I was recently working with something on a website and every time I made a change it messed everything up. I was only digging myself deeper. Then I saw this little button that said “Reset to Default Settings.” I thought I’d give it a try and voila, it worked.
In a way, Ephesians is about God’s reset button for humanity. In the Garden of Eden we decided to monkey around with God’s ways of thinking—listening to serpents and disobeying God’s instructions for how to live life. We, and the universe been messed up ever since. But thanks be to God that He sent Jesus to rescue us.
One of the things God is doing through Jesus is hitting the reset button for our lives. We get a chance to start anew, with a new heart and mind that is being transformed back into the ways of thinking prior to the Fall. Eventually, God will hit the reset button for all the universe—and this is what the book of Ephesians is about—God resetting humanity and the universe to factory settings—to the way they should be.
The book of Ephesians is broken up into 2 major sections: Chapters 1 – 3, and 4 – 6. Ephesians is a very hefty book. It’s a little like thinking you are picking up balsa wood and lifting a bar of gold instead. For just six chapters it is surprisingly deep. Peter O’Brien, in his commentary on Ephesians, calls the book “one of the most significant documents ever written.”
Chapters 1 – 3 are about how God has given us new life – what God has done for you.
Chapters 3 – 6 are about how God wants us to live in that new life – what we do in response.
You could say that the first half of the book is more theological, the second half more practical—learn the truth, and then apply the truth.
It focuses on two major themes: truth and love. There is more love per page in Ephesians than anywhere else in the New Testament save 1 Corinthians 13
It is very close in content and style to Colossians – in fact they could be thought of as sister letters.
Ephesians was not written to a problem church, but a healthy one. It was written to healthy Christians telling them why it’s worth it to serve Jesus.
A key to the whole book can be found in Chapter 1, verses 9-10:
Ephesians 1:9 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him 10 for the administration of the days of fulfillment—to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.”
God is bringing everything together in Jesus. We’ll break apart this verse more when we get into Chapter 1, but it tells us that God is summing up everything in Jesus, bringing the universe together, bringing it back into harmony—in Jesus. And in this verse we also see the division of the book. Paul talks about how everything is being brought together—things in heaven (the first three chapters where we see God’s plan of salvation realized) and things on earth (the final three where we live out the life of Christ and glorify Him with our lives here).
Ephesians is a book filled with lessons on how we can live the good life in Jesus. It was written to Christians who had already heard and received the gospel, but it isn’t necessarily that easy to understand. Each verse is so packed and so concentrated that it’ll take some deep looks for it to soak into our souls.
It was written to the church in Ephesus, but don’t think of some large mega-church. Ephesians at the time had about a quarter million population, the third largest in the Roman Empire and a very important city, but the “church” was scattered about the city in many house-churches. It’s likely that it was written to all the Christians in Ephesus, and some think, to all Christians everywhere, since the word “Ephesus” does not appear in some manuscripts.
It was written while Paul was in a Roman prison in A.D. 61-62. Ephesus was important to Paul. He’d started the church there about five or so years prior to writing the letter, and had spent three years there (Acts 18-20).
Around the same time Paul probably wrote Colossians and Philemon. In fact, Onesimus, Philemon’s slave, may have accompanied Tychicus as he delivered this letter, prior to delivering the letter to the Colossians.
So let’s do a fly-over of the book and see what the major sections are about. I won’t comment much about them now, but it’ll give us a good sense of where we’re going.
Ephesians 1:1-3
An overall theme of the book could be: why it’s worth it to belong to Christ. It has a lot to do with the heavens and what we have because we are Christians. We’ll get more into what “blessed” really means.
1:4 – 19
In these verses Paul outlines just what Jesus did in and for us. We also see how Paul hopes this letter can reveal this incredible treasure trove of riches in a way that we can understand because it will blow our minds.
1:19 – 23
The balance of Chapter 1 talks about how central Jesus is, how powerful He is, and how literally everything in the universe focuses back on Him.
2:1 – 10
In the beginning of chapter 2 we see detailed just how Jesus saved us—where we came from and what happened to us when we became His.
2:11 – 22
The latter half of Chapter 2 describes what God did with Israel, and how we have been joined through Christ with Israel so that God can begin an incredible building project—the church—built on the cornerstone of Jesus.
3:1 – 13
Chapter 3 begins with Paul letting us know that what Jesus has done is new—it was only hinted at before, but now it is a mystery revealed. Part of that mystery is that God intended for non-Jews to enter into His grace as coheirs. The reason this has happened is for a witness to the entire heavenly host. Paul also tells us that we don’t have to sneak by the angels and demons to get to God but can boldly access God through trusting in God’s Son.
3:14 – 21
All this leads to Paul’s purpose for writing the letter—his prayer that the saints will comprehend God’s love, be filled with God’s fullness, and with praise to the One who did it all for us!
4:1 – 16
Chapter 4 begins the more practical application of these truths. Paul wants us to “walk worthy of the calling you have received”. We are a new creation so we need to act like it. He gives a brief sort of character sketch of what this new person should be like. Later he goes into detail about how to apply these character traits in different life situations.
This section tells us that we are all unified in Christ but are also all different in how the character of Jesus works through us. Jesus, as the victor over His enemies (unredeemed sinners, like Paul) can now give us gifts in the form of responsibilities and areas of ministry for this new building He is creating.
4:17 – 5:5
The latter half of Chapter 4 forms a single thought going through Chapter 5, verse 5. Essentially Paul is saying to look back when you were an enemy of God—what were your values, attitudes, and actions? Look at it in comparison with who you are now—one “being renewed in the spirit” (vs 23). He wants us to put on a “new self”.
With that in mind, he says: “quit acting like you did before you were saved.” Before we knew Jesus we had no choice but to act in ways not in accordance with His character. Now we have that choice so Paul says: “act on it!” He provides some examples (not an exhaustive list) to give us an idea of what he’s talking about.
5:6 – 14
Part of the responsibility of a new creation is to expose the difference between what sin has created and what God is creating. Sin is real and it does have a consequence. We aren’t in the job of judging sin, we are in the job of shining the light of the character of God and the reality of what sin means: being apart from God forever.
5:15 – 21
Paul then talks about why it’s important not just to be saved but to be transformed—that God is about saving people and then using them to help save others by being an example of what a child of God is like and introducing them to the salvation available in Jesus Christ.
He ends with a particularly important statement: “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” This should overlay the statements he makes all the way from here until Chapter 6, verse 9.
5:22 – 6:9
Paul gives three examples of what it means to submit to one another: wives and husbands, children and parents, and bosses and employees. These sections are somewhat controversial and, I think, misunderstood and misapplied by the church. As we go through these sections we will keep in mind Paul’s overlaying message and purpose and hopefully bring some context and light to these very important relationships.
6:10 – 20
Paul’s final argument is that we are in a war—this is not a drill—that the enemy is fighting unfairly and with real bullets. Therefore we need to be prepared for the battle with tools God has already given us, but tools—weapons really—that we need to employ—the most important of which is prayer—God’s artillery.
6:21 – 24
Paul signs off differently than other letters—not with “say ‘Hi’ to so-and-so but with a general benediction for peace and grace.
So together, let’s learn about how we can take our messed up lives, and through the grace and love of God through Jesus Christ, return our ways of thinking, speaking, and acting, to the way we were created.
