Excerpt from chapter 7 of second Paul volume:
___________
Ephesians 5:22-33 goes on to talk not only about the relationship between husbands and wives in the church but, even more significantly, about the relationship between Christ and the church. Indeed, most of what Ephesians says in these twelve verses is perhaps more about Christ and the church, only using the husband-wife relationship as a metaphor for this more significant relationship. As far as the husband-wife relationship, Ephesians assumes the standard relationship of wife to husband in the Mediterranean world and then sanctifies it, makes it holy. There is nothing uniquely biblical or Christian to say that “the husband is the head of the wife” (5:23). Again, Aristotle had said very similar things three hundred years before when he spoke of the “rule” of the husband in the household.
What is distinctly Christian in Paul’s day was thus the heightened value he gave to women, not the subordination of the wife to the husband, willingly or not. Ephesians actually has very little to say to wives here. It merely seems to tell wives to submit to the authority of their husbands as all must submit to Christ’s authority (5:24), then it moves on to give instructions to the husband. In the last chapter, we asked whether this structure was more a matter of ancient culture or what God’s ideal might be for the present. While various Christians will disagree, we argued that because such structures will not exist in the kingdom of God, God would be pleased for us to abolish them now.
There is no reason for such structures either in relation to the intellect or potential leadership ability of women. The only reasons anyone might suggest are either cultural or simply because it is the rule. But in Western culture, giving women the same potential authority as men is not a detraction from the witness of the gospel. In our context, husband headship simply for its own sake actually diminishes the world’s estimation of Christ. And the example of Jesus and Paul quickly suggests that God does not usually make rules for their own sake, especially when the rule is a potential hindrance to the gospel. We thus take the prophetic stance that taking the household codes out of their own world and applying it to our quite different one is contrary to the gospel and the trajectory of the kingdom.
Ephesians admonishes husbands to love their wives, even to the degree that Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself for it (5:25). Some women have suggested that they would willingly submit to their husbands if they had this attitude. Certainly both husbands and wives should have this kind of love for each other. At the same time, we want to challenge such women in the same way we might have challenged slaves before the American Civil War. The woman who responds in this way is like the slave of the early 1800s who might have said, “If my master treated me like a brother or sister, I would gladly serve him.”
But the full gospel today goes way beyond, “masters, treat your slaves as if they are your brothers.” It is time for us to play the gospel out in a fuller way than even the New Testament church did in its day. It sells the kingdom short and can bury your God-given potential in the ground. Some of those most opposed to women in ministry are not men, but women who enjoy not having to take the lead, even though they have more spiritual wisdom than their husbands several times over. God does not expect every woman to lead any more than he expects every man to lead. But every woman and man should heed the charge of 1 Thessalonians 5:19 not to “put out the Spirit’s fire”!
If God calls you as a woman to lead, you had best not disobey. If God has given you the greater wisdom in a moment of decision, why impoverish those who might benefit? If you as a husband can see your wife's greater wisdom in a moment of decision, what value is there in resisting it? Clearly we must be sensitive to our circumstances. God is a God of peace. But God also is not a God of timidity!
Showing posts with label Ephesians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ephesians. Show all posts
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Ephesians: Colossians Expanded and Universalized
It is also fascinating to compare Ephesians to Colossians. For example, at one point Ephesians is exactly the same as Colossians for over twenty-five words straight, namely, at the end when commending Tychicus to the audiences (Eph. 6:21-22; Col. 4:7-8). For this reason, some have suggested that Ephesians might be the lost letter to the Laodiceans mentioned in Colossians 4:16. Indeed, at no less than thirteen points, Ephesians and Colossians say either exactly or almost exactly the same thing, in the same order.[i] Because in each case Colossians’ version seems more concretely related to its audience’s situation and because Ephesians seems to expand many of the points, it seems that Ephesians used Colossians as its starting point. Ephesians in some respects is an expanded and universalized version of Colossians.
[i] E.g., Col. 1:14 and Eph. 1:7 (in whom we have redemption, through his blood); Col. 1:16-17 and Eph. 1:21 (above all spiritual powers); Col. 1:18 and Eph. 1:22-23 (head of the body, the church); Col. 1:21-22 and Eph. 2:16-17 (reconciling those far away through Christ’s blood); Col. 1:26-27 and Eph. 3:4-6 (mystery of the Gentiles’ inclusion); Col. 2:1 and Eph. 3:2 (audience has only heard, not seen Paul’s ministry); Col. 2:3 and Eph. 3:4 (mystery of Christ); Col. 2:15 and Eph. 3:10 (rulers and authorities) ; Col. 2:19 and Eph. 4:16 (body grows out of the head); Col. 3:9 and Eph. 4:22 (put off old self); Col. 3:9 and Eph. 4:25 (do not lie to each other); Col. 3:18-4:1 and Eph. 5:22-6:9 (household codes); Col. 4:7-8 and Eph. 6:21-22 (word for word closing).
Ephesians: Predestination (chap 7)
To God be praise for planning before creating the world to make his people holy and blameless (1:4). To God be praise for planning to reconcile heaven and earth to himself through Christ at just the right time in history (1:10). To God be praise for arranging ahead of time to adopt those who believe as his children (1:5). We have seen no predestination language of this sort elsewhere in Paul’s writings. Sure, Romans 9 is extensively about God’s right to predetermine the fate of his people, but Paul there does not really celebrate being a part of the “elect.” Ephesians 1 gives us the primary instance in the Pauline collection where we find a celebration of being part of the elect, being part of those chosen by God.
Even here, however, the celebration is for those who are already in. Ephesians 1 does not use predestination language to exclude those who are out or predict those who will come in. It is language that praises God collectively for those who are already in. It thus functions, as we argued in chapter 4, as “after the fact” language that relates more to believers as a whole than as individual believers.
Indeed, if we take predestination language in Ephesians 1 as some do, we run into all sorts of thorny problems. Some, for example, would suggest that God not only arranged for us to be saved but for Adam to fail in the first place so that we would need to be saved. Surely it is foolish for us to try to figure out the details of what God was thinking before the creation. How could we possibly understand such things? Surely the poetic comments of passages like Ephesians 1 are the barest of pictures.
God knew the world would need fixed. God knew he would fix it through Christ. God knew that not all would avail themselves of Christ and be rescued. The precise dynamics are mystery, and the biblical texts themselves gave their original audiences pictures they could understand. We know that God was and is in control of all things. We know that God’s desire is to save. We know that not everyone is rescued in the end. The connection of these dots is mystery.
Even here, however, the celebration is for those who are already in. Ephesians 1 does not use predestination language to exclude those who are out or predict those who will come in. It is language that praises God collectively for those who are already in. It thus functions, as we argued in chapter 4, as “after the fact” language that relates more to believers as a whole than as individual believers.
Indeed, if we take predestination language in Ephesians 1 as some do, we run into all sorts of thorny problems. Some, for example, would suggest that God not only arranged for us to be saved but for Adam to fail in the first place so that we would need to be saved. Surely it is foolish for us to try to figure out the details of what God was thinking before the creation. How could we possibly understand such things? Surely the poetic comments of passages like Ephesians 1 are the barest of pictures.
God knew the world would need fixed. God knew he would fix it through Christ. God knew that not all would avail themselves of Christ and be rescued. The precise dynamics are mystery, and the biblical texts themselves gave their original audiences pictures they could understand. We know that God was and is in control of all things. We know that God’s desire is to save. We know that not everyone is rescued in the end. The connection of these dots is mystery.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Works: Ephesians vs. Romans (chap 7)
Ephesians 2:8-9 have had an immense impact on the history of Christianity these last five hundred years because these are some of the key verses of the Protestant Reformation: “by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Interpreters of Paul ever since have had a tendency to read Paul’s earlier letters through the lens of these verses. But there are some key distinctions between Ephesians 2:8-9 and letters like Romans and Galatians. It is actually Ephesians that is unusual for Paul.
For example, Paul does not usually speak of salvation in the past tense: “you have been saved.” Romans 5:9 speaks of how we will be saved from God’s wrath, namely, on the Day of Wrath which is to come. Salvation is thus something that has not yet happened literally. Even in Ephesians, “you have been saved” probably is a poetic way of saying that it is a sure thing. Because of God’s grace, because of the audience’s faith, their salvation is going to happen at the appropriate time.
A second difference is in what “works” are in mind. In Galatians and Romans, the works Paul has in mind are works of the Jewish Law. Paul may be writing to Gentiles, but he is defending his preaching in the light of objections from other Jewish believers. His basic message is that no one can be right with God by how well they keep the particulars of the Jewish Law, especially the parts that most distinguished Jew from Gentile: circumcision, food laws, Sabbath observance, and so forth.
But Ephesians is not a defense against Jewish opposition. Ephesians only uses the word “law” once, and there only to say that Christ has abolished it—also quite unlike Romans, as we will see below. So when Ephesians 2:9 says that its audience is not saved by works, it is saying something quite different from Romans 3:28. The works in question are not works of the Jewish Law, but good works in general. While Romans says that a Jew does not have an advantage before God because of the Jewish Law, Ephesians says that no one is good enough to escape God’s wrath.
Interestingly, Ephesians is accordingly more positive toward works once one is "saved." We are "created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Eph. 2:10). In Romans and Galatians, works of law are something a Gentile believer should not do. Indeed, Paul tells the Galatians that if they become circumcised, Christ will be of no use to them (Gal. 5:2). So works of Law are something a believer should not do, at least not a Gentile believer. In Ephesians, by contrast, good works are a good thing. They cannot save a person from God's wrath, but they are something God has created us to do in the name of Christ.
For example, Paul does not usually speak of salvation in the past tense: “you have been saved.” Romans 5:9 speaks of how we will be saved from God’s wrath, namely, on the Day of Wrath which is to come. Salvation is thus something that has not yet happened literally. Even in Ephesians, “you have been saved” probably is a poetic way of saying that it is a sure thing. Because of God’s grace, because of the audience’s faith, their salvation is going to happen at the appropriate time.
