True faith runs deep.
The roots of new faith are often shallow and unsure. We do not know enough about our beliefs to understand how they reach into every part of our lives, and we often come to a standstill on our journey of growth. Yet when we have been in the faith longer, we may shrug off what we have come to see as unnecessary disciplines and constraints. We care less about what we can do for God than about what God can do for us. Jesus’ significance for people of other times and places fades from our concerns.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was written for Christians both new and old. By unveiling some of what lies behind life in Christ, Ephesians infuses depth into our day-to-day experience of the faith. For example, this letter explains how all three members of the Godhead participate in salvation through a coordinated, eternal plan. It also reveals the broad, diverse nature of the church, demonstrating how God has brought together people who were once completely cut off from one another. And it makes us aware of the vast forces of evil arrayed against God and His people, and what steps we must take to withstand the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
By studying the Book of Ephesians, we discover a foundation for Christianity that goes far beyond any particular culture and ideology. We find a purpose that transcends personal interests and preoccupations, and that spurs us to persevere in the journey of faith—as Paul puts it, to “grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (4:15).
Paul’s authorship of the epistle to the Ephesians is sometimes challenged, in large part because Paul writes as if he and the believers at Ephesus had never met each other face-to-face (1:15; 3:2), and he refers to no one by name except Tychicus (6:21). This does not seem to align with the fact that Paul spent three years in Ephesus helping to plant and nurture the church (see “The Ephesus Approach: How the Gospel Transformed a Community” at Acts 19:8–41).
Yet there are several possible explanations behind this apparent incongruity. One is that Paul intended the letter to be read by a number of churches in Asia Minor, of which the church at Ephesus was simply the most prominent. In fact, Paul may have been referring to the Book of Ephesians when he told the Colossians to read an “epistle from Laodicea” (Col. 4:16).
Assuming that Paul wrote Ephesians, he probably produced it around the same time as Colossians and Philemon. Colossians and Ephesians are parallel in style and content, and both were delivered by Tychicus (Eph. 6:21; Col. 4:7). Paul was in prison at the time of his writing, presumably in Rome, suggesting a date for the book of around A.D. 61.
Key Verses in Ephesians
• “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9).
• “He … gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11, 12).
• “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15).
• “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Eph. 4:26).
• “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30).
• “Do not be drunk with wine … but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18).
• “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:22).
• “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church” (Eph. 5:25).
• “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph. 6:1).
• “Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
• “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11).