Ephesus was an ancient city located near the modern day İzmir Province, Turkey. This ancient city was the main regional hub of idol worship to the goddess Artemis, “throughout almost all of Asia” as Acts 19:26 describes. The Temple of Artemis, also known as the Temple of Diana (the Roman Mythology equivalent to the greek Artemis), was what the city became famous for, with an idol depicting a many breasted goddess. Idol making was a major occupation in this city, which of course propagated more idol worship. If there were a more needful city for the Gospel to be preached, it would be in this city center that spread mythology and immorality to the nations. Located along a major trading route along the Aegean Sea, the city of Ephesus was a very strategic location for the evangelisation of Asia Minor. About 10 years prior to Paul’s letter, the church of Ephesus was birthed in a revival led by Apostle Paul and twelve disciples who came under him, during his 3rd Apostolic Journey in 52 A.D (Acts 19). During this journey, Paul spent some months teaching in the Synagogues but was only met by hardness of heart towards the Gospel. He then moved his outreach to the the school of Tyrannus where he taught the Gospel to “both Jews and Greeks” until “all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus” – until the faith spread so rapidly and effectively that idol-makers revolted for lack of business (Acts 19).

What is widely believed to be during his first Roman imprisonment, between AD 61-62, Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus. This places Paul’s letter about 10 years after his last visit to Ephesus. His letter, instead of addressing issues of morality, as is common in his other letters, declares the mystery of the Kingdom of God with an emphasis of the Church’s identity and calling in Christ. In this letter, the Church (not before revealed in the Old Testament, but birthed through Christ) is revealed to be a supernatural construct of God, included in an eternal plan of redemption that existed before the foundation of the world. This letter affects the faith of the believer with hope, strength, determination, empowerment, and vision, seeing that the church is more than a building or man-made agenda, but rather birthed, built, and established by the divine power of God unto a determined victorious end. The letter instructs the individual believer and the Church to live rightly in a Christ centered gaze, walking out faith in unity, love, spiritual discipline, and spiritual warfare.

Because Paul was in prison, his letter was sent by Tychicus (Eph. 6:21-22). When Paul left to go to Jerusalem, he stopped at Ephesus to meet with the Elders of the Church; in Acts 20 we see a fully built church – one in which Paul said, “For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.” (Acts 20:27), a church which he finally entrusted to God, saying, “I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32). However, Paul left them with stern warnings, even prophesying that “savage wolves” would come to destroy the flock.

About two decades after Paul’s visit to Ephesus, about one decade after Pauls letter to the Ephesians, Jesus speaks directly to the church of Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2. Jesus commends their works, their patience, and their testing of true apostles, but points out a disease – that they have left their first love. He instructs them to repent, remember, and to repeat the first works. If they failed to repent, he warned that he would remove their lamp stand, their place of influence in the region. It is interesting to surmise what may have become of the church of Ephesus, as the original church building does not stand today. It seems there is a greater message to the church within the history of the church of Ephesus and the surrounding regions. At first where Christians were persecuted under the Emperor Decius, Ephesus becomes a “Christian city” under Constantine. Modern day Turkey, where Ephesus Church once stood as the beaming light to the regions, is now 98 percent Muslim, known for its persecution of Christianity, and infamous for the world’s first modern genocide of the Armenian Apostolic Church, The Armenian Genocide in 1915.

1. Ephesians 1:1-1:2 – Paul’s apostolic greeting to the church of Ephesus
   1. Paul, the author of the book of Ephesians, identifies himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ according to God’s will and not by any merit of his own or any other earthly reference or power.
   2. Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus and the “faithful in Christ Jesus”. He communicates that his message is written to all believers who are to come to Christ; this, and as history has proved, implies that the letter of Ephesians has an eternal and perpetual message, far surpassing Paul’s immediate audience.
2. Ephesians 1:3- The blessings bestowed upon believers who are in Christ
   1. Verse 3a – Praise is given to God the Father because it was by the Father’s initiative that these blessings can flow to the believer and Church in Christ.
      1. Verse 3b -The believer has access to every spiritual blessing in the Holy Spirit. This includes spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:8), authority over demons, authority over sickness (Matthew 10:1), resurrection power (Romans 6:10), power to become the children of God (John 1:12), anointing of the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20 & 27), influence over the world (Matthew 5:14-16), and more.