A second difference is in what “works” are in mind. In Galatians and Romans, the works Paul has in mind are works of the Jewish Law. Paul may be writing to Gentiles, but he is defending his preaching in the light of objections from other Jewish believers. His basic message is that no one can be right with God by how well they keep the particulars of the Jewish Law, especially the parts that most distinguished Jew from Gentile: circumcision, food laws, Sabbath observance, and so forth.
But Ephesians is not a defense against Jewish opposition. Ephesians only uses the word “law” once, and there only to say that Christ has abolished it—also quite unlike Romans, as we will see below. So when Ephesians 2:9 says that its audience is not saved by works, it is saying something quite different from Romans 3:28. The works in question are not works of the Jewish Law, but good works in general. While Romans says that a Jew does not have an advantage before God because of the Jewish Law, Ephesians says that no one is good enough to escape God’s wrath.
Interestingly, Ephesians is accordingly more positive toward works once one is "saved." We are "created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Eph. 2:10). In Romans and Galatians, works of law are something a Gentile believer should not do. Indeed, Paul tells the Galatians that if they become circumcised, Christ will be of no use to them (Gal. 5:2). So works of Law are something a believer should not do, at least not a Gentile believer. In Ephesians, by contrast, good works are a good thing. They cannot save a person from God's wrath, but they are something God has created us to do in the name of Christ.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Placing Ephesians (8.1)
Sure trying to finish up the second Paul book. Building the ediface of the last few chapters... will go back and fill in the blanks.
__________
Ephesians is difficult to place, like most of the letters we treat in the rest of this book. For example, even though we traditionally call it “Ephesians,” it does not at all seem likely it was written to Ephesus if it was written within Paul’s lifetime. Ephesians 3:2 tells the audience, “Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you.” But Paul spent three years at Ephesus and its immediate vicinity, so they not only had heard of Paul’s ministry. They had experienced it on the most intimate of terms. They had witnessed a massive riot at its end, and perhaps even observed a rather serious imprisonment of Paul at the end of his visit (cf. 2 Cor. 1:8).
Traditionally, it was thought that Paul wrote Ephesians while imprisoned at Rome some four or five years after leaving the city. The words of Ephesians 3:2 thus do not fit an Ephesian destination. Indeed, the words “at Ephesus” in its address (1:1) are missing from the earliest surviving copies of this letter, [1] leading some to suggest it was originally a “circular letter” sent to the whole region of Asia rather than to one specific city. [2] In keeping with this theory, the letter of Ephesians is the least concrete of any of the letters in the Pauline collection. It has the least details relating to either Paul’s situation or that of the audience. The only other individual named in the whole letter is a man named Tychicus. Paul mentions no other cowriter and gives no specific greetings at the end, unlike all the letters we have looked at so far.
Some have suggested Ephesians was a cover letter meant to summarize Paul’s teaching, written some time after Paul’s death, when his letters were being collected together and put into one document. [3] But this is speculation no one could ever prove. It does seem that Ephesians is the best candidate of all Paul’s letters for a fairly common type of writing in the ancient world, where someone re-presents the thinking of a famous authority from the past to a new generation or context. [4] In this scenario, Ephesians would present Paul’s message in summary form to a context some time after Paul’s death. Paul would not be the literal author, but no deception would need be involved any more than a parable or a novel involves deception. The original audience would know that Ephesians conveyed Paul’s voice rather than being written directly by Paul.
As we go through the message of Ephesians, we will leave it to you to fill in these details. You can think of Ephesians as a circular letter sent to Asia as a whole, with the audience filling in the “TO” line when it came to their location. [5] Or you can think of Ephesians as a literary device that summarizes Paul’s teaching for the generation after his death. In either case, we will read it as Christian Scripture, as God’s word both for our time and the time it was written. Indeed, the fact that Ephesians does not involve the specifics of a particular location makes it read more easily as timeless Scripture than some other biblical texts. It was clearly written in very general terms that not only were applicable throughout the world of its day but that float across history with great ease.
[1] Including not only some of the earliest church “fathers” like Origen (ca. AD200) but the earliest collection of Paul’s letters (p46, dating to about AD200) and the two most complete collections of the New Testament from the early 300s (so called Sinaiticus and Vaticanus).
[2] The second century “heretic” Marcion apparently referred to it as a letter to the Laodiceans, thinking it to be the letter mentioned in Colossians 4:16. Others have also taken this point of view in modern times. Colossae and Laodicea were only about ten miles apart in the Lycus Valley. Since Colossians and Ephesians share a good deal of content, it has been tempting to see them as twin letters sent at about the same time. Colossians is, however, much more concrete than Ephesians. Ephesians has nothing about it that would lend itself to a specific destination like the church at Laodicea.
[3] E.g., Edgar Goodspeed ***
[4] Called a pseudonymous writing. It is true that such writings were not typically in letter form. Most evangelical scholars have been hesitant to accept the presence of any pseudonymous writings in the New Testament because they have found it difficult to imagine that such writings would not involve deception.
[5] The earliest manuscripts simply read at 1:1, “to those who are,” and do not specify a location thereafter.
__________
Ephesians is difficult to place, like most of the letters we treat in the rest of this book. For example, even though we traditionally call it “Ephesians,” it does not at all seem likely it was written to Ephesus if it was written within Paul’s lifetime. Ephesians 3:2 tells the audience, “Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you.” But Paul spent three years at Ephesus and its immediate vicinity, so they not only had heard of Paul’s ministry. They had experienced it on the most intimate of terms. They had witnessed a massive riot at its end, and perhaps even observed a rather serious imprisonment of Paul at the end of his visit (cf. 2 Cor. 1:8).
Traditionally, it was thought that Paul wrote Ephesians while imprisoned at Rome some four or five years after leaving the city. The words of Ephesians 3:2 thus do not fit an Ephesian destination. Indeed, the words “at Ephesus” in its address (1:1) are missing from the earliest surviving copies of this letter, [1] leading some to suggest it was originally a “circular letter” sent to the whole region of Asia rather than to one specific city. [2] In keeping with this theory, the letter of Ephesians is the least concrete of any of the letters in the Pauline collection. It has the least details relating to either Paul’s situation or that of the audience. The only other individual named in the whole letter is a man named Tychicus. Paul mentions no other cowriter and gives no specific greetings at the end, unlike all the letters we have looked at so far.
Some have suggested Ephesians was a cover letter meant to summarize Paul’s teaching, written some time after Paul’s death, when his letters were being collected together and put into one document. [3] But this is speculation no one could ever prove. It does seem that Ephesians is the best candidate of all Paul’s letters for a fairly common type of writing in the ancient world, where someone re-presents the thinking of a famous authority from the past to a new generation or context. [4] In this scenario, Ephesians would present Paul’s message in summary form to a context some time after Paul’s death. Paul would not be the literal author, but no deception would need be involved any more than a parable or a novel involves deception. The original audience would know that Ephesians conveyed Paul’s voice rather than being written directly by Paul.
As we go through the message of Ephesians, we will leave it to you to fill in these details. You can think of Ephesians as a circular letter sent to Asia as a whole, with the audience filling in the “TO” line when it came to their location. [5] Or you can think of Ephesians as a literary device that summarizes Paul’s teaching for the generation after his death. In either case, we will read it as Christian Scripture, as God’s word both for our time and the time it was written. Indeed, the fact that Ephesians does not involve the specifics of a particular location makes it read more easily as timeless Scripture than some other biblical texts. It was clearly written in very general terms that not only were applicable throughout the world of its day but that float across history with great ease.
[1] Including not only some of the earliest church “fathers” like Origen (ca. AD200) but the earliest collection of Paul’s letters (p46, dating to about AD200) and the two most complete collections of the New Testament from the early 300s (so called Sinaiticus and Vaticanus).
[2] The second century “heretic” Marcion apparently referred to it as a letter to the Laodiceans, thinking it to be the letter mentioned in Colossians 4:16. Others have also taken this point of view in modern times. Colossae and Laodicea were only about ten miles apart in the Lycus Valley. Since Colossians and Ephesians share a good deal of content, it has been tempting to see them as twin letters sent at about the same time. Colossians is, however, much more concrete than Ephesians. Ephesians has nothing about it that would lend itself to a specific destination like the church at Laodicea.
[3] E.g., Edgar Goodspeed ***
[4] Called a pseudonymous writing. It is true that such writings were not typically in letter form. Most evangelical scholars have been hesitant to accept the presence of any pseudonymous writings in the New Testament because they have found it difficult to imagine that such writings would not involve deception.
[5] The earliest manuscripts simply read at 1:1, “to those who are,” and do not specify a location thereafter.
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Mystery--Final Answer
Well, here's what I finally came up with:
__________
What is the Mystery?
One of the key themes of the letter we call Ephesians is the unity of the church, particularly as it relates to Jews and non-Jews, or Gentiles. Both Jew and Gentile belong to the same body and have the same Spirit (4:4). They have the same God and Father, the same Lord, faith, and baptism (4:5-6). Ephesians highlights the social unity between Jew and Gentile more than any other book in the New Testament.
A Mystery
Ephesians also reflects how unexpected this development must have been for the early Christians. We have hints of the mysteriousness of this new phase in God’s relationship with the world in earlier letters of Paul. Romans 11 talks about the mystery in slightly different terms. In Romans 11:25 Paul is dealing with the strange situation of his day in which as many or, probably, more Gentiles had come to believe that Jesus was the Lord of the world than Jews.
How strange, Paul recognizes, that fewer among God’s own people believed in their messiah than those outside! Here is the mystery, Paul says, “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25). Why it happened this way we do not know. Paul can only exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments” (11:33).
By the time of Colossians, the mystery is discussed in more generic terms. Addressing a Gentile audience, Colossians says that the mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Glory is something Paul taught was the destiny of all believers. As Hebrews tells us more explicitly, God had created humanity to be crowned with glory and honor over the creation (Heb. 2:7). Unfortunately, all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). At present we do not yet see humanity with this glory (Heb. 2:8). So Jesus came to lead many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10). This “hope of glory” in Colossians is now something that Gentiles as well as Jews can hope for because of Christ.
