January 23 - Ephesians

January 23 - Ephesians

I'm going to interrupt the flow of the story a little here. While Paul was in Rome, he wrote a lot of letters. Rather than throw them all at you at the end of the month, I'm going to mix it up a little. One of the first letters that he wrote was to the people in Ephesus.

This letter was written to a group of people that didn't really have any major problems. Look at Ephesians 1:15-23. Paul is thankful for this group of people and he wants to encourage them to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

It is important for him to encourage the unity of the church, especially between Jews and Gentiles. Certain phrases occur regularly - phrases with words such as 'with' and 'together' are found in Ephesians 1:10; 2:6; 2:22. The word 'one' occurs - one new man (Ephesians 2:14-15), one body (Ephesians 2:16), one Spirit (Ephesians 2:18), one hope (Ephesians 4:4), one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:5-6).

Paul taught the plan of salvation in different ways in his letters. In Romans, he emphasized faith apart from works; in Galatians, he discussed faith apart from ceremony and in Ephesians, he teaches about the unity of believers.

The letter breaks down into two parts. Part One is found in Ephesians 1-3. This is what Thompson (Chain Reference Bible) calls "The Church and the Plan of Salvation." Part Two is the "Practical Application and is found in Ephesians 4-6.

Paul's prayers for the church are found in Ephesians 1:16-23 and Ephesians 3:14-21. You will find the passage on spiritual armor in Ephesians 6:10-17.

Ephesians 1:1-23
Ephesians 2:1-22
Ephesians 3:1-21
Ephesians 4:1-32
Ephesians 5:1-33
Ephesians 6:1-24

I also blogged on Ephesians 1-5 on my "Oracle" blog back in 2006. My world fell apart by Ephesians 6. I really thought I went back and finished that, but I can't find it right now. Here it is:

Ephesians 1
Ephesians 2
Ephesians 3
Ephesians 4, pt. 1
Ephesians 4, pt. 2
Ephesians 5