      2. Verse 3b – The blessing comes from the Father through the Son who is in the heavens. The Father initiated that the family of God, or Church, would be birthed through the Son, whom he sent to complete the redemptive work. Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father above all power; God gave to Jesus the authority to execute all judgment (Ephesians 4:8, Mark 16:19, Eph 1:19-22, John 5:25-27, Rev 5:4-5)
   2. Verse 4a -The Father chose the believer in Christ before the foundation of the world. God in his infinite knowledge knew from the beginning who would respond to the call of God and who would be hardened.  (John 6:44, Romans 8:29, Psalm 19:4, Romans 1:19, 1 Peter 2:10).
      1. Verse 4b – He chose us to be holy and blameless before Jesus in love. The salvation of God is not only from the wrath of God, but unto a most glorious victory over the human condition, which end is a full union with the Godhead in holiness and restored spiritual and moral perfection. This restoration is beyond the innocence pre-Fall, as now the believer is clothed in not their own righteousness and glory, but with the righteousness and glory of God. They have been married into the righteousness and glory of Christ, belonging to Jesus and presented to Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:2, Colossians 1:22)
      2. Verse 5 – The believer has been predestined unto adoption into the family of God. The end goal of God’s redemptive act is relationship. This is why choice is so central to the Gospel message – it is apparent through the whole of Scripture that God is looking for voluntary love and not mere service, or programmed, or forced responses (Matthew 22:1-14).
      3. Verse 6a – This adoption brings praises and glory to God’s grace. The heart of the believer rejoices because God’s will towards them is good, with a purposed and desired end for both the joy of the believer and the joy of God. God’s grace is the means by which God made us accepted in the Beloved. Redemption is entirely due to God’s extended grace, and not man’s ability to attain righteousness (Ephesians 2:8-9).
      4. Verse 6b – This phrase, “Accepted in the Beloved” points to the heights that the believer has been called to: an eternal relationship of full unity within the Trinity. Through Christ, the believer has entered into the very Trinitarian family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, above any relationship God has with any other created order (John 17:20-26, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Hebrews 2:16-18, Genesis 1:27).
   3. Verse 7 – In Christ the believer has redemption. Jesus is the sole means of restored relationship between God and man; He is the mediator and there is no other way to the Father (1 Timothy 2:5, John 14:6).
      1. Verse 7a – The redemption and forgiveness of sins is through the blood of Jesus. Forgiveness of sins required a perfect sacrifice. Jesus lived a perfectly innocent life and gave his life up for the Church (Mark 10:45). He was the only one worthy and able to provide the sacrifice required by God; God did not accept the sacrifice of animals (which merely represented the Christ to come, Isaac, Moses, or Paul (Hebrews 9:12-15, Genesis 22:12, Exodus 32:31-32, Romans 9:3). Only the perfect divine work of God was able to bring salvation to the human race.
      2. Verse 7b – God’s redemptive work through Christ were in accord with the riches of God’s grace. Man is completely unable to attain salvation and is entirely in a receiving position of God’s perfect salvation through Jesus Christ because of God’s grace. Man did nothing and can do nothing to attain the salvation of God. Salvation must be totally attributed to the graciousness of God.
      3. Verse 8 – God has made his grace to abound to the believer in the fullness of his wisdom and understanding. The perfect doctrine of the Gospel transcends all human wisdom and is effective. Again, this verse points to the fact that salvation must be totally attributed to not only God’s graciousness, but his wisdom and understanding.
3. Ephesians 1:9-14 – The mystery of God’s will revealed: Perfect (holy) communion
   1. Verse 9 – This mystery is according to God’s own will, pleasure, and purpose. There is no reasonable explanation for God to go through the great lengths he has to save humanity, except for his gracious character. God’s redemption in Christ points to the wealth of riches of the genuine love, grace, mercy, and compassion of God. God owed humanity nothing and could have cut them off upon the Fall of Adam and Eve. The baffling conclusion is that God genuinely and truly desires us (Romans 5:8).
   2. Verse 10 – God’s will is to gather, in the fullness of times, “all things . . . in heaven and which are on earth” in Christ. God’s redemptive plan is completely holistic, including “all things”. This includes a full restoration of created order, and a “new heaven” and “new earth”. God’s promise in Christ is that all things will be made new (Isaiah 11:6, Revelation 21:1-5).