Ephesians finally expresses this mystery even more straightforwardly than Colossians. The mystery is plainly stated in 3:6 as being the fact “that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” This is the “mystery of Christ” (3:4), a mystery that “through his blood” the Gentiles have been brought near (2:13). “In his flesh,” Christ abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that had separated Gentile from Jew, and the two were now reconciled “through the cross” (2:16).
Ephesians uses language here that is different and starker than Romans. For example, Romans 3:31 emphasizes that justification by faith—being considered right with God because of our trust in what he has done for us through Christ—does not “nullify the law.” Paul uses the word law in different ways that can be confusing, but the later distinction Christians made between the “moral” parts of the Jewish Law (like the Ten Commandments) and the “Jew-specific” parts (like circumcision or not eating pork) gets at the gist of what was not nullified (the “moral” parts) and what was abolished, at least in terms of Gentiles (namely, the Jew-specific parts).
That God would do so was a mystery. The Old Testament assumes throughout that God has a special relationship with Israel and that Israel’s blessing was connected to its keeping of the particulars of the Jewish Law, God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut. 28). Provision is made for the “alien” in the land (e.g., Deut. 10:19), but the Old Testament as a whole assumes that those outside Israel worship other gods and are almost always God’s enemies destined for judgment. It may be said to Abraham that all nations on earth would be blessed through him (e.g., Gen. 22:18). But prior to Christ that blessing was understood to come through Israel, not directly to the Gentiles the same as to Israel!
A New Revelation
A feature of Ephesians and Colossians (as well as of Romans 16:25, which probably was not part of the original copy of Romans, but nevertheless was added to many copies of Romans very early on) is a sense that this mystery of the equal inclusion of Gentiles alongside Jews “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery, “has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” In a similar vein, the later ending of Romans says that this mystery was “hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him” (Rom. 16:25-26).
These passages reflect how unexpected this development must have been to the earliest Christians, including Paul. Indeed, we remember that before Christ appeared directly to Paul, he thought the very idea that the messiah would die on a cross was foolish, probably fighting words! He was a Pharisee, a group that emphasized separating yourself to God by living a particularly pure life (by the standards of the Jewish Law). What an unexpected turn around for him, now to think that God would include the Gentiles apart from the Law through the reconciling blood of Christ, Gentiles who almost by definition were unclean according to the laws of Leviticus! But it was Jesus who set this trajectory by trying to redeem sinners within Israel like prostitutes and tax collectors. To see Christ’s blood potentially redeeming the whole world, even non-Jews, thus fit the spirit of Jesus’ mission while he was on earth.
The Consensus of the Saints
We have the great benefit of hindsight on these sorts of things. Paul’s writings and Acts give us hints that the full inclusion of the Gentiles was not immediately obvious to everyone in the early church. Arguments along these lines dominate Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans and we find hints in Acts 15 and 21 of how live these issues were even within a decade of Paul’s death. But Ephesians and Colossians do not blink to tell us that the apostles and prophets had come to recognize this mystery (Eph. 3:5). Prophets here does not likely refer to the Old Testament prophets but to prophets within the early church. The implication would seem to be that, whatever struggles the earliest Christians might have had in coming to accept this mystery, by the time of the apostles’ deaths and the passing of the first generation, it was agreed that God had done something very unexpected from a Jewish standpoint. Through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, all people now had equal access to God, whether Jew or Gentile.
__________
What is the Mystery?
One of the key themes of the letter we call Ephesians is the unity of the church, particularly as it relates to Jews and non-Jews, or Gentiles. Both Jew and Gentile belong to the same body and have the same Spirit (4:4). They have the same God and Father, the same Lord, faith, and baptism (4:5-6). Ephesians highlights the social unity between Jew and Gentile more than any other book in the New Testament.
A Mystery
Ephesians also reflects how unexpected this development must have been for the early Christians. We have hints of the mysteriousness of this new phase in God’s relationship with the world in earlier letters of Paul. Romans 11 talks about the mystery in slightly different terms. In Romans 11:25 Paul is dealing with the strange situation of his day in which as many or, probably, more Gentiles had come to believe that Jesus was the Lord of the world than Jews.
How strange, Paul recognizes, that fewer among God’s own people believed in their messiah than those outside! Here is the mystery, Paul says, “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25). Why it happened this way we do not know. Paul can only exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments” (11:33).
By the time of Colossians, the mystery is discussed in more generic terms. Addressing a Gentile audience, Colossians says that the mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Glory is something Paul taught was the destiny of all believers. As Hebrews tells us more explicitly, God had created humanity to be crowned with glory and honor over the creation (Heb. 2:7). Unfortunately, all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). At present we do not yet see humanity with this glory (Heb. 2:8). So Jesus came to lead many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10). This “hope of glory” in Colossians is now something that Gentiles as well as Jews can hope for because of Christ.
Ephesians finally expresses this mystery even more straightforwardly than Colossians. The mystery is plainly stated in 3:6 as being the fact “that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” This is the “mystery of Christ” (3:4), a mystery that “through his blood” the Gentiles have been brought near (2:13). “In his flesh,” Christ abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that had separated Gentile from Jew, and the two were now reconciled “through the cross” (2:16).
Ephesians uses language here that is different and starker than Romans. For example, Romans 3:31 emphasizes that justification by faith—being considered right with God because of our trust in what he has done for us through Christ—does not “nullify the law.” Paul uses the word law in different ways that can be confusing, but the later distinction Christians made between the “moral” parts of the Jewish Law (like the Ten Commandments) and the “Jew-specific” parts (like circumcision or not eating pork) gets at the gist of what was not nullified (the “moral” parts) and what was abolished, at least in terms of Gentiles (namely, the Jew-specific parts).
That God would do so was a mystery. The Old Testament assumes throughout that God has a special relationship with Israel and that Israel’s blessing was connected to its keeping of the particulars of the Jewish Law, God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut. 28). Provision is made for the “alien” in the land (e.g., Deut. 10:19), but the Old Testament as a whole assumes that those outside Israel worship other gods and are almost always God’s enemies destined for judgment. It may be said to Abraham that all nations on earth would be blessed through him (e.g., Gen. 22:18). But prior to Christ that blessing was understood to come through Israel, not directly to the Gentiles the same as to Israel!
A New Revelation
A feature of Ephesians and Colossians (as well as of Romans 16:25, which probably was not part of the original copy of Romans, but nevertheless was added to many copies of Romans very early on) is a sense that this mystery of the equal inclusion of Gentiles alongside Jews “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery, “has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” In a similar vein, the later ending of Romans says that this mystery was “hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him” (Rom. 16:25-26).
These passages reflect how unexpected this development must have been to the earliest Christians, including Paul. Indeed, we remember that before Christ appeared directly to Paul, he thought the very idea that the messiah would die on a cross was foolish, probably fighting words! He was a Pharisee, a group that emphasized separating yourself to God by living a particularly pure life (by the standards of the Jewish Law). What an unexpected turn around for him, now to think that God would include the Gentiles apart from the Law through the reconciling blood of Christ, Gentiles who almost by definition were unclean according to the laws of Leviticus! But it was Jesus who set this trajectory by trying to redeem sinners within Israel like prostitutes and tax collectors. To see Christ’s blood potentially redeeming the whole world, even non-Jews, thus fit the spirit of Jesus’ mission while he was on earth.
The Consensus of the Saints
We have the great benefit of hindsight on these sorts of things. Paul’s writings and Acts give us hints that the full inclusion of the Gentiles was not immediately obvious to everyone in the early church. Arguments along these lines dominate Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans and we find hints in Acts 15 and 21 of how live these issues were even within a decade of Paul’s death. But Ephesians and Colossians do not blink to tell us that the apostles and prophets had come to recognize this mystery (Eph. 3:5). Prophets here does not likely refer to the Old Testament prophets but to prophets within the early church. The implication would seem to be that, whatever struggles the earliest Christians might have had in coming to accept this mystery, by the time of the apostles’ deaths and the passing of the first generation, it was agreed that God had done something very unexpected from a Jewish standpoint. Through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, all people now had equal access to God, whether Jew or Gentile.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
What is the Mystery of Ephesians 3?
I have a small writing assignment due Friday, thought I'd take some notes here.
First, it's pretty clear that the mystery of Ephesians 3:5 is "that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus." This is the "mystery of Christ" (3:4), meaning the mystery that "through his blood" (2:13) the Gentiles have been brought near. "In his flesh" (2:15) Christ has abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that separated Gentile from Jew, reconciled "through the cross" (2:16).
Colossians has a similar passage, as it does to a great deal of Ephesians. Colossians 1:27 says the mystery is "Christ in you, the hope of glory," where the "you" in question are the Gentiles. The mystery in Colossians is thus again that the Gentiles can have hope of glory, can have Christ in them.
The mystery in Romans 11:25 is a little different. There the mystery does indeed involve the inclusion of the Gentiles, but the mystery does not seem to be so much that the Gentiles are coming in but that Israel is experiencing a hardening until the full number of the Gentiles come. This is thus yet another point at which Ephesians and in this case Colossians as well differ somewhat from Paul's earlier letters.
The mystery in Romans 16:25 is more like Ephesians but, in my opinion, was not part of the original text of Romans.
A feature of Ephesians and Colossians, as well as the addition to Romans 16, is the sense that this mystery was "not made known ... in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets" (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery "has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints." The ending of Romans says that the mystery was "hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God" (Rom. 16:25-26).
What these passages reflect is how unexpected it was that the Gentiles would be brought together with the Jews into one body through Christ on more or less equal footing. In Ephesians, this equal reconciliation includes the abolishment of the Law (2:16), clearly unexpected from an Old Testament standpoint. Paul's sense of mystery in Romans 11, although slightly different from Ephesians, relates to how strange it is that the Gentiles seem more receptive to the gospel than the Jews at large. Strange, since Jesus is the Jewish messiah! It is at least possible that Ephesians' more generic mystery of the Gentiles' inclusion may also reflect somewhere in the background the strange fact that Christianity was becoming a religion for Gentiles as much as Jews.
