as a whole. The church is the body of Christ, and it shares with him in his victory over all angelic powers (Eph 1:21-23; 2:6). The church does not have to humble itself before angels. Rather angels are humbled before the church, as they see in it an overwhelming demonstration of God’s wisdom and power (Eph 3:10). All this is good reason for the Christians in and around Ephesus not to allow themselves to be persuaded by the clever, but wrong, ideas of the false teachers (Eph 5:6).