When, in 1954, my volume on Acts in the New International Commentary on the New Testament was published, the general editor of the series, the late Professor Ned B. Stonehouse, invited me to follow it up with a commentary on Colossians. Several years before, he had received from Mr. E. K. Simpson the manuscript of his commentary on Ephesians. The plan of the series called for Ephesians and Colossians to be treated within the limits of one volume. Mainly because of his failing eyesight, Mr. Simpson was unable to accept an invitation to add a commentary on Colossians to what he had written on Ephesians; therefore, when I had completed my assignment on Acts, Dr. Stonehouse persuaded me to begin work on Colossians.
Colossians was the first Pauline epistle on which I ever wrote a commentary. Without an intensive study of the earlier Pauline epistles, I was singularly unequipped to tackle Colossians-much more unequipped than I could realize at that time. Today, when I have written commentaries on all the Pauline epistles except the Pastorals, I hope I understand better what is involved in the interpretation of Colossians. The revision of my commentary on this epistle ought to show a more adequate appreciation of the place of Colossians in relation to the main emphases of Paul’s teaching.
On the appropriateness of attaching the commentary on Philemon in this (or any) series closely to that on Colossians nothing need be added to what has been said in the editorial preface. But I have welcomed the opportunity to expound Ephesians along with Colossians. The study of the two documents together has confirmed me in the belief that Ephesians continues the line of thought followed in Colossians-in particular because it draws out the implications of Christ’s cosmic role (set forth in Colossians) for the church, which is his body. At the same time it constitutes the crown of Paulinism, gathering up the main themes of the apostle’s teaching into a unified presentation sub specie aeternitatis.
In the first edition of the New International Commentary the English text on which the exposition was based was the American Standard Version of 1901. For this edition I have offered a translation of my own. If it is found to have much in common with the older versions principally in use, I shall not be surprised.
In the course of the exposition and notes I have acknowledged those works which I have found most useful in this study. I have sometimes learned most from scholars with whom I have agreed least: they compel one to think, and rethink.
One last thing I should say: in 1961 I produced a verse-by-verse exposition of The Epistles to the Ephesians (published by Pickering & Inglis of London and Glasgow). The commentary on Ephesians in this volume is in no way a revision of that earlier work: that remains an independent exposition in its own right, organized on a different pattern from the present commentary and designed for a different reading public.
F. F. Bruce
December 1983