An Introduction to Ephesians/ by Dr. Lloyd T . Anderson T h a t P a u l was a prisoner at the time of writing is expressly stated more
words. It would be surprising, too, to have such an absence of personal ref erences in a letter written by Paul to a church in whose midst he had spent the best part of three years.” The most acceptable view, having regard to the general character of the letter, is that it was intended for all the churches of the province of Asia, some of which were personally known to Paul, while others were not (cf. Col. 2:1). While the message of the letter was never intended to be limited to one local church only, we may quite justifiably call it ‘The Epistle to the Ephesians,’ provided we remember that it was sent also to other churches in the province of which Ephesus was the capital city. How or when the seed of God’s Word was first sown at Ephesus we cannot tell, but we may be certain that Paul’s three years’ stay there (Acts 20:31) made deep and abiding impressions upon the inhabitants. It was during the great apostle’s extended visit to that wicked city that the mighty power of the gospel was demonstrated through his life and ministry. His first query was: “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when. ye believed?” (Acts 19:2). I have quoted the Ameri can Standard Version here, since Paul’s question was not, as the King James Version would suggest, whether at some time after their belief they had re ceived the Holy Spirit. Actually Paul wanted to know if they had been bom again. The answer was a sure indication that Paul had proper discernment in the matter, for they replied: “We did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given.” Again I have used the American Standard Version because the word “given” is added, and that word is necessary to complete the sense.” This small group had missed the real meaning of Pentecost. The condition of the Ephesian “Believers” was akin to that of many church members today. They had a belief that was not unto salvation, since it lacked the genuine 34
than once in the course of the letter. He refers to himself as “I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles” (3:1), as “the prisoner in the Lord” (4:1), and as “an ambassador in chains” (6:20). We have the evidence of Acts for two periods of imprisonment which Paùl underwent, each of two years’ duration, one in Caesarea (24: 27) and the other in Rome (28:30). The single night’s imprisonment in Philippi (Acts 16:23ff) naturally does not enter into the reckoning here. But before either of his more lengthy ex periences of imprisonment recorded in Acts he could speak of himself as having been “in prisons more abundantly” than any other apostle (2 Cor. 11:23). Of these more abundant imprisonments there is good reason to believe that one at least must be dated during his Ephe sian ministry. Erdman says, “the time and place of the present imprisonment does not make much difference to the exposition of Ephesians. But the posi tion adopted here is the common one, that Ephesians (as also Colossians and Philemon) was written at some point during Paul’s Roman imprisonment, be tween the beginning of A. D. 60 and the end of A. D. 61. If any orderly progress at all is to be traced in Paul’s thinking, then Ephesians must be dated last of all his letters to churches, and immediately after Colossians.” A comparison of Eph. 6:21f. with Col. 4:7f. makes it evident that Ephe sians was sent to its destination by the hand of Tychicus at the same time as Colossians. We may therefore look for the destination of both letters in the same area. Colossians was manifestly sent to the church at Colossae, in the Phrygian region of the province of Asia. Bruce declares, “The words ‘at Ephesus’ in Eph. 1:1 might seem to put the destination of this letter beyond question, were it not for the fact that some of our earliest and weightiest authorities for the text omit these two
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