Ephesians 4:4-7, 14-16
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.....
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Today we’re going to take a look at the second of the probably-not-Paul letters of the Christian Scriptures with Ephesians – the letter to “the saints who are in Ephesus.” Ephesus was an ancient Greek city located on the far western coast of modern day Turkey. It is also one of the cities where the Jesus-community was largely built by Paul’s preaching. He lived and preached there for at least two years. There was a small group of believers there when he arrived, but a much larger community when he left.
There had long been a famous shrine of the goddess Artemis there – it was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world -- and this was the city, you may recall, where Paul was involved in a major kerfuffle with the silversmiths union when they rioted, accusing him of destroying their livelihoods by turning worshipers from Artemis to Jesus, and he basically got chased out of town.
However - we are not even sure that this letter is specifically addressed to the people of Ephesus, because the phrase, “in Ephesus” is missing in the earliest copies we possess and appears to have been added in later. It is quite possible this was always meant to be a “circular letter,” one written for the church in general, and intended to be passed along from town to town.
Though Paul certainly did know Ephesus and the Ephesians, it is highly unlikely that he is the author of this letter, for many of the same reasons we discussed last week when reading Colossians. It is clear that the unknown author had read and studied Paul’s actual writings – and shared their core beliefs. But while the topics remain very close, the style and syntax are most unlike Paul.
Paul wrote as he most likely spoke – in short, concise, forceful sentences. Granted, he used a great many words, being Paul, but they were arranged in short talking points, not long run-on sentences. It’s not always easy to tell in modern English translations because translators tend to chop long sentences down to manageable size, but in the original Greek some of the sentences here run on and on...and on.
We wouldn’t notice because we are reading English, but in chapter one, for instance, in the original, verse 3 through verse 14 is all one sentence. The authentic Paul did not write like that.
While the content remains largely true to Paul, we do run into some of the same issues we found in Colossians – mainly the accommodation of ideas to fit into the prevailing culture. Here once again, wives – who were once equal in Paul’s teaching -- are instructed to submit to their husbands – but this letter goes even further than Colossians, teaching that husbands are the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. And again, slaves are instructed to serve their earthly masters, and to do so with fear and trembling.
These small deviations from Paul's teaching might seem like nothing more than nit-picking at first hearing. Unfortunately, these two points – which the authentic Paul would not have taught this way -- have unfortunately been used throughout the centuries to justify both slavery and domestic abuse, giving a Christian gloss to these beliefs and behaviors. There are still many places in the world, and in our own country, that prefer the false-Paul versions on these subjects because they can be used to justify their bigotry and misogyny. Real people have suffered real harm based on these small-seeming differences.
With these exceptions, however, there is in this letter a beautiful and forceful insistence on unity within the entire household of the church, particularly among Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. The writer tells the church that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall between them and they are no longer strangers and aliens. One of the most interesting lines is where this writer reminds his readers that circumcision – that point that was such a dividing line between Jews and Gentiles in authentic Paul’s day – circumcision is a “physical circumcision” made in the flesh by human hands. While the symbolism is huge within the Jewish community, no one is born circumcised – this is a thing that humans do – and those who do are not born better than those who don’t.
It is also interesting here that the writer assumes this is a conflict that is in the past – not still a current battle, as was so much a theme in authentic Paul’s writing. Unity is spoken of here as an already achieved goal. This writer also speaks of this unifying work having been done on the “foundation” of the apostles and prophets – placing them clearly in the past – no longer living, active figures.
Once again, as we found with the pseudo-Pauline letter to the Colossians, whoever the writer was, and whatever his or her reasons for writing in Paul’s name, this letter is entirely worth reading on its own – it just needs to be read with care and attention.
Marc Borg makes the point that this writer knew Paul’s letters and lived, himself, within a Pauline tradition and tried hard to be faithful to it. Ephesians was most likely written a full thirty years after Paul’s death. There is a whole generation between Paul and this writer’s readers – between Paul’s emerging church and this writer’s congregations.
The current writer remained as true to Paul’s teachings as possible at this remove. Studying these pseudo-letters is a good reminder for us as to how easy it is to drift from an original teaching. I doubt this writer had any intention, or even was aware he was changing some of Paul’s teachings. We all accommodate, all too readily and usually unknowingly, to the culture around us.
Look around us today. We like to call ourselves a “Christian nation” but how far have we traveled from Jesus’ teachings in our day to day living? How readily do we justify behaviors that would have surely saddened Jesus?
