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Ephesians

Ephesianschapter 3

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Speaks with:Ephesians 1×7Colossians 1×71 Timothy 1×21 Peter 1×2Colossians 2×2Galatians 1×1

Summary

Chapter summary

Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles. The mystery, hid from ages, now revealed: Gentiles fellow-heirs of the same body. Less than the least of all saints, yet entrusted with the unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul bows his knees unto the Father, that they may be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, that they may be able to comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. JFB reads the prayer as the apostolic high point of Ephesians.

Context

Epistle · Paul — Ephesians overview

  • A. 1–13 The Mystery Hidden for Ages: Gentiles as Fellow Heirs
  • B. 14–21 Rooted and Grounded, and Able to Do Far More

The outline

  1. A.The Mystery Hidden for Ages: Gentiles as Fellow Heirsvv. 1 to 13

    Read vv. 1 to 13 →

  2. B.Rooted and Grounded, and Able to Do Far Morevv. 14 to 21

    Read vv. 14 to 21 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The mystery made known

Pattern

In Ephesians and Colossians the mystery is a secret now published, not a puzzle: made known by revelation, the Gentiles fellowheirs of the same body, Christ and the church, hid from ages but now manifest, and Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Musterion in these letters means what God has now revealed, and Paul names its content plainly. Reading the word as Paul uses it guards the reader from hunting hidden knowledge where the apostle is announcing open good news.

  1. Ephesians 1:9

    The mystery of his will

    Made known unto us according to his good pleasure, purposed in himself.

  2. Ephesians 3:3-6 you are here

    The Gentiles fellowheirs

    By revelation he made known the mystery, and its content is stated: the Gentiles fellowheirs, of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ.

  3. Ephesians 5:32

    Christ and the church

    This is a great mystery: Genesis 2:24 read onto Christ and the church by Paul himself.

  4. Colossians 1:26-27

    Hid from ages, now made manifest

    The mystery among the Gentiles is named: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

  5. Colossians 2:2

    The acknowledgement of the mystery

    All riches of the full assurance of understanding rest in the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.

In heavenly places

Pattern

Ephesians names the heavenly places five times: blessed there, Christ seated there, believers seated there with him, the principalities schooled there by the church, and the wrestling there against spiritual wickedness.

The five beats are the letter's own map of the unseen realm. The same sphere holds the believer's blessing and the believer's battle, and the seating of chapter 2 comes before the wrestling of chapter 6.

  1. Ephesians 1:3

    Blessed in heavenly places

    Every spiritual blessing is located there, in Christ, before any command is given.

  2. Ephesians 1:20

    Christ seated there

    Raised from the dead and set at God's own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power.

  3. Ephesians 2:6

    Seated there with him

    Believers are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

  4. Ephesians 3:10 you are here

    The principalities taught by the church

    The manifold wisdom of God is made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places.

  5. Ephesians 6:12

    The wrestling there

    We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places, the same word as the other four beats.

The world behind this chapter

Ephesians 3
When
Paul's imprisonment, traditionally at Rome · c. AD 60–62 on the traditional dating
Where
A digression about the mystery entrusted to a prisoner, ending in prayer.
Who first heard it
Gentile congregations who might be discouraged that the man who brought them the message was in chains.

The history

"Mystery" in this letter does not mean a puzzle. It is a plan that was hidden and has now been disclosed — the word used in Jewish apocalyptic writing for secrets of God revealed to a chosen messenger. The content of this particular mystery is stated flatly: Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers in the promise.

Paul calls himself a steward of God's grace, the household manager entrusted with someone else's property. He is not the owner of the message.

The remark that his imprisonment is on their behalf, and that they should not lose heart over it, addresses a real problem. In an honour culture, a leader in chains was a discredited leader, and the sect he represented looked defeated. Paul calls the same chains their glory.

"Every family in heaven and on earth" plays on the Greek words for father and family, which share a root. In a world organized by paternal households, tracing every household back to one Father was a large claim.

What it meant to them

For churches in the shadow of imperial power and cosmic anxiety, the astonishing claim was that God's wisdom in its rich variety is now being made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. A handful of house congregations were the demonstration.

The prayer that closes the chapter asks for inner strength, for Christ dwelling in their hearts, and for power to grasp dimensions of love that surpass knowledge — followed by a doxology to the God who can do far more than all we ask or think.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Ephesians 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians; J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm.

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