The revelation of this new understanding was a feature of the earliest Christian apostles and prophets (Eph. 3:5), of the Christian saints (Col. 1:26), and of the "prophetic writings" (Rom. 16:26). The implication would seem to be that individuals prior to the Christian era did not see the inclusion of the Gentiles in the words of the Old Testament. Rather, this was a spiritual understanding of the biblical texts understood as prophecy, one that was unknown prior to Christ.
It is interesting that this mystery is known here not just to Paul, but to the "apostles and prophets" of the Church, whom Paul earlier in chapter 2 has called the foundation of the Church. In Paul's earlier writings, we do not necessarily get the impression that the other apostles were fully comfortable with his mission to the Gentiles. But the implication of Ephesians 3 would seem to be that, whenever the foundation was understood to be laid, the apostles in general, as well as that significant company of early Christian prophets, were understood to endorce the Gentiles' inclusion.
So there are some notes...
First, it's pretty clear that the mystery of Ephesians 3:5 is "that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus." This is the "mystery of Christ" (3:4), meaning the mystery that "through his blood" (2:13) the Gentiles have been brought near. "In his flesh" (2:15) Christ has abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that separated Gentile from Jew, reconciled "through the cross" (2:16).
Colossians has a similar passage, as it does to a great deal of Ephesians. Colossians 1:27 says the mystery is "Christ in you, the hope of glory," where the "you" in question are the Gentiles. The mystery in Colossians is thus again that the Gentiles can have hope of glory, can have Christ in them.
The mystery in Romans 11:25 is a little different. There the mystery does indeed involve the inclusion of the Gentiles, but the mystery does not seem to be so much that the Gentiles are coming in but that Israel is experiencing a hardening until the full number of the Gentiles come. This is thus yet another point at which Ephesians and in this case Colossians as well differ somewhat from Paul's earlier letters.
The mystery in Romans 16:25 is more like Ephesians but, in my opinion, was not part of the original text of Romans.
A feature of Ephesians and Colossians, as well as the addition to Romans 16, is the sense that this mystery was "not made known ... in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets" (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery "has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints." The ending of Romans says that the mystery was "hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God" (Rom. 16:25-26).
What these passages reflect is how unexpected it was that the Gentiles would be brought together with the Jews into one body through Christ on more or less equal footing. In Ephesians, this equal reconciliation includes the abolishment of the Law (2:16), clearly unexpected from an Old Testament standpoint. Paul's sense of mystery in Romans 11, although slightly different from Ephesians, relates to how strange it is that the Gentiles seem more receptive to the gospel than the Jews at large. Strange, since Jesus is the Jewish messiah! It is at least possible that Ephesians' more generic mystery of the Gentiles' inclusion may also reflect somewhere in the background the strange fact that Christianity was becoming a religion for Gentiles as much as Jews.
The revelation of this new understanding was a feature of the earliest Christian apostles and prophets (Eph. 3:5), of the Christian saints (Col. 1:26), and of the "prophetic writings" (Rom. 16:26). The implication would seem to be that individuals prior to the Christian era did not see the inclusion of the Gentiles in the words of the Old Testament. Rather, this was a spiritual understanding of the biblical texts understood as prophecy, one that was unknown prior to Christ.
It is interesting that this mystery is known here not just to Paul, but to the "apostles and prophets" of the Church, whom Paul earlier in chapter 2 has called the foundation of the Church. In Paul's earlier writings, we do not necessarily get the impression that the other apostles were fully comfortable with his mission to the Gentiles. But the implication of Ephesians 3 would seem to be that, whenever the foundation was understood to be laid, the apostles in general, as well as that significant company of early Christian prophets, were understood to endorce the Gentiles' inclusion.
So there are some notes...
Friday, March 20, 2009
Tom Wright: Justification 6
This is my review of the sixth chapter of N. T. Wright's, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, Wright's response to John Piper's book, The Future of Justification.
Sorry it's taken so long. I have to work at least occasionally... :-)
Chapters reviewed thus far:
Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement
Chapter 3: First Century Judaism
Chapter 4: Justification: Definitions and Puzzles
Chapter 5: Exegesis of Galatians
And now, Chapter 6: "Interlude: Philippians, Corinthians, Ephesians." Only one more chapter (a biggie, Romans) and we're done.
Philippians
Wright sees 3:2-11 picking up and building on the Christological poem of 2:6-11. I personally don't see this in anything but largely coincidental connections. If some people tend to see the discontinuities between things, Wright's besetting sin is probably that he sees more connections than are there. While I don't side with them, it is no surprise that some scholars think 3:2ff might have come from a separate letter to the Philippians as they seem to come out of nowhere.
I'm not sure how to summarize this section other than interesting snippets. On 3:6, "as far as righteousness according to Law, [I was] blameless." Wright agrees with Dunn that this statement includes participation in the usual means of atonement. I still agree a little more with Stendahl than them here--Paul really felt like he did a pretty good job at Law-keeping before believing on Christ.
He looks a little at 4QMMT. He thinks the question "works of law" is answering is "How can you tell in the present who will be vindicated in the future?" He nods to Sanders that this was about staying in rather than getting in. "Works of law" were thus the works "which would function as a sign in the present that he was a part of the people who would be vindicated in the future" (125).
I feel a little uneasy about this definition on the lips of Wright, because on his lips words like "people" take on loaded meanings. For me, the phrase "works of Law" for Paul did, primarily, have to do with the more "Jewish" parts and they were about being acceptable to God within the context of those already in Israel. I admit, however, that Paul can go more abstract into more generic acts of goodness.
Wright rightly sees that moral holiness is important to Paul in Philippians 3, something I have repeatedly emphasized as a reason why those in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition should generally be friendly to the so called new perspective on Paul.
Corinthians
Wright looks at two passages here, 1 Corinthians 1:30 and 2 Corinthians 5:21. The first is a very general statement, "From him are you in Messiah Jesus, who became wisdom for us from God, yes, righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Wright rightly concludes that "Paul is not here trying to make a precise theological statement" (133).
As a side note, he says of sanctification that it is "in one sense their status as God's people, but is also, and more particularly, their actual life of holiness through the power of God working in them by the spirit." This would be true of the various ways Paul uses the word, although I suspect in this particular verse Paul is thinking more of their connection to God's holiness rather than their moral life.
Then he gets to the biggie: 2 Corinthians 5:21: "He made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God." This is one of those signature interpretations for Wright. The traditional interpretation of this verse is an interchange. Jesus had no sin and we did. Jesus had righteousness and we did not. God makes the one without sin--Jesus--to be sin and in exchange we who were with sin become the righteousness of God.
This interpretation seems so straightforward, so balanced, that when I first heard of Wright's interpretration, I scoffed at it. What is his interpretation? His interpretation is that becoming the righteousness of God is "that, in the Messiah, we might embody God's faithfulness, God's covenant faithfulness, God's action in reconciling the world to himself" (140). Gufaw, says I.
But I considered the argument and it grew on me. It grew on me for precisely the reasons Wright presents.
1) The idea of God's righteousness was not something Paul came up with. It had a history and it had a history in relation to God's relationship to His people. It referred to God's propensity not only to judge sin but also to His propensity to save His people. There is thus a bias in the language that makes a meaning consonant with this idea the most likely meaning, the default.
Just on linguistic grounds alone, then, we would expect the statement, "we become the righteousness of God" to mean that we establish concretely God's propensity to save His people and, indeed, the world.
2) Paul has indeed been talking about this subject for chapters. And he continues to talk about it. I'm reformulating Wright's arguments into my own arguments here to some extent.
Wright spends chapters talking about the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to Paul as a minister. The verses just preceding have that great verse about the ministry of reconciliation (that Wright does not think is directed at the Corinthians).
He has a few other arguments, but those two are the primary ones. He does mention the possible intertextuality with Isaiah 49:8.
Ephesians
This section seems somewhat of an aside to me, since Ephesians does not even use the word justification. It has the famous verse, "By grace you have been saved through faith," but it does not use Paul's characteristic language of justification by faith of Christ instead of works of law. One strength of the "new" perspective is that it has noticed this distinction for the most part. The "old" perspective, I have noticed, uses passages in Ephesians and 1 Timothy to read statements in the key letters, thus skewing them rather than letting them say what they say in their own right.
I think Wright's main point in this section is to show that soteriology and ecclesiology sit side by side in Ephesians.
On Monday, perhaps, the final review of this book, and then we're off to his Surprised by Hope with hopes to finish by Easter.
Sorry it's taken so long. I have to work at least occasionally... :-)
Chapters reviewed thus far:
Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement
Chapter 3: First Century Judaism
Chapter 4: Justification: Definitions and Puzzles
Chapter 5: Exegesis of Galatians
And now, Chapter 6: "Interlude: Philippians, Corinthians, Ephesians." Only one more chapter (a biggie, Romans) and we're done.
Philippians
Wright sees 3:2-11 picking up and building on the Christological poem of 2:6-11. I personally don't see this in anything but largely coincidental connections. If some people tend to see the discontinuities between things, Wright's besetting sin is probably that he sees more connections than are there. While I don't side with them, it is no surprise that some scholars think 3:2ff might have come from a separate letter to the Philippians as they seem to come out of nowhere.
I'm not sure how to summarize this section other than interesting snippets. On 3:6, "as far as righteousness according to Law, [I was] blameless." Wright agrees with Dunn that this statement includes participation in the usual means of atonement. I still agree a little more with Stendahl than them here--Paul really felt like he did a pretty good job at Law-keeping before believing on Christ.
He looks a little at 4QMMT. He thinks the question "works of law" is answering is "How can you tell in the present who will be vindicated in the future?" He nods to Sanders that this was about staying in rather than getting in. "Works of law" were thus the works "which would function as a sign in the present that he was a part of the people who would be vindicated in the future" (125).
I feel a little uneasy about this definition on the lips of Wright, because on his lips words like "people" take on loaded meanings. For me, the phrase "works of Law" for Paul did, primarily, have to do with the more "Jewish" parts and they were about being acceptable to God within the context of those already in Israel. I admit, however, that Paul can go more abstract into more generic acts of goodness.
