Ordinary Means · An Ephesians Study · No. 1
Most studies of Ephesians begin with the fireworks.
Right out of the gate — in a single Greek sentence that runs twelve verses without pausing for breath — Paul piles blessing on blessing: chosen before the foundation of the world, redeemed, adopted, sealed with the Spirit. It is the most concentrated burst of praise in the New Testament, and it is the obvious place to start.
We're going to start one verse earlier. At the address.
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
Why linger on what looks like a formality? Because these two verses are not throat-clearing before the real letter begins. They are the doorway everything else walks through. They name a writer, a recipient, and the bond between them — and the whole letter takes its shape from all three.
Consider the writer. The Paul of Ephesians is not the road-weary apostle of the missionary journeys, dashing off a letter in the heat of some pastoral emergency. He is in Rome, under guard, in a rented house, waiting for a hearing before Caesar that could end in release or in the executioner's sword. He is older now. He is in chains. And he has time — time to write long, gathered, carefully built sentences, by a man who knows he may not have many more chances to say what he wants to say.
Consider the recipients. He is writing to people he loves. Paul spent three years in Ephesus, the longest single ministry of his career: daily teaching, a citywide turning to Christ, even a riot of silversmiths whose idol-trade was collapsing as their customers left for the Gospel. When he finally left, the elders wept and clung to him at the harbor because he had told them they would not see his face again. This is not a distant apostle addressing strangers. It is a pastor writing to a congregation he knew by name.
Now consider the situation — and here is what struck me most as I prepared this study. The church at Ephesus was not in crisis. There was no false teaching to refute, no scandal to confront, no fight over Paul's authority to settle. What there was, instead, was a settled congregation that needed reminding of what it was.
The danger Ephesians addresses is subtler than persecution. It is drift. The slow forgetting of what had once been new and astonishing. The temptation, in a comfortable and crowded pagan city, to let the old patterns quietly creep back in. The dimming of wonder.
If that sounds less dramatic than the arena, it is. It is also the condition most of us actually live in, most of the time. Ephesians is not a letter for the catacombs. It is a letter for the long ordinary life of the Church — for believers who have been Christians long enough that grace no longer quite takes their breath away. Which is to say: it is a letter for us.
And notice what does not come out of that prison cell. Not a lament. From a place of constraint, with a guard at his side and his future uncertain, Paul writes the most expansive, doxological, theologically ambitious letter of his life. A man in chains writes about a Christ unchained — raised above all rule and authority, seated at the right hand of God, filling all things. The contrast is part of the letter's witness, and we will keep returning to it.
For those of us in the confessional Lutheran tradition, opening Ephesians is a kind of homecoming. Luther loved it. Its by grace, through faith, the gift of God became one of the load-bearing texts of the Reformation. The Confessions quote it constantly, and our hymnody is soaked in it — when we sing of being one in Christ, built on the Rock, armed with the gospel of peace, we are singing Ephesians. We do not read it against the tradition. We read it with the tradition, hearing in Paul's voice the same Gospel the Confessions confess.
Over the coming weeks we'll work through the letter passage by passage — eleven sessions in all. Next time we open the doxology itself: that single, breathless sentence of accumulating glory. Before then, do one thing. Read Ephesians 1:3–14 slowly, twice. Notice how often Paul says in Christ. Notice the refrain, to the praise of His glory. And read it remembering where it was written — by a prisoner, to a settled little church in a great pagan city, for whom these blessings were the foundation of an entire life.
A letter for ordinary times. Let's begin.
Almighty God, who in love chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and by Your grace has saved us through faith as Your gift: as we open this letter of Your apostle Paul, written in chains for the sake of the Gospel, grant us to receive it as Your Word to us — and to walk worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Get the book here: [EPHESIANS]