Dear Church...
Ephesians: A Guided Tour #1 (1:1-2)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:1-2 ESV)
Letters in the Greco-Roman world were addressed differently then those in the modern day. Today, we start with the recipient, and identify ourselves at the very end. But in the ancient words, they would state the author first, followed by the recipient(s), and finally a word of greeting (usually charein, which meant “greetings”).
So the heading might run like this: “John to Matthew, greetings!”
Paul follows this pattern in his letters, but with a few modifications. He will usually say something about himself, some things about his companions, then give a greeting that is really more of a blessing upon his audience.
Notice first how he describes himself: An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. As some of his other letters make clear, Paul was used to having his apostleship questioned. The other apostles were with Jesus throughout his earthly ministry, and were eyewitness of his resurrection. Paul, as far as we know, never encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry.
But make no mistake, Paul did encounter the risen Jesus. Paul’s vision of Christ on the Damascus road not only was Paul’s conversion experience, it was his commissioning ceremony. Paul was hand-picked by Jesus, just the same as Matthew or Philip. And Paul never got over the experience that changed the course of his life. He was an apostle by the will of God.
The recipients are described as “the saints who are in Ephesus, faithful in Christ Jesus”. Interestingly, many of the early manuscripts of this letter omit the words “in Ephesus,” leading most scholars to conjecture that Ephesians was an encyclical letter, intended to be passed around among the churches of the region. The relative lack of personal greetings in the letter lends further support to this theory.
Whoever the recipients were, they were described as “saints” (literally “holy ones”) and “faithful in Christ Jesus.” As such, he can speak of the immense blessings that are their possession by virtue of being in Christ. There is no hint of division or error as there was in Corinth or the churches of Galatia.
Finally, Paul, as is his custom, swaps the normal Greek greeting charein with the similar but much more profound charis (grace). Grace is central to Paul’s thought, and is a major theme of Ephesians. He couples this greeting with the Greek term eirene (peace), almost certainly meant to stand for the Hebrew shalom.
Finally, he locates the source of the grace and peace in “God our Father” and “the Lord Jesus Christ.” By using the title kurios (Lord) for Jesus - a title used of YHWH in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint - Paul is putting his cards on the table, so to speak: Jesus is God the Son and should be honored and worshipped as such.
Next time: The longest run-on sentence in the Bible!