Wright rightly sees that moral holiness is important to Paul in Philippians 3, something I have repeatedly emphasized as a reason why those in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition should generally be friendly to the so called new perspective on Paul.
Corinthians
Wright looks at two passages here, 1 Corinthians 1:30 and 2 Corinthians 5:21. The first is a very general statement, "From him are you in Messiah Jesus, who became wisdom for us from God, yes, righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Wright rightly concludes that "Paul is not here trying to make a precise theological statement" (133).
As a side note, he says of sanctification that it is "in one sense their status as God's people, but is also, and more particularly, their actual life of holiness through the power of God working in them by the spirit." This would be true of the various ways Paul uses the word, although I suspect in this particular verse Paul is thinking more of their connection to God's holiness rather than their moral life.
Then he gets to the biggie: 2 Corinthians 5:21: "He made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God." This is one of those signature interpretations for Wright. The traditional interpretation of this verse is an interchange. Jesus had no sin and we did. Jesus had righteousness and we did not. God makes the one without sin--Jesus--to be sin and in exchange we who were with sin become the righteousness of God.
This interpretation seems so straightforward, so balanced, that when I first heard of Wright's interpretration, I scoffed at it. What is his interpretation? His interpretation is that becoming the righteousness of God is "that, in the Messiah, we might embody God's faithfulness, God's covenant faithfulness, God's action in reconciling the world to himself" (140). Gufaw, says I.
But I considered the argument and it grew on me. It grew on me for precisely the reasons Wright presents.
1) The idea of God's righteousness was not something Paul came up with. It had a history and it had a history in relation to God's relationship to His people. It referred to God's propensity not only to judge sin but also to His propensity to save His people. There is thus a bias in the language that makes a meaning consonant with this idea the most likely meaning, the default.
Just on linguistic grounds alone, then, we would expect the statement, "we become the righteousness of God" to mean that we establish concretely God's propensity to save His people and, indeed, the world.
2) Paul has indeed been talking about this subject for chapters. And he continues to talk about it. I'm reformulating Wright's arguments into my own arguments here to some extent.
Wright spends chapters talking about the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to Paul as a minister. The verses just preceding have that great verse about the ministry of reconciliation (that Wright does not think is directed at the Corinthians).
He has a few other arguments, but those two are the primary ones. He does mention the possible intertextuality with Isaiah 49:8.
Ephesians
This section seems somewhat of an aside to me, since Ephesians does not even use the word justification. It has the famous verse, "By grace you have been saved through faith," but it does not use Paul's characteristic language of justification by faith of Christ instead of works of law. One strength of the "new" perspective is that it has noticed this distinction for the most part. The "old" perspective, I have noticed, uses passages in Ephesians and 1 Timothy to read statements in the key letters, thus skewing them rather than letting them say what they say in their own right.
I think Wright's main point in this section is to show that soteriology and ecclesiology sit side by side in Ephesians.
On Monday, perhaps, the final review of this book, and then we're off to his Surprised by Hope with hopes to finish by Easter.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Ephesians 4
Same drill. If you're in the class, 100 word initial response, 2 more substantial responses to other comments that ensue. Outsiders are also welcome to participate. Happy Thanksgiving!
_______
4:1 Therefore, I urge you, I the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the call with which you were called,
Here seems to begin a new major unit in Ephesians. The idea of living worthily also appears in Philippians 1:27. The idea of calling reappears, as we saw so strongly in Ephesians 1.
4:2-3 ... with all humility and meekness, with patience, being patient with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the common bond of peace:
The importance of unity will now appear in its strongest form. Presumably the original nature of the unity in mind was the unity between Jew and Gentile, but certainly the idea applies as forcefully as ever in the fragmentation of the modern church. We may disagree on things like doctrine and even to an extent on practice, but we are to be at peace with each other. Humility, meekness, patience, love, peace--these are obvious fundamentals of Christian faith... and just as obviously missing in the church today.
4:4-6 ... one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all things, who is over all things and through all things and in all things.
The "body" here is much broader than in 1 Corinthians, where the body of Christ and the body as the temple of the Spirit is localized to the Corinthian congregation. But Ephesians now sees the entirety of Christendom as one body with one Spirit enlivening it.
We might today extend the image over time to say that the entire "communion of the saints" across the ages, all who have been filled with the Holy Spirit and thus who have been children of God, are the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the life force within that body.
Ephesians, as 1 Corinthians 8:6, distinguishes Jesus the one Lord from the one God and Father of all things. We are thus on a trajectory to the later Trinity but apparently not there yet. I'm sure Bauckham has an ingenious explanation for how this verse can fit with his thesis.
The content of the one faith is not unpacked here. 1:15 could speak of the audience's faith in the Lord Jesus, but the expression is a little odd. It could refer to the faith they have through the Lord Jesus or the faith they have as they are in the Lord Jesus. Certainly the Pauline letters as a whole lead us to see this as a faith toward God, particularly for what He has done in Christ.
The one baptism probably refers to water baptism. It does not preclude the Spirit baptism of Acts, since Ephesians is probably only thinking about one water baptism. Of course this verse also should not be taken as an argument against ever being baptized a second time. These sorts of later debates are completely foreign to Ephesians.
4:7 And to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.
This sense of the Messiah measuring out various giftings or gracings continues through 4:16. The style and vocabulary in this and the next paragraph is very unusual for Paul, one of the primary arguments that Ephesians was written by a secretary or heir of Paul. It differs even from that of Colossians, which has several parallels to this section (cmp. Eph. 4:16 to Col. 2:19).
I personally think that at the very least we need to think of a Pauline secretary having more to do with the composition of Ephesians than Paul, likely using Colossians as a starting point. If Paul were in serious hardship at the time or somewhat inaccessible in prison, such a process would be perfectly understandable. I also do not think it hinders the authority or truthfulness of Ephesians to picture a Pauline heir representing his message to a later generation, presuming that no deception was involved. Each will have to decide.
In any case, it is deeply ironic to me that John McRay, emeritus professor at Wheaton, uses Ephesians as the starting point for understanding Paul's theology. Ephesians may be, as I think Snodgrass implies, the most influential lens through which Paul has been read in Christian history (cf. 17). Perhaps you could therefore make a case for reading Paul's other letters in that way. From the standpoint of what those other letters actually meant originally, however, to read the rest of Paul through the lens of Ephesians is to skew your understanding of those earlier letters ever so slightly.
4:8-10 Therefore it says, "Having ascended to the height he took captive captivity, he gave gifts to mortals." And what is the "He ascended," except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended himself is also the one who ascended above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.
This statement is not about the incarnation, but about Christ's death and resurrection. "He descended to the dead. On the third day he ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty."
4:11-12 And he himself gave on the one hand apostles, and then prophets, and then evangelists, and then pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the holy ones for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ,
This is not a formula or a prescription for how we should structure the church today. This is simply the way it played out in the early church. If we go with the criterion of Acts 1, even Paul himself was not an apostle. If we go with Paul's apparent criteria (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:1), an apostle needed to see the risen Lord and receive a commission to go preach the gospel from him. Paul, however, views himself as "untimely born" as an apostle even some 3 years after the resurrection. That would seem to close the book on there having been any apostles since that time.
The early church had prophets, and 1 Corinthians 14 presumes that they were still around in the local church. Matthew 7:21-23 seems to be a thinly veiled critique of prophets in Matthew's day, but there is no place in the NT where the door is closed on such prophets in the church (No, 1 Cor. 13:8 doesn't count). I will say, however, that Ephesians probably does see the foundational prophets as past tense. So we would say that no prophet today has the authority of a New Testament author.
We notice that the function of these individuals is not to glorify themselves but to equip the "saints," the common Christian made holy by the Spirit within them. Everyone apparently is to do the work of the ministry. These individuals do not build up themselves but the body of Christ.
4:13-14 ... until we all attain to the oneness of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of maturity of the fullness of the Christ, so that we are no longer babies, driven and tossed by every wind of teaching with the cunning of mortals with trickery for the trickery of error,
These verses are about the church growing up even more than we as individuals growing up. Each image has to do with a full grown person who can tell the difference between sound teaching and erroneous teaching.
4:15-16 ... but that, speaking the truth in love, we might grow into him in all things, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being joined and held together through every ligament of the support according to the working in the measure of each part for the increase of the body, it makes itself increase for its own edification in love.
This verse is very similar to Colossians 2:19. Christ as the head here is the nourisher of the body. It is a quite fantastic image. We should probably keep the nature of headship language here in mind when we get to 5:23.
Speaking the truth in love in context here seems to connect to true teaching in the previous verses, which probably as much involved teaching on living as teaching on belief. Certainly we should tell our spouse how they look "with love" too. But Ephesians seems rather to have in mind addressing those whose are inappropriate in practice with love. Applying this verse today requires great caution, for we are probably far less "right" than we think about our own understandings. The verses that follow perhaps push us toward seeing sexual immorality as what is primarily in view.
4:17-19 Therefore, I say this and witness in the Lord [that you are] no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk in the foolishness of their mind, since they have been darkened in thought, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, through the hardness of their heart, who, having lost their feeling, they have delivered themselves to sensuality leading to the working of every uncleanness in covetousness.
Even though the audience used to be Gentile, it is no longer like the Gentiles. The foolishness Ephesians seems to have primarily in mind is that of sexual immorality. The other stock foolishness of the Gentiles from a Jewish perspective was that of idolatry, but I don't see that here.
4:20-24 But you did not learn the Christ in this way, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, for you--in terms of [your] previous conduct--to put off in terms of the desires of deceit, the old person that is being destroyed, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new person that was created according to God in righteousness and the holiness of the truth.
This is similar to Colossians 3:10 and Romans 6:6. Ephesians sees a person becoming righteous and holy in life living because we are a new person. We don't live the way we used to.
_______
4:1 Therefore, I urge you, I the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the call with which you were called,
Here seems to begin a new major unit in Ephesians. The idea of living worthily also appears in Philippians 1:27. The idea of calling reappears, as we saw so strongly in Ephesians 1.
