Ephesians: A Pentecostal Commentary

By Dr. Matthew N. O. Sadiku

The greatest need of professing Christians today is a better, deeper, and fuller knowledge of Christ. The Christian life can be described as getting to know God better every day. Every Christian should regularly?daily?read the Word of God. We should find time for quiet time or personal devotion.

For over 20 years I have been using commentaries in my devotions. The blessings derived from the commentaries is overwhelming. I am writing this commentary to share some of those blessings and lessons I have learned over the years.

This verse-by-verse commentary is different from others in two respects. First, it is brief while some commentaries are unnecessarily wordy and verbose. Second, it is Pentecostal in outlook. This implies that we generally adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and adopt a literalist approach to the interpretation of the Bible.

Ephesians ranks very high among the theological literature of the Christian Church. It has been regarded by some as the believers bank and the treasure house of the Bible. It is perhaps the grandest of all Pauls epistles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452098951

Dr. Matthew N. O. Sadiku

Matthew N. O. Sadiku is a professor at Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View, Texas.  Before joining Prairie View, he taught at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton and Temple University, Philadelphia.  He is the author of over 190 professional articles and over 30  books including Secrets of Successful Marriages and How to Discover God’s Will for Your Life.  His books are used worldwide, and some of them have been translated into Korean, Chinese, Italian, and Spanish.  He can be reached at [e-mail]

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© 2012 Dr. Matthew N. O. Sadiku. All rights reserved.

Copyediting by Kathie Scriven

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 8/10/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9894-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9893-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9895-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010917796

Printed in the United States of America

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1

Greetings

Chapter 2

The Will of the Father

Chapter 3

The Work of the Son

Chapter 4

The Witness of the Holy Spirit

Chapter 5

First Prayer for the Saints

Chapter 6

The Believer’s Past, Present and Future

Chapter 7

Salvation by Grace

Chapter 8

The Unity of the Body

Chapter 9

The Mystery of Christ

Chapter 10

The Second Prayer for the Saints

Chapter 11

Walking Worthy of our Calling

Chapter 12

Gifts from the Ascended Christ

Chapter 13

Building Christ’s Body

Chapter 14

Walking in Newness of Life

Chapter 15

The Principles of New Life

Chapter 16

Imitating our Father

Chapter 17

Walking in the Light

Chapter 18

Walking in Wisdom

Chapter 19

The Christian Family (I)

Chapter 20

The Christian Family (II)

Chapter 21

Children and Parents

Chapter 22

Servants and Masters

Chapter 23

Spiritual Warfare

Chapter 24

The Armor of God

Chapter 25

Conclusion

Selected Bibliography

To my daughters:

Motunrayo, Ann, and Joyce

Preface

The greatest need of professing Christians today is a better, deeper, and fuller knowledge of Christ. The Christian life can be described as getting to know God better every day. Every Christian should regularly—daily—read the Word of God. We should find time for quiet time or personal devotions. The reason many of us have so many bad days is that we do not spend time with God. We must spend time with God if we want His blessings in our lives and we want to hear from Him.

For over 20 years I have been using commentaries in my devotions. The blessing derived from the commentaries is overwhelming. I am writing this commentary to share some of those blessings and lessons I have learned over the years.

This verse-by-verse commentary is different from others in two respects. First, it is brief while some commentaries are wordy and verbose. This commentary does not delve into critical and exegetical details. Therefore, the limits of this commentary forbid that we consider all the views concerning any issue, but an attempt will be made to provide a brief, sound, yet scholarly, view. Second, it is Pentecostal in outlook. This implies that we generally adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and adopt a literalist approach to the interpretation of the Bible. Pentecostal doctrines include speaking in tongues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, signs and wonders, divine healing, Christian prophets, and apostles today, to mention but a few.

In order to provide a readable text, this commentary is based on the New King James Version (NKJV) translation. The commentary is for laymen, pastors, teachers, and any student of the Word. It is designed to enrich your quiet time or personal study. It is my prayer that this commentary will prove useful to you in knowing the Lord and in being firmly grounded in Him.

It is my pleasure and honor to thank Dr. Chinaka DomNwachukwu and Aloysius Okogbue for reading the manuscript and providing suggestions for improvement. I would like to thank Kathie Scriven for thoroughly copyediting the manuscript. Special thanks to my daughter Joyce for drawing the figures. I cannot thank my wife Kike enough for her support.