   3. Verse 11 – Believers have been predestined to receive an inheritance in Christ. Ultimately, the believer’s inheritance is Christ himself, just as Jesus’ inheritance is the Church. The inheritance for believers is a restored holy communion with the Trinity, which is the only true solution to humanity’s needs and longings and what was central to humanity’s first experiences of life (Genesis 2:25, Ephesians 5:29-32, John 17:20-26, Song of Solomon 6:3).
      1. Verse 11b – God predestined these redemptive plans in agreement to his own will. God’s counsel flows from his will which actively works to bring the plans to pass. Paul is making known to the church that salvation is of and through God, not man. God is the one who will complete his plans.
      2. Verse 12 – It was to God’s glory that the Jews would first receive Christ. In fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, Jesus came of the Jews and first to the Jews. Almost without exception (Samaritans being among them) Christ preached only to the Jews (Matthew 15:24; 10:5-15, Romans 1:16, Genesis 22:18).
   4. Verse 13 – Paul then shows the Ephesian church that they also came to salvation upon hearing the Gospel, just as God planned. They were thereby grafted into the promises of Israel. “For the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
      1. 13b – Upon believing, the believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit who indwells the true believer (John 14:26, 1 Corinthians 2:10; 6:19, Ezekiel 36:26-27).
   5. Verse 14 – The Holy Spirit indwelling the heart of the believer is a sign and a promise of the inheritance of full union with God, to testify of that promise until the final completion of that redemption. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us that we are the children of God, “and by him we cry, “Abba, Father’”(Romans 8:15). Also by the Holy Spirit we cry for the return of Jesus as his bride (Revelation 22:17).
4. Ephesians 1:15-19 Paul’s apostolic prayer
   1. Verse 15-16 – Because Paul learned of their faith, he prayed for the Ephesian church without ceasing in thanksgiving and according to the apostolic prayer he lays out in the following verses. The very fact of God’s urgency points to how closely he believed the revelation he lays out.
   2. Verse 17 – He prays that the Father would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, to know Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. The Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus and makes Jesus known.
   3. Verse 18 – He prays that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened to know what is the hope of his [Jesus] calling. Paul is praying for the believer to know in their heart, through their understanding, what the great hope is that they have been called to in Jesus. “Eyes of their understanding” refer to the “inner-man” or spirit of a person. One experiences in their heart what they understand. The way we understand God and the hope of his call determines how we live, the choices we make, how we experience God, how we feel about him, how we talk about him, and how we treat those around us. Tozer writes in The Knowledge of the Holy, “Man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” Right understanding of the person of Jesus and his calling is central to following him.
   4. Verse 19-20 – Paul prays for the believer to know what is the “exceeding greatness of His power” that is directed toward the believer, “according to the working of his mighty power”. This power is called exceedingly great, as is necessary for the work that has been accomplished and what will be accomplished for the fulfillment of all the promises of God. This power is truly great, as the promises transcend our ability to understand how they would possibly be accomplished. These promises include the end of the age and all that encompasses the event which is referred to as “the great and terrible day of the Lord’s return”, the abolishment of death and wickedness, and the resurrection with all that encompasses that event, including making the heavens and the earth new (Joel 2:11, Revelation 21:1, 5). It is the same power of the resurrection of Jesus and the same power of Jesus’ ascension. So great is the power of God that by his invisible Spirit he has thus far been able to sustain the church throughout time, lead the apostles and the early church even through intricate doctrines and situations, reformers, and bring each individual to Christ and sustain them individually and together.
   5. Verse 20-23 – Paul’s prayer describes how Jesus ascended to sit at Gods right hand in the heavens. Jesus sits enthroned above every rule and authority, above every power and dominion, and above everything that exists and will exist. Furthermore, the Father put all things under the feet of Jesus and gave authority to Jesus to judge the nations at the end of the age, until finally death itself is judged (1 Corinthians 15:26-28). God made Jesus to be the head over the Church, which is described as the very body of Christ, the fullness of Jesus. The mystical body of Christ operate as the hands and feet and body of Jesus on the earth. They are one having the same faith, same Lord, and same baptism. They are baptized with the same Holy Spirit and operate as one unit (Ephesians 4:5-6). Jesus fills all in all in that he is the sole divine person who brings such a body together, as he brings each to salvation, justifies each by his blood, pours out his Holy Spirit into each, and sustains the faith of each. Jesus truly is the head authority of the Church.