4:2-3 ... with all humility and meekness, with patience, being patient with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the common bond of peace:
The importance of unity will now appear in its strongest form. Presumably the original nature of the unity in mind was the unity between Jew and Gentile, but certainly the idea applies as forcefully as ever in the fragmentation of the modern church. We may disagree on things like doctrine and even to an extent on practice, but we are to be at peace with each other. Humility, meekness, patience, love, peace--these are obvious fundamentals of Christian faith... and just as obviously missing in the church today.
4:4-6 ... one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all things, who is over all things and through all things and in all things.
The "body" here is much broader than in 1 Corinthians, where the body of Christ and the body as the temple of the Spirit is localized to the Corinthian congregation. But Ephesians now sees the entirety of Christendom as one body with one Spirit enlivening it.
We might today extend the image over time to say that the entire "communion of the saints" across the ages, all who have been filled with the Holy Spirit and thus who have been children of God, are the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the life force within that body.
Ephesians, as 1 Corinthians 8:6, distinguishes Jesus the one Lord from the one God and Father of all things. We are thus on a trajectory to the later Trinity but apparently not there yet. I'm sure Bauckham has an ingenious explanation for how this verse can fit with his thesis.
The content of the one faith is not unpacked here. 1:15 could speak of the audience's faith in the Lord Jesus, but the expression is a little odd. It could refer to the faith they have through the Lord Jesus or the faith they have as they are in the Lord Jesus. Certainly the Pauline letters as a whole lead us to see this as a faith toward God, particularly for what He has done in Christ.
The one baptism probably refers to water baptism. It does not preclude the Spirit baptism of Acts, since Ephesians is probably only thinking about one water baptism. Of course this verse also should not be taken as an argument against ever being baptized a second time. These sorts of later debates are completely foreign to Ephesians.
4:7 And to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.
This sense of the Messiah measuring out various giftings or gracings continues through 4:16. The style and vocabulary in this and the next paragraph is very unusual for Paul, one of the primary arguments that Ephesians was written by a secretary or heir of Paul. It differs even from that of Colossians, which has several parallels to this section (cmp. Eph. 4:16 to Col. 2:19).
I personally think that at the very least we need to think of a Pauline secretary having more to do with the composition of Ephesians than Paul, likely using Colossians as a starting point. If Paul were in serious hardship at the time or somewhat inaccessible in prison, such a process would be perfectly understandable. I also do not think it hinders the authority or truthfulness of Ephesians to picture a Pauline heir representing his message to a later generation, presuming that no deception was involved. Each will have to decide.
In any case, it is deeply ironic to me that John McRay, emeritus professor at Wheaton, uses Ephesians as the starting point for understanding Paul's theology. Ephesians may be, as I think Snodgrass implies, the most influential lens through which Paul has been read in Christian history (cf. 17). Perhaps you could therefore make a case for reading Paul's other letters in that way. From the standpoint of what those other letters actually meant originally, however, to read the rest of Paul through the lens of Ephesians is to skew your understanding of those earlier letters ever so slightly.
4:8-10 Therefore it says, "Having ascended to the height he took captive captivity, he gave gifts to mortals." And what is the "He ascended," except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended himself is also the one who ascended above all the heavens so that he might fill all things.
This statement is not about the incarnation, but about Christ's death and resurrection. "He descended to the dead. On the third day he ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty."
4:11-12 And he himself gave on the one hand apostles, and then prophets, and then evangelists, and then pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the holy ones for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ,
This is not a formula or a prescription for how we should structure the church today. This is simply the way it played out in the early church. If we go with the criterion of Acts 1, even Paul himself was not an apostle. If we go with Paul's apparent criteria (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:1), an apostle needed to see the risen Lord and receive a commission to go preach the gospel from him. Paul, however, views himself as "untimely born" as an apostle even some 3 years after the resurrection. That would seem to close the book on there having been any apostles since that time.
The early church had prophets, and 1 Corinthians 14 presumes that they were still around in the local church. Matthew 7:21-23 seems to be a thinly veiled critique of prophets in Matthew's day, but there is no place in the NT where the door is closed on such prophets in the church (No, 1 Cor. 13:8 doesn't count). I will say, however, that Ephesians probably does see the foundational prophets as past tense. So we would say that no prophet today has the authority of a New Testament author.
We notice that the function of these individuals is not to glorify themselves but to equip the "saints," the common Christian made holy by the Spirit within them. Everyone apparently is to do the work of the ministry. These individuals do not build up themselves but the body of Christ.
4:13-14 ... until we all attain to the oneness of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of maturity of the fullness of the Christ, so that we are no longer babies, driven and tossed by every wind of teaching with the cunning of mortals with trickery for the trickery of error,
These verses are about the church growing up even more than we as individuals growing up. Each image has to do with a full grown person who can tell the difference between sound teaching and erroneous teaching.
4:15-16 ... but that, speaking the truth in love, we might grow into him in all things, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being joined and held together through every ligament of the support according to the working in the measure of each part for the increase of the body, it makes itself increase for its own edification in love.
This verse is very similar to Colossians 2:19. Christ as the head here is the nourisher of the body. It is a quite fantastic image. We should probably keep the nature of headship language here in mind when we get to 5:23.
Speaking the truth in love in context here seems to connect to true teaching in the previous verses, which probably as much involved teaching on living as teaching on belief. Certainly we should tell our spouse how they look "with love" too. But Ephesians seems rather to have in mind addressing those whose are inappropriate in practice with love. Applying this verse today requires great caution, for we are probably far less "right" than we think about our own understandings. The verses that follow perhaps push us toward seeing sexual immorality as what is primarily in view.
4:17-19 Therefore, I say this and witness in the Lord [that you are] no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk in the foolishness of their mind, since they have been darkened in thought, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, through the hardness of their heart, who, having lost their feeling, they have delivered themselves to sensuality leading to the working of every uncleanness in covetousness.
Even though the audience used to be Gentile, it is no longer like the Gentiles. The foolishness Ephesians seems to have primarily in mind is that of sexual immorality. The other stock foolishness of the Gentiles from a Jewish perspective was that of idolatry, but I don't see that here.
4:20-24 But you did not learn the Christ in this way, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, for you--in terms of [your] previous conduct--to put off in terms of the desires of deceit, the old person that is being destroyed, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new person that was created according to God in righteousness and the holiness of the truth.
This is similar to Colossians 3:10 and Romans 6:6. Ephesians sees a person becoming righteous and holy in life living because we are a new person. We don't live the way we used to.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Ephesians 3
In lieu of missing class, here is a translation of Ephesians 3 with some reflections and questions that enter my mind as I work through it. Full quiz credit for 1) a 100 word response to the overall piece and 2) 2 further comments in relation to the flow of discussion that ensues. All outsiders are welcome to participate as well (if you're nice :-). And of course
© Kenneth Schenck, 2008
_______
3:1-2 For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of the Christ on behalf of you Gentiles -- if indeed you have heard of the responsibility of the grace of God given to me toward you...
This verse effectively eliminates Ephesus as the only destination of this letter. You'll remember that the words "at Ephesus" are missing from the earliest manuscripts of Ephesians in 1:1. But this comment in 3:1 effectively eliminates Ephesus at least as the sole destination, at least within Paul's lifetime. Paul spent nearly three years there according to Acts. If it were written to Ephesus, there would be no question whether they had heard of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles.
So we should understand Ephesians as something other than a situational letter to the believers at Ephesus. The most likely options are 1) Ephesians is a circular letter, perhaps to churches in Asia, of which Ephesus is one, 2) Ephesians was written to some other location like Laodicea, now lost to history (cf. Col. 4:16), or 3) Ephesians is a pseudonymous letter, perhaps written in Asia Minor or Ephesus, and the "if indeed you have heard" is a "knowing comment"--the audience knows that Paul has been dead for some time and that this letter is meant to convey his basic thought on the unity of the church to them. No deception is involved.
3:3-4 ... according to revelation the mystery was made known to me, just as I wrote briefly to you before, with regard to which, if you read, you are able to know my understanding in the mystery of the Christ...
This comment is difficult if in fact we take Ephesians as a literal letter. To what previous letter would Paul refer? The mystery to which he refers is the inclusion of the Gentiles. Certainly Romans and Galatians have to do with the mystery of the inclusion. Colossians especially uses this language (cf. Col. 1:26). But is it likely that we are reading 2 Colossians here--especially if Colossae was destroyed ca. 61AD. And should we really think of Ephesians as 2 Romans or 2 Galatians? It is possible that Ephesians was written to the general area where Colossae was.
Our commentary, by Klyne Snodgrass, recognizes the difficulty and concludes that Paul is probably referring to an earlier part of this letter, Ephesians, probably 2:1-22 or possibly 1:9-10 (160). He admits that this makes 3:4 "unusual." If we must take Ephesians as a literal letter, then this is the option we must take.
Another option of course is that this comment refers to some of Paul's earlier writings in general and that the "you" here is not a specific audience but a "Scriptural you," by which I mean a you that treats Paul's earlier letters not as situational letters where the "you" are Thessalonians or Romans or Colossians but timeless "you's." Of course they are not really timeless "yous." They become "you's" as in the original audience of Ephesians reading the "you's" of Paul's earlier letters.
This is not exactly Goodspeed's hypothesis, that Ephesians was written as a cover letter to a collection of Paul's writings. That suggestion is way too speculative to prove. However, on this hypothesis, someone would be writing a kind of "Paul in a nutshell" epistle passing on selected aspects of Paul's legacy to a new generation, probably in Asia Minor. The previous writings would thus include letters like Colossians, but the specific "you" of the original letters now is expanded to include the later readers.
If we adopt the "Scriptural you" perspective on the text, we think of Romans, Galatians, and Colossians as Paul writing to us about the mystery of the fact that Gentiles are now included in the people of God.
