: F.F. Bruce
: The Epistle to the Ephesians A Verse by Verse Exposition
: Robert Frederick
: 9780755498482
: 1
: CHF 5.20
:
: Christentum
: English
: 144
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
A thorough verse-by-verse exposition of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Bruce says that Ephesians unfolds God's glorious purpose for the church, which should break down color and class barriers. 'Only Christ can bring together people on either side of these barricades by first bringing them to himself.' This book is intended for the general Christian reader, not for the scholar. Bruce's main aim is to bring out the meaning and message of Paul's Epistle.

Chapter 1

1. Salutation (1:1-2)

Verse 1: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God

Ancient letters regularly commenced with some such formula as “X to Y, greeting.” Paul’s letters are introduced by salutations based on this skeleton-formula, but the three elements in the formula (the sender’s name, the addressees, and the greeting) are variously amplified in accordance with the circumstances. Paul’s designation of himself here is identical with that in Colossians 1:1; the phrase “through the will of God” in relation to his apostleship appears also in 1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1. The term “apostle” (Gk.apostolos), as used of Christians in the New Testament has two meanings, a wider and a narrower. In the wider sense it is used of Christian missionaries in general (eg of Timothy and Silvanus in 1 Thessalonians 2:6, or of Barnabas in Acts 14:14), or of “messengers of the churches” (as in 2 Corinthians 8:23). But in the narrower sense, in which Paul uses it of himself here and elsewhere, it is confined to those who have received their commission directly and independently from Christ, apart from any mediation – that is to say, to Paul and to the Twelve.

to the saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus:

The recipients of the letter are characterized by two terms frequently used of the followers of Christ in the New Testament; they are “saints” or “holy people” (Gk.hagioi), ie the people whom God has set apart for himself, and they are “faithful” or “believers” (Gk.pistoi), ie those who have placed their wholehearted trust in Jesus as Son of God, Lord and Savior. The expression “in Christ Jesus,” however, does not denote him as the One in whom they have believed so much as the One in whom they are brought together into a living fellowship. The solidarity of sin and death which members of the old creation have inherited “in Adam” has given way to a solidarity of righteousness and life “in Christ Jesus” (or “in Christ”) for those who by faith have entered into the new creation.

“Because Christ himself is now exalted in the heavenly realm, those who are ‘in him’ belong to that heavenly realm, too, in the mind of God.”

Ephesians 1:7

The words “at Ephesus” are omitted by Papyrus 46 (the oldest authority for the text of the Paul