divided in two

Week 49  Ephesians

I decided to look a bit more carefully at Ephesians this year. It’s not like I have a bunch of extra time but I’ve been wondering about Paul’s writing style. His habit seems to be: a) start writing about something but then b) charge off in some other direction. It might make perfect sense to him. But I’m left wondering.
So anyway I thought I’d use Ephesians as a test case to see if Paul did – or didn’t – stick to a single central idea.
One thing I see right away is that the letter divides pretty nicely into two big sections. The first 66-verses are mostly what I’d call religious theoreticals. The section is pretty abstract. By that I don’t mean the section is pure imagination. It’s more like this: I see a guy walking down the street. I see a pedestrian. But Paul is thinking about his circulatory & respiratory & skeletal & muscular systems. I just see a guy. Paul is assessing his bio-engineering. That’s what I think I’m seeing in the first three chapters.
The second half of the letter – about 99-verses – is very different. There’s a lot of instructions on how-I-should-live-my-life.
So my first impression carving-up Ephesians is that it’s like a live-theatre performance. I know that behind the curtain a lot of necessary production stuff is going on to make the show work. And then out in front of the curtain under the lights are the performers .
Ephesians 1-3 backstage.
Ephesians 4-6 front-and-centre.