3:5 ... [mystery] which in different generations was not made known to the sons of mortals as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,
As in 2:20, this reference to the apostles and prophets is curious for Paul to make. In 2:20, he says that the household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone. It is not curious to us--nor would it have been to late first century Christians--to think of the church as built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
But it is more difficult, given Paul's earlier writings, to think of him saying that the household of God is built on the apostles, given that he hardly takes such a universal perspective on the household of God in his earlier writings nor does he "reach out" in this way to other apostles. If we take Paul himself as the author, surely apostles here refers not to the 12 apostles, but to all those like him who are engaged in apostolic work (cf. 1 Cor. 15).
Prophets must certainly refer to Christian prophets, not to the prophets of the Old Testament. The "now" in this verse makes that clear. Snodgrass agrees (161). Thus also the foundation of the household of God in 2:20 surely also speaks of NT prophets, as Snodgrass agrees (137).
If Ephesians is a later epistle, the comment would be less problematic. Looking back from the standpoint of the late first century, Paul's heir looks back and sees another layer beyond the foundation of Jesus Christ in 1 Cor. 3:11. Now there is the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the "deposit" (1 Tim. 6:20), all the more important because they are no longer here to bring the gospel directly.
For Christians today, the New Testament is the embodiment of the revelation by the Spirit to the apostles and prophets.
3:6-7 ... [it was revealed] that the Gentiles are heirs together and of the same body and fellow partakers of the gospel in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me according to the working of His power.
This is the content of the mystery, the inclusion of the Gentiles within the people of God. Paul saw himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, not to the Jews. Notice the grace language, which implies the gifting of a patron. Such gifts were undeserved but often included expectations in return, as in this case. Perhaps the focus in this case is more on the empowerment to do something for God than on the undeserved nature of the gifting.
Note that Paul/Paul heir calls himself a minister, a diakonos. Apparently this term did not yet refer to a fixed role of ministry.
3:8-9 To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach the good news to the Gentiles, the incomprehensible riches of the Christ and to shed light on what the administration is of the mystery that has been hidden from the ages in the God who created all things.
The idea that Paul is the least of the saints is new. He was the last to become an apostle in 1 Corinthians 15:8 as one born at the wrong time. But now he is the least of the saints, and he will become the greatest sinner in 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul certainly could have said such things. I might mention that anyone who has sat through a time of testimony in a church knows that telling what an aweful sinner you used to be can be a badge of honor.
The gospel is for Gentiles too for, after all, God created all things, not just the Jews. The word "administration" is difficult. I translated it as "responsibility" above in 3:1. Perhaps that was a mistake. Does it simply mean "how it works."
3:10-11 ... in order that the wisdom of God might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies through the church, according to the purpose of the ages, which [God] enacted in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Note that God the Father was the creator in the previous verse and here it is also He that has done the planning about Christ. Ephesians makes no comment on Christ's pre-existence. This plan was of course from before the foundation of the world (e.g., 1:4). Interestingly, it is apparently through the church, perhaps through the apostles and prophets, that the spiritual rulers and authorities are learning about the wisdom of God, done through Jesus.
3:12 ... in whom we have boldness and entrance with confidence through his faithfulness. Therefore, I ask [you] not to be discouraged by my troubles for you, which is glory for you.
Especially if we think of Paul as the literal author but even if it is a Pauline secretary or heir, this verse strongly reinforces the understanding of the phrase "faith of Jesus" in Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16 as a reference to Jesus' faithfulness, meaning his faithful death.
The mention of the audience not being discouraged by Paul's troubles will convince most that Paul is the literal author of Ephesians. It is not impossible to account for on the interpretation that Ephesians is a presentation of Paul to a later audience. For one thing, the notion that Paul is suffering for the audience is probably built off of Colossians 1:24. As we've seen, scattered material of Ephesians parallels scattered material in Colossians in much the same order, including the 32 word for word identical stretch in Ephesians 6.
Remember that Snodgrass thinks Ephesians was produced not long after Colossians as a more general letter encouraging, uniting and informing all the believers in the same general area (23). It's a wonder he doesn't mention this when he is dealing with 3:3, because then Colossians could be the earlier letter to which Paul refers.
In any case, the idea of suffering on your behalf could presumably apply to a later audience just as to a contemporary one. In the US we easily could think of the "greatest generation" suffering for us during WW2, as with any other war.
3:14-16 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named, in order that He might give to you according to the wealth of His glory to become strong in power through His Spirit in the inner person...
The picture here seems to be one of inheritance. First, God created everything so every being in the heavens or on the earth is His child, has His name. As His child, He wants to give as an inheritance the wealth of His glory. He wants everyone to become strong in power.
3:17-19 ... so that the Christ dwells in your hearts through faith, having been rooted and founded in love, in order that you might be strengthened to take hold with all the holy ones what is the width and length and heighth and depth, and to know the surpassing love of the knowledge of the Christ, in order that you might be filled to all the fulness of God...
Yum, yum. Somehow it seems the wrong tact to try to explain what these verses mean, as if their main point is cognitive or logical. This is good stuff that feels good!
3:20-21 ... and to the One who is able to do extra above all things about which we are asking or thinking, according to the power that is working in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all the generations of the age of the ages! Amen.
That there's a doxology. The same highly exalted language used of the benefit to the church is now given to God. Once again, Ephesians is highly God centered rather than Christ centered. We glorify God in the church and in Christ Jesus.
OK, if you are in my Prison Epistles class, make one 100 word comment and then respond to at least two other comments in a substantial way.
© Kenneth Schenck, 2008
_______
3:1-2 For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of the Christ on behalf of you Gentiles -- if indeed you have heard of the responsibility of the grace of God given to me toward you...
This verse effectively eliminates Ephesus as the only destination of this letter. You'll remember that the words "at Ephesus" are missing from the earliest manuscripts of Ephesians in 1:1. But this comment in 3:1 effectively eliminates Ephesus at least as the sole destination, at least within Paul's lifetime. Paul spent nearly three years there according to Acts. If it were written to Ephesus, there would be no question whether they had heard of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles.
So we should understand Ephesians as something other than a situational letter to the believers at Ephesus. The most likely options are 1) Ephesians is a circular letter, perhaps to churches in Asia, of which Ephesus is one, 2) Ephesians was written to some other location like Laodicea, now lost to history (cf. Col. 4:16), or 3) Ephesians is a pseudonymous letter, perhaps written in Asia Minor or Ephesus, and the "if indeed you have heard" is a "knowing comment"--the audience knows that Paul has been dead for some time and that this letter is meant to convey his basic thought on the unity of the church to them. No deception is involved.
3:3-4 ... according to revelation the mystery was made known to me, just as I wrote briefly to you before, with regard to which, if you read, you are able to know my understanding in the mystery of the Christ...
This comment is difficult if in fact we take Ephesians as a literal letter. To what previous letter would Paul refer? The mystery to which he refers is the inclusion of the Gentiles. Certainly Romans and Galatians have to do with the mystery of the inclusion. Colossians especially uses this language (cf. Col. 1:26). But is it likely that we are reading 2 Colossians here--especially if Colossae was destroyed ca. 61AD. And should we really think of Ephesians as 2 Romans or 2 Galatians? It is possible that Ephesians was written to the general area where Colossae was.
Our commentary, by Klyne Snodgrass, recognizes the difficulty and concludes that Paul is probably referring to an earlier part of this letter, Ephesians, probably 2:1-22 or possibly 1:9-10 (160). He admits that this makes 3:4 "unusual." If we must take Ephesians as a literal letter, then this is the option we must take.
Another option of course is that this comment refers to some of Paul's earlier writings in general and that the "you" here is not a specific audience but a "Scriptural you," by which I mean a you that treats Paul's earlier letters not as situational letters where the "you" are Thessalonians or Romans or Colossians but timeless "you's." Of course they are not really timeless "yous." They become "you's" as in the original audience of Ephesians reading the "you's" of Paul's earlier letters.
This is not exactly Goodspeed's hypothesis, that Ephesians was written as a cover letter to a collection of Paul's writings. That suggestion is way too speculative to prove. However, on this hypothesis, someone would be writing a kind of "Paul in a nutshell" epistle passing on selected aspects of Paul's legacy to a new generation, probably in Asia Minor. The previous writings would thus include letters like Colossians, but the specific "you" of the original letters now is expanded to include the later readers.
If we adopt the "Scriptural you" perspective on the text, we think of Romans, Galatians, and Colossians as Paul writing to us about the mystery of the fact that Gentiles are now included in the people of God.
3:5 ... [mystery] which in different generations was not made known to the sons of mortals as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,
As in 2:20, this reference to the apostles and prophets is curious for Paul to make. In 2:20, he says that the household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone. It is not curious to us--nor would it have been to late first century Christians--to think of the church as built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
But it is more difficult, given Paul's earlier writings, to think of him saying that the household of God is built on the apostles, given that he hardly takes such a universal perspective on the household of God in his earlier writings nor does he "reach out" in this way to other apostles. If we take Paul himself as the author, surely apostles here refers not to the 12 apostles, but to all those like him who are engaged in apostolic work (cf. 1 Cor. 15).
Prophets must certainly refer to Christian prophets, not to the prophets of the Old Testament. The "now" in this verse makes that clear. Snodgrass agrees (161). Thus also the foundation of the household of God in 2:20 surely also speaks of NT prophets, as Snodgrass agrees (137).
If Ephesians is a later epistle, the comment would be less problematic. Looking back from the standpoint of the late first century, Paul's heir looks back and sees another layer beyond the foundation of Jesus Christ in 1 Cor. 3:11. Now there is the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the "deposit" (1 Tim. 6:20), all the more important because they are no longer here to bring the gospel directly.
For Christians today, the New Testament is the embodiment of the revelation by the Spirit to the apostles and prophets.
3:6-7 ... [it was revealed] that the Gentiles are heirs together and of the same body and fellow partakers of the gospel in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me according to the working of His power.
This is the content of the mystery, the inclusion of the Gentiles within the people of God. Paul saw himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, not to the Jews. Notice the grace language, which implies the gifting of a patron. Such gifts were undeserved but often included expectations in return, as in this case. Perhaps the focus in this case is more on the empowerment to do something for God than on the undeserved nature of the gifting.
Note that Paul/Paul heir calls himself a minister, a diakonos. Apparently this term did not yet refer to a fixed role of ministry.