Abbreviations

AB   Amplified Bible

cf.   confer, compare

ibid.   ibidem, in the same place

KJV   King James Version

LXX    Septuagint, the Jewish Scriptures in Greek

NASB   New American Standard Bible

NIV    New International Version

NKJV   New King James Version

NLT   New Living Translation

NRSV   New Revised Standard Version

NT   New Testament

OT   Old Testament

RSV   Revised Standard Version

TLB   The Living Bible

v., vs.   verse, verses

Introduction

The book of Ephesians ranks very high among the theological literature of the Christian Church. It has been regarded by some as the believer’s bank and the treasure house of the Bible. It is perhaps the grandest of all of Paul’s epistles or letters.

Before we start on our journey through this book, we should first consider some preliminary matters—authorship, the city of Ephesus, and the message—concerning this letter.

Authorship

Most Bible scholars (although not all) recognize Paul as the author of Ephesians. This recognition is based on evidence within the epistle itself (1:1) and also on the long held tradition which lends support for his authorship. Pauline authorship has been the accepted position throughout Church history until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To those who doubt or reject Paul’s authorship, H. J. Cadbury cogently asked, Which is more likely—that an imitator of Paul in the first century composed a writing ninety or ninety-five percent in accordance with Paul’s style or that Paul himself wrote a letter diverging five or ten percent from his usual style?¹

This epistle, like Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon, was written while Paul was under house arrest most likely in Rome, where he was a prisoner between AD 60 and 62. It was from his imprisonment in Rome and very close to the end of his life that Paul wrote this letter, probably shortly after he wrote Colossians. These letters are called prison epistles because Paul made reference to his imprisonment (Ephesians 3:1; 4:1; 6:20, Philippians 1:7,13,14,16,17; Colossians 4:3,10; and Philemon 1,9) in them. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was delivered by Tychicus (6:21) to the Church.

Ephesians is the most impersonal letter Paul ever wrote. It lacks personal greetings which are commonly found in his other letters. This is surprising given the fact that Paul spent no less than three years in Ephesus (Acts 20:31). This absence of personal greetings has led some scholars to believe that the letter was an encyclical or circular letter, which should be more formal than personal, and was meant to be circulated among all the Churches in Asia Minor (including Laodicia, Colosse, Sardis, Pergamos, and Ephesus). It may be that the letter was the first (or last) sent to Ephesus and that is how it became associated with the Church in that city.

The City of Ephesus

Ephesus was the home of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman settlers. With a population of about 250,000 people, only Alexandria and Rome were the only other larger cities that existed at that time. Ephesus was a large city and important in Paul’s day. It was a leading commercial and cultural center of the Roman empire. Commercially, Ephesus was the largest trading center in Asia Minor west of Taurus, which is located on the eastern part of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). (See the map at the end of this Introduction.) It was famous for the pagan temple of goddess Diana (or Artemis in Greek), which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Paul spent two years in Ephesus ministering the Word of God and performing extraordinary miracles (Acts 19:10-11). Mark and John also ministered there.

The apostle John used Ephesus as his headquarters. Many believe that it is also the place to which Mary, the mother of Jesus, traveled with John and lived out the rest of her life. It was from Ephesus that John was exiled to the island of Patmos. It was there the Lord spoke to John about the Church at Ephesus – I have this against you, that you have left your first love (Revelations 2:4).

The Message

Ephesians is the New Testament (NT) counterpart of the book of Joshua. As Israel’s blessings were found in the land of Canaan, so our blessings are found in the heavenlies. Just as Joshua led the people into the Promised Land, so Jesus is the captain of our salvation.

The epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians are similar in content. The two epistles seem to have been written at the same time and delivered by the same individual. Most commentators think Colossians was written first. It seems that when Paul was writing Ephesians, he had Colossians in front of him or was able to reproduce it from memory. Colossians explains Christ’s person and work in relation to the whole universe, whereas Ephesians explains what the Church’s universal role is as the body of Christ.

Ephesians is the gospel of the Church. It sets forth God’s master plan to create through Jesus Christ a new society. It focuses on the basic doctrine of the Church—how believers are expected to function within the Church. Various images—the body, the building, the family, and marriage—are used to stress interrelatedness.

