Week 50 Ephesians
My question for the last week has been: is Ephesians a Unified Letter?
I felt pretty confident that chapters 1-3 were unified around the idea that a) God had a long-term plan that was focused almost exclusively on Jewish people but that b) the plan then had been expanded to include non-Jewish people. Ephesians 1-2-3 was mostly about the Union of Jewish & Non-Jewish people.
So then on to chapters 4 & 5. There were 52-verses that described how I should be living my life once I believe in the Lord. I detected Cohesion in that section too:
First, Paul said explicit things about the connection of Jewish & non-Jewish people:
always keep yourselves united in the Spirit
bind yourselves together with peace
we are all one body
unity in our faith and knowledge
the whole body is fitted together perfectly
the whole body is healthy and growing.
Then secondly Paul mapped out action-steps that sounded (to me) like they were union-promoters. Here’s what I mean: in the 52-verse section I counted up all the action-steps. I found 47 things Paul was telling people in Ephesus to do. I think his logic is that if the Ephesian believers were following the Lord by doing these 47 Coordinated Action Steps then – nine times out of ten – the result would be ethnic connection in church.
I think I can make a case for Paul writing a Unified Letter from Ephesians 1:1 – 5:20. But unfortunately that’s about as far as I can go before things break down.
Note: quotes from Ephesians 4:3 4 13 16 (NLT)