EPHESIANS 1:3-27 RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD

In approaching a new book of the Bible for study on your own, probably the first thing you should do is make sure you are well founded concerning the basics of that book. Any general Bible introduction will, thus, provide you with information about the author, the intended audience, the circumstances surrounding the writing, and the main purpose for which it was written. But what some readers do not realize is how important it is to see each of these books as a literary creation which is divided into separate sections, and often there is a plan behind these individual divisions and the ways in which they relate to one another. The problem comes in when that original plan is so obscure that even scholars have trouble agreeing on what it is.

Usual Format

As one example of that last consideration, take the first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. William Barclay, in his general introduction to Paul's epistles found at the start of his commentary to Romans, explains that Paul generally began his letters with a short greeting (Eph. 1:1 in this case), followed by a prayer (1:2) and a thanksgiving to God (1:3). Then Paul could begin the main contents of his letter (at Ephesians 1:4) and conclude with various greetings and a benediction (6:21-32). But even Paul felt free to depart from that general plan on occasion.

Division by Subject

This is another way of trying to discern the intended divisions in the text. In English we do this by starting a new paragraph or skipping a line. But the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts rarely had such division points indicated. Thus, the scholars who came up with our various translations had to make judgment calls which sometimes did not agree with one another wholly. For example,

NIV and RSV indicate major divisions in its translation after verses 2 and 14, as well as a minor division after v. 10. Also seeing a break after v. 10 is one of the anonymous contributors to The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, who states: “The plan of salvation reflects the purpose of the will of God the Father, who has sent the Son to carry it out (Eph. 1:3-10).”

NEB also sees these three break points in the text but makes no distinction between the one after v. 10 and the others.

NRSV agrees with the major divisions after 2 and 14 but does not indicate a break after v. 10. Also recognizing v. 15 as starting a new section is Marcus Barth.

Hoehner's commentary on Ephesians also recognizes a two-fold division, with vv. 1-14 as “an extended praise directed to God and vv. 15-23 as “a commendation to the readers for their faith and love and a petition for wisdom and revelation.” (1:15-23). But note that he starts this unit with v. 1 instead of at v. 4 (Barclay) or v. 3 (RSV and NRSV). Also Hoehner's last description could be taken as an indication that there is a further division into a commendation / thanks in verses 15-16 followed by the actual prayer to God in 17-23. Maclean recognizes this same sub-division.

However, here again there is disagreement since Simpson treats vv. 15-20a as a prayer and labels 20b-23 as “Christ's Exaltation and Its Concomitant Issues for the Church.” Then there is the opinion of Moritz who calls verses 3-14 a eulogy or extensive praise section while verses 15-23 are treated as an intercessory prayer.

The intended ending of the unit beginning at either 1:1 or 1:3 is felt to be at Ephesians 3:21 by both Harpur and Foulkes, with Harpur seeing a major break after 1:19 while Foulkes places it after 1:14.

JB has a break after v. 14 but additionally indicates that vv. 3-14 (titled “God's Plan of Salvation”) is written in a form of poetry while vv. 15-23 (“The Triumph and Supremacy of Christ”) are in prose.

Division by Genre

The last example above brings up another criterion sometimes used to indicate that a new sub-section is beginning. But it is by no means foolproof since we can see that the Anchor Bible translation, divisions below, disagree with the Jerusalem Bible as to which verses are in poetry and which are in prose:

    prose (v. 3), poetry (vv. 3-10),

    prose (vv. 11-13), poetry (v. 14),

    prose (vv. 15-20a), poetry (20b-23)

Organization by Key Words and Phrases

    1. in the heavenly places (3)

        2. he chose us (4a)

            3. holy (4b)

                4. love (4c)

                    5. he has destined us according to his will & purpose (5)

                        6. to his praise and glory (6)

                            7. redemption (7) 

                                    8. wisdom (8)

                    5'. his will & purpose (9)

                                        A. fullness (10a)

                                            B. all things (10b, 11b)

                    5''. destined according to his will & purpose (11)

                        6'. to his praise and glory (12)

                                                C. believing (13) 

             3'. holy (13)

                                                    D. inheritance (14a)

                            7'. redemption (14b)

                        6''. to his praise and glory (14c)

                                                C'. faith (15a)

                4'. love (15b)

                                8'. wisdom (17)

        2'. he has called you (18a)

                                                    D'. inheritance (18b)

                                                C''. faith (19)

    1'. in the heavenly places (20)

                                        B'. all things (22-2x)

                                    A'. fullness (23a)

                                        B''. all things (23b-2x)

                                    A''. filling (23c)

As you can see from the above diagram, this chapter is rather densely packed with repetition of vocabulary which takes the rather unusual (but not unheard of) biblical form of two interlocking chiasms (i.e. mirror-image arrangements). Taking each separately, one can see that the numbered items reach their center point around verse 10 while the lettered items in bold reach their peak at around v. 15. Thus, it is no accident that these two change-points in the chapter are also identified by the above cited scholars using completely different lines of reasoning.

One minor textual point regarding the presence of the word “love” in v. 15 is in order at this point. Early Greek manuscripts of Ephesians differ somewhat as to whether it was in the original writing. Two prominent textual scholars disagree on this point, with Metzger feeling that it was original and Comfort stating that it was added later. Looking at the word distributions above, one can see that there is a good parallel between the presence of “love” in verses 4 and 15. However, on the other hand, if this word pair is removed from the structure, the overall organization in Figure 1 does not suffer in the least.

Grammatical Considerations

Running counter to all of the above approaches is the comment of Comfort, who notes that Ephesians 2:1-3 “grammatically speaking, should be connected with the end of chapter 1, otherwise they are just dangling...There is no break between the two chapters in the earliest MS [i.e., manuscript]. The idea is that Christ fills the church, his body, and (specifically) fills those who were once dead in their trespasses and sins. No other translation makes this connection.”