Ephesians 1:1-2

The letter to the Ephesians is a marvellously concise, yet comprehensive, summary of the Christian good news and its implications. Nobody can read it without being moved to wonder and worship, and challenged to consistency of life.

It was John Calvin’s favourite letter. Armitage Robinson called it ‘the crown of St Paul’s writings’.

William Barclay calls Ephesians “the queen of the epistles.” The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed this book “the divinest composition of man”

John Mackay, a former president of Princeton Theological Seminary who was converted at the age of fourteen through reading Ephesians, called it the “greatest … maturest … [and] for our time the most relevant” of all Paul’s writings. “This letter is pure music,” he said. Ruth Paxson called Ephesians “the Grand Canyon of Scripture,” meaning that it is breathtakingly beautiful and apparently inexhaustible to the one who wants to take it in.

If Ephesians is profound, it is so not for the mysterious nature of its unfathomable deep secrets, but for the clear way it presents the most basic Christian truths.

In this book we will address the following questions:

• Why worship? (1:3–14)

• What should we pray for? (1:15–23)

• What is so amazing about grace? (2:1–10)

• Who are we? (2:11–22)

• Why is the church a big deal? (3:1–13)

• What should we pray for? (3:14–21)

• How can we be unified? (4:1–16)

• How do “new” people live? (4:17–32)

• How can we imitate God? (5:1–14)

• What is God’s plan for marriage? (5:15–33)

• How should we parent? (6:1–4)

• How should we see our vocation? (6:5–9)

• How do we fight? (6:10–24)

What was Ephesus like? Ephesus was the capital of proconsular Asia and as such was the political and commercial center of a large and prosperous region. That is why Paul spent so much time there. Ephesus was on the Cayster River, not far from the Aegean coast. Its port was large and so became the chief communication and commercial link between Rome and the East. Merchants flocked to it. It became a melting pot of nations and ethnic groups. Greek and Roman, Jew and Gentile mingled freely in its streets. In Paul’s day Ephesus played a role not unlike that of Venice in the Middle Ages or Constantinople today.

Ephesus boasted the largest of all Greek open-air theaters; it held twenty-five thousand spectators. There was a stadium for chariot races and fights with animals. Chiefly, however, Ephesus boasted of its great temple to Diana or Artemis. It was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It measured 425 by 220 by 60 feet (about four times the size of the Parthenon) and housed the statue of Diana, believed to have come down from heaven. This temple was a depository for huge amounts of treasure and was, in effect, the bank of Asia. It was served by hundreds of the priestesses of Diana, who were temple prostitutes.

To this city the apostle Paul came to preach—briefly on his second missionary journey and extensively on his third. In this city God was pleased to establish a faithful church. To the Christians of this city, attempting to live for God in the midst of utter paganism, the apostle directs this letter.