3:8-9 To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach the good news to the Gentiles, the incomprehensible riches of the Christ and to shed light on what the administration is of the mystery that has been hidden from the ages in the God who created all things.
The idea that Paul is the least of the saints is new. He was the last to become an apostle in 1 Corinthians 15:8 as one born at the wrong time. But now he is the least of the saints, and he will become the greatest sinner in 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul certainly could have said such things. I might mention that anyone who has sat through a time of testimony in a church knows that telling what an aweful sinner you used to be can be a badge of honor.
The gospel is for Gentiles too for, after all, God created all things, not just the Jews. The word "administration" is difficult. I translated it as "responsibility" above in 3:1. Perhaps that was a mistake. Does it simply mean "how it works."
3:10-11 ... in order that the wisdom of God might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies through the church, according to the purpose of the ages, which [God] enacted in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Note that God the Father was the creator in the previous verse and here it is also He that has done the planning about Christ. Ephesians makes no comment on Christ's pre-existence. This plan was of course from before the foundation of the world (e.g., 1:4). Interestingly, it is apparently through the church, perhaps through the apostles and prophets, that the spiritual rulers and authorities are learning about the wisdom of God, done through Jesus.
3:12 ... in whom we have boldness and entrance with confidence through his faithfulness. Therefore, I ask [you] not to be discouraged by my troubles for you, which is glory for you.
Especially if we think of Paul as the literal author but even if it is a Pauline secretary or heir, this verse strongly reinforces the understanding of the phrase "faith of Jesus" in Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16 as a reference to Jesus' faithfulness, meaning his faithful death.
The mention of the audience not being discouraged by Paul's troubles will convince most that Paul is the literal author of Ephesians. It is not impossible to account for on the interpretation that Ephesians is a presentation of Paul to a later audience. For one thing, the notion that Paul is suffering for the audience is probably built off of Colossians 1:24. As we've seen, scattered material of Ephesians parallels scattered material in Colossians in much the same order, including the 32 word for word identical stretch in Ephesians 6.
Remember that Snodgrass thinks Ephesians was produced not long after Colossians as a more general letter encouraging, uniting and informing all the believers in the same general area (23). It's a wonder he doesn't mention this when he is dealing with 3:3, because then Colossians could be the earlier letter to which Paul refers.
In any case, the idea of suffering on your behalf could presumably apply to a later audience just as to a contemporary one. In the US we easily could think of the "greatest generation" suffering for us during WW2, as with any other war.
3:14-16 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named, in order that He might give to you according to the wealth of His glory to become strong in power through His Spirit in the inner person...
The picture here seems to be one of inheritance. First, God created everything so every being in the heavens or on the earth is His child, has His name. As His child, He wants to give as an inheritance the wealth of His glory. He wants everyone to become strong in power.
3:17-19 ... so that the Christ dwells in your hearts through faith, having been rooted and founded in love, in order that you might be strengthened to take hold with all the holy ones what is the width and length and heighth and depth, and to know the surpassing love of the knowledge of the Christ, in order that you might be filled to all the fulness of God...
Yum, yum. Somehow it seems the wrong tact to try to explain what these verses mean, as if their main point is cognitive or logical. This is good stuff that feels good!
3:20-21 ... and to the One who is able to do extra above all things about which we are asking or thinking, according to the power that is working in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all the generations of the age of the ages! Amen.
That there's a doxology. The same highly exalted language used of the benefit to the church is now given to God. Once again, Ephesians is highly God centered rather than Christ centered. We glorify God in the church and in Christ Jesus.
OK, if you are in my Prison Epistles class, make one 100 word comment and then respond to at least two other comments in a substantial way.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Monday Thoughts: Ephesians and Marriage
I was involved in a somewhat private wedding recently in which Ephesians 5:21-33 was chosen as one of the Scripture texts to read. I was looking at this text somewhat more closely than usual. It is one thing to discuss this text in class, in theory. We can debate what it meant for a wife to submit to her husband, what it might mean for a husband to be the head of a wife.
We can discuss the difference between how these words "read" in the first century versus how they read today. What is the difference between "that time" and "this time"? We can follow IBS methods and survey Ephesians, do a detailed observation on some of these verses, do our word studies and interpretive studies using the best of commentaries (Asbury speak). We can measure the width of the "river" between their town and our town and cross the "principlizing bridge" (Duvall and Hays textbook Dora the Explorer speak).
But a wedding is real. It's real life. More importantly, it's the lives of two real people. I've been to a wedding where the wife was soundly subjugated to her husband on the pretense of a superficial reading of this text. He was the hero, the superman. She was the poor little mindless thing that should obey the superior intellect, no doubt in between knitting.
My heart sunk, distressed that a teaching that liberated marriages 2000 years ago would be used to enslave them today, angered at the perversion of God's word by way of a shallow reading of the Bible's words.
It was not the time for debate. I prayerfully rendered a dynamic translation that I thought would come closer to what God might want couples to hear from these words today.
"As you surrender to one another in the fear of Christ, let the wives do so to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband provides for the wife as Christ provides for the church—he is the Savior of the body...
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for it so that ... it might be holy and blameless. So also ought husbands to show love to their wives as their own bodies. The husband who loves his wife loves himself.
"Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two will be one flesh.
"So let each love his own wife as himself, and let the wife respect her husband."
One of the main decisions I made was with the statement, "the husband is the head of the wife." Of course it did have to do in part with authority in the ancient context. However, the head also had to do with "feeding" the body and nourishment, as Colossians 2:19 indicates. Notice that this passage speaks of Christ "nourishing" and "cherishing" the church.
So I asked myself questions like this: Does "head" give the most accurate connotations of this passage today, especially given how politicized the issue is. No, I decided, it immediately gives the impression that this passage is about the domination of the husband, and that is not the main connotation of what Paul was saying. It was the secondary feature of the original meaning.
Second, is this the most accurate application of this Scripture to today? Not a time for debate but a time to take responsibility as the designated mediator of God's word.
"The husband provides" I thought was a more accurate translation, especially since the role of Christ as "rescuer"/"savior" of the body is evoked.
Of course in the age of the Spirit, sometimes God provides through the wife as well. :-)
We can discuss the difference between how these words "read" in the first century versus how they read today. What is the difference between "that time" and "this time"? We can follow IBS methods and survey Ephesians, do a detailed observation on some of these verses, do our word studies and interpretive studies using the best of commentaries (Asbury speak). We can measure the width of the "river" between their town and our town and cross the "principlizing bridge" (Duvall and Hays textbook Dora the Explorer speak).
But a wedding is real. It's real life. More importantly, it's the lives of two real people. I've been to a wedding where the wife was soundly subjugated to her husband on the pretense of a superficial reading of this text. He was the hero, the superman. She was the poor little mindless thing that should obey the superior intellect, no doubt in between knitting.
My heart sunk, distressed that a teaching that liberated marriages 2000 years ago would be used to enslave them today, angered at the perversion of God's word by way of a shallow reading of the Bible's words.
It was not the time for debate. I prayerfully rendered a dynamic translation that I thought would come closer to what God might want couples to hear from these words today.
"As you surrender to one another in the fear of Christ, let the wives do so to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband provides for the wife as Christ provides for the church—he is the Savior of the body...
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for it so that ... it might be holy and blameless. So also ought husbands to show love to their wives as their own bodies. The husband who loves his wife loves himself.
"Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two will be one flesh.
"So let each love his own wife as himself, and let the wife respect her husband."
One of the main decisions I made was with the statement, "the husband is the head of the wife." Of course it did have to do in part with authority in the ancient context. However, the head also had to do with "feeding" the body and nourishment, as Colossians 2:19 indicates. Notice that this passage speaks of Christ "nourishing" and "cherishing" the church.
So I asked myself questions like this: Does "head" give the most accurate connotations of this passage today, especially given how politicized the issue is. No, I decided, it immediately gives the impression that this passage is about the domination of the husband, and that is not the main connotation of what Paul was saying. It was the secondary feature of the original meaning.
Second, is this the most accurate application of this Scripture to today? Not a time for debate but a time to take responsibility as the designated mediator of God's word.
"The husband provides" I thought was a more accurate translation, especially since the role of Christ as "rescuer"/"savior" of the body is evoked.
Of course in the age of the Spirit, sometimes God provides through the wife as well. :-)
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Ephesians in a Nutshell
My Prison Epistles class has to do something like this on the final:
________________
Hi I'm Paul and you're all over the place because this is a circular letter.
Praise to God for all the incredible stuff he's done for those he predestined for lots of good stuff.
I give thanks to God for all I've heard about you.
[We're on top of the world with Christ]
By grace you've been saved through faith, not of works, although we're created for good works.
Christ has abolished the law, making peace between Jew and Gentile.
We're all fellow citizens built on the foundation of the apostles and [Christian] prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone.
And I'm the preacher of this mystery: that God is bringing in the Gentiles.
We're all one--one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all...
But different roles--apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers...
Take off the old; put on the new.
Don't live in darkness but in the light.
Household codes:
--wives submit to husbands, husbands love wives (metphor of Christ and the church)
-- children obey parents; parents don't provoke children to anger
--slaves obey masters; masters recognize you're a slave too.
Put on the armor of God.
Goodbye.
________________
Hi I'm Paul and you're all over the place because this is a circular letter.
Praise to God for all the incredible stuff he's done for those he predestined for lots of good stuff.
I give thanks to God for all I've heard about you.
[We're on top of the world with Christ]
By grace you've been saved through faith, not of works, although we're created for good works.
Christ has abolished the law, making peace between Jew and Gentile.
We're all fellow citizens built on the foundation of the apostles and [Christian] prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone.
And I'm the preacher of this mystery: that God is bringing in the Gentiles.
We're all one--one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all...
But different roles--apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers...
Take off the old; put on the new.
Don't live in darkness but in the light.
Household codes:
--wives submit to husbands, husbands love wives (metphor of Christ and the church)
-- children obey parents; parents don't provoke children to anger
--slaves obey masters; masters recognize you're a slave too.
Put on the armor of God.
Goodbye.
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