Like other Pauline letters, Ephesians can be divided into two main parts. The first three chapters dwell on doctrine or theology, while the last three chapters focus on duty or behavior. The letter can also be divided as follows:²

• The new life which God has given us in Christ (1:3-2:10);

• The new community which God has created through Christ (2:11-3:21);

• The new standards for the new community, especially unity and purity (4:1-5:21); and

• The new relationships into which God has brought us—harmony in the home and hostility to the devil (5:21-6:24).

NOTES

1. Quoted in K. Snodgrass, Ephesians: The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), p. 29.

2. J. Stott, Ephesians: Building a Community in Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 6.

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Map of ancient Asia Minor

Part 1

Doctrine: Our Riches In Christ

Chapter 1

Greetings

Ephesians 1:1-2

The Author

Verse 1a: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

1 Greetings are very important in most cultures. For example, Africans regard someone who does not greet as rude. Paul takes the time to greet his readers in a manner that communicates both his love and care for them.

Paul was originally known as Saul (Acts 7:58). He was a Jew, from the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5) and may have been named after Saul, the first king of Israel. Saul is a Hebrew name which means prayed or asked for. Paul is a fully Romanized name (meaning small) which is perhaps reflective of his self-designation as the least of the apostles. The Lion of the tribe of Judah had cut him down to size. The change in name from Saul to Paul took place in Acts 13:9.

Saul of Tarsus became Paul the apostle. Paul saw himself uniquely as the apostle to the Gentiles. An apostle (apostolos, Greek) means one who is sent. It is what we would call a missionary or an ambassador sent out by one’s native country. According to Harold Hoehner, apostle was an official delegate of Jesus Christ commissioned for the specific tasks of proclaiming authoritatively the message in oral and written form and of establishing and the building up of Churches.¹

In the Bible, the word apostle is used in two different ways. First, it refers to each of the twelve apostles that Jesus called. To be an apostle in this sense, one must have been with the Lord in His earthly ministry and witnessed His resurrection. Second, there are apostles besides the twelve who were not with Jesus in His earthly ministry. These include Paul, Barnabas (Acts14:4,14), Matthias (Acts 1:26), James (the Lord’s brother) (Galatians 1:19), Timothy and Silvanus (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2:6).

When exactly did Paul become an apostle? We know that he was first called an apostle in Acts 14:14 but some believe that Paul became an apostle when he had an encounter with the Lord on the Damascus road (Acts 9). Since apostleship is a spiritual gift, the apostle could have received it at conversion. We know that His apostleship was not of his choosing or of his own merit. It was by the will of God. It was a calling, a vocation. Paul was convinced that God had a plan for his life. Are you?

Paul’s reference to his apostleship served two purposes. First, it identified him as one on a commission from the Lord and one representing Him. In other words, he wanted to show that he was sent by Jesus. Second, it showed his authority to speak as a leader or as one representing the Lord.

The Audience

Verse 1b: To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus

Paul uses two words to describe those he is addressing in the letter: saints and faithful. The word saints (hagioi, Greek) means holy ones. The LXX (Septuagint) used the word for the people of Israel—God’s chosen. A saint is one who has been set apart. Sainthood is not an accomplished perfection but a position that we have been given in Jesus Christ. Every Christian is a saint and every saint is a Christain.² You are a saint. You are a child of God. You have royal blood flowing through your veins. You may now have to learn to act and talk like a saint. People tend to become what they think they are.

The word faithful (pistos, Greek) means trustworthy. It refers to our loyal commitment to maintain a good relationship with the Lord. Believers is probably a better translation. The saints and the faithful or believers refer to the same group. In togetherness, we are saints and faithful brethren.

The majority of surviving, oldest Greek manuscripts contain the words in Ephesus. However, these words are missing from only three of them (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and a second-century papyrus). It may be that the letter was a circular intended to be read among the various Churches in the Ephesus area or Asia Minor.

The phrase in Christ occurs 35 times in Ephesians. Believers are in Ephesus and also in Christ. Every believer has a human address and a divine address. In other words, we operate in two spheres: the human and the divine, the visible and the invisible.

We are in Houston and in Christ.

We