We call ourselves followers of Jesus, yet just what accommodations have we made between Jesus’ teachings and life in this modern world we live in? Reading these letters with our current knowledge and really thinking about what we’re hearing could prove to be a salutary lesson for us in living our own lives every day, while remaining faithful to our claims of following Jesus with our lives.
There had long been a famous shrine of the goddess Artemis there – it was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world -- and this was the city, you may recall, where Paul was involved in a major kerfuffle with the silversmiths union when they rioted, accusing him of destroying their livelihoods by turning worshipers from Artemis to Jesus, and he basically got chased out of town.
However - we are not even sure that this letter is specifically addressed to the people of Ephesus, because the phrase, “in Ephesus” is missing in the earliest copies we possess and appears to have been added in later. It is quite possible this was always meant to be a “circular letter,” one written for the church in general, and intended to be passed along from town to town.
Though Paul certainly did know Ephesus and the Ephesians, it is highly unlikely that he is the author of this letter, for many of the same reasons we discussed last week when reading Colossians. It is clear that the unknown author had read and studied Paul’s actual writings – and shared their core beliefs. But while the topics remain very close, the style and syntax are most unlike Paul.
Paul wrote as he most likely spoke – in short, concise, forceful sentences. Granted, he used a great many words, being Paul, but they were arranged in short talking points, not long run-on sentences. It’s not always easy to tell in modern English translations because translators tend to chop long sentences down to manageable size, but in the original Greek some of the sentences here run on and on...and on.
We wouldn’t notice because we are reading English, but in chapter one, for instance, in the original, verse 3 through verse 14 is all one sentence. The authentic Paul did not write like that.
While the content remains largely true to Paul, we do run into some of the same issues we found in Colossians – mainly the accommodation of ideas to fit into the prevailing culture. Here once again, wives – who were once equal in Paul’s teaching -- are instructed to submit to their husbands – but this letter goes even further than Colossians, teaching that husbands are the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. And again, slaves are instructed to serve their earthly masters, and to do so with fear and trembling.
These small deviations from Paul's teaching might seem like nothing more than nit-picking at first hearing. Unfortunately, these two points – which the authentic Paul would not have taught this way -- have unfortunately been used throughout the centuries to justify both slavery and domestic abuse, giving a Christian gloss to these beliefs and behaviors. There are still many places in the world, and in our own country, that prefer the false-Paul versions on these subjects because they can be used to justify their bigotry and misogyny. Real people have suffered real harm based on these small-seeming differences.
With these exceptions, however, there is in this letter a beautiful and forceful insistence on unity within the entire household of the church, particularly among Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. The writer tells the church that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall between them and they are no longer strangers and aliens. One of the most interesting lines is where this writer reminds his readers that circumcision – that point that was such a dividing line between Jews and Gentiles in authentic Paul’s day – circumcision is a “physical circumcision” made in the flesh by human hands. While the symbolism is huge within the Jewish community, no one is born circumcised – this is a thing that humans do – and those who do are not born better than those who don’t.
It is also interesting here that the writer assumes this is a conflict that is in the past – not still a current battle, as was so much a theme in authentic Paul’s writing. Unity is spoken of here as an already achieved goal. This writer also speaks of this unifying work having been done on the “foundation” of the apostles and prophets – placing them clearly in the past – no longer living, active figures.
Once again, as we found with the pseudo-Pauline letter to the Colossians, whoever the writer was, and whatever his or her reasons for writing in Paul’s name, this letter is entirely worth reading on its own – it just needs to be read with care and attention.
Marc Borg makes the point that this writer knew Paul’s letters and lived, himself, within a Pauline tradition and tried hard to be faithful to it. Ephesians was most likely written a full thirty years after Paul’s death. There is a whole generation between Paul and this writer’s readers – between Paul’s emerging church and this writer’s congregations.
The current writer remained as true to Paul’s teachings as possible at this remove. Studying these pseudo-letters is a good reminder for us as to how easy it is to drift from an original teaching. I doubt this writer had any intention, or even was aware he was changing some of Paul’s teachings. We all accommodate, all too readily and usually unknowingly, to the culture around us.
Look around us today. We like to call ourselves a “Christian nation” but how far have we traveled from Jesus’ teachings in our day to day living? How readily do we justify behaviors that would have surely saddened Jesus?
We call ourselves followers of Jesus, yet just what accommodations have we made between Jesus’ teachings and life in this modern world we live in? Reading these letters with our current knowledge and really thinking about what we’re hearing could prove to be a salutary lesson for us in living our own lives every day, while remaining faithful to our claims of following Jesus with our lives.
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