Author – The Apostle Paul. There is strong consensus, going all the way back to early canons and Church fathers, that the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians.
Date – The letter to the Ephesians was written during Paul’s Roman imprisonment between 60 and 62 AD.
Audience – Paul wrote to the network of house churches in Western Asia Minor, in and near Ephesus. It is interesting to note and observe that while the New Testament often refers to the church, it does not speak of going “to church” in the way we understand it. To imagine that Paul’s letter was delivered by a postal carrier to an institutional church office, where it was received by the clerical staff and then read publicly by the pastor in the next Sunday morning service right after worship and announcements, would be highly distortive. Church life in 1st century Ephesus was much more organic and less formalistic than that.
Furthermore, Christianity was not a widely accepted or “politically correct” religion in the Greco-Roman Empire at the time the Letter to the Ephesians was written. Emperor Nero, one of the worst and most horrific persecutors of Christians ever, came to power very shortly thereafter, in AD 64. Under these circumstances, the Christians of the period - while their numbers were growing by the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit - did not enjoy open, public acceptance or presence within Greco-Roman society.
As explained more fully below, the cultural environment in Ephesus was particularly problematic for Christians.
Circumstances & Cultural Background
The City - Ephesus itself was a large, multi-ethnic center of trade, commerce and culture. In the Greco Roman world of the first century, Ephesus was exceeded in population only by Rome and Alexandria. Capital city of the large Roman province of Asia, Ephesus had approximately a quarter of a million people and was an important seaport. In addition to having a significant Jewish community, Ephesus was home to many Greeks, Romans and other settlers from throughout the entire Mediterranean world.
Travelers and pilgrims (see “The Artemis Cult” following) from all over the Roman world visited Ephesus in large numbers. Being on a main trade route and having a key harbor added to the picture of Ephesus as a bustling, multi-cultural city of trade and entertainment. There was a medical college, renowned doctors, and a large public library in Ephesus, as well as numerous shrines and statues, an underground sewer system, and an outdoor amphitheater which seated more people than the Hollywood Bowl seats today. Affluent homes in Ephesus boasted amazing opulence and split level construction, with floor space often exceeding 10,000 square feet.
When you think of Ephesus, don’t think of a small, dusty town with dirt streets and a few camels tied here and there. Think of a city more the size of the Santa Clarita Valley with a bustling harbor and the pace, architecture and infrastructure of a large, commercial cosmopolitan city.
Culture – Ephesus was pluralistic in every way. Many ethnic and cultural backgrounds were represented, and religious pluralism was entrenched and embraced. Moral beliefs, like religious ones, were diverse, and considerable moral depravity was accepted, perhaps considerably more so than in our modern American culture. The wide-ranging social acceptance was maintained in the name of tolerance and syncretism. As a result, anyone claiming to have “the” right religion, “the” only god, and “the” ultimate truth was bound to face acute rejection and social pressure and persecution.
I recently came across the following (typical) comment from a self-proclaimed “agnostic”:
“I think that many aspects of many different religions are valid in regards to how we see things, how we live our lives and the kinds of people that we should try to be… There are too many different kinds of people to restrict the validity to one form of religion.”
Try to imagine such a view becoming accepted and legalized to the point that those holding an orthodox Christian view and allowing that view to be known in any overt way might be tortured and/or killed at the hands of neighbors or the State. This was Ephesus, and indeed much of the Greco-Roman world, from the latter part of the first century until the middle of the fifth. We might ask ourselves: in such circumstances, who would stay committed to the Church, and how would the members of that Church conduct themselves as a community and as believing brothers and sisters in Christ?
We can imagine that a certain number of people would quickly (and emotionally) embrace the Christian religion as one more exciting way among many, but perhaps not become rooted in the faith in a way in which they would stick fully to the exclusive truth of the Gospel or commit fully to the faith community. Sound familiar? If we think about it, there is much to be compared between the cultures of Ephesus and of 21st century America.
Holding these thoughts in mind while reading Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians will help provide a sense of cultural and historic context. It will also be important to understand something about the dominant and most locally branded and visible religion of Ephesus.
The Artemis Cult – Ephesus was the sacred home of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, protector of nature and animals, the goddess of fertility, and the “virgin mother” of Heaven. Statues of Artemis, depicted with multiple breasts, were housed in temples, the most famous being the temple in Ephesus, which was one of the “seven wonders of the world.”
It is significant to the culture and social norms of Ephesus that Artemis was a god-ess. There was a decidedly feminist hue to the Ephesian mentality and personality.
The “reach” of Artemis in terms of her areas of supposed power and influence, along with an over-arching polytheism (belief in many gods), gave foundation to the pluralism of the Ephesians and of the entire Greco-Roman society. The fact that the Romans had taken over the ancient Near East from the Greeks, yet had both allowed and embraced Greek religion along with their own, added to the religious pluralism. To claim your “god” or your particular religion was “the only” correct one, and that yours nullified the others, was essentially treasonous.
It should be noted that in Acts 19, those rioting in Ephesus against the Christians shouted repeatedly, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” This certainly seems to have been a public claim to the superiority of Artemis over other “gods.” However, the rioters would not necessarily have made that claim, but would have acknowledged that “other gods” were also valid though not as great as Artemis, at least when it came to Ephesus. Other cities had, of course, different dominant gods or goddesses, but Ephesus boasted of Artemis.
In Ephesus, a large industry developed and grew up around the cult and the temple of Artemis, that temple being a great architectural marvel and attraction to people from all over the Empire. Think “Disneyland” with religious, cultish intensity. A vacationer to Ephesus would very likely acquire and carry away a collection of souvenirs, such as small (or larger) statue of the goddess, made and sold in Ephesus.
Magic & Spiritualism - Ephesus was heavily defined and influenced in its daily life by the occult, including belief in magic, incantations, and spirit powers, particularly as these proceeded from an animalistic worldview. This view held humans and animals to be quite connected on earth and in the world of the gods.
The Church Culture – Much as in today’s world of ethnic diversity, religious and philosophical pluralism, new ageism, relativism, materialism, commercialism, and all of the confusion of competing doctrines and beliefs even among Christian believers, the church in Ephesus faced a large challenge. There was serious temptation towards individualism, feminism, heretical ideas, borrowing pagan and occult practices from prior affiliations, and following after the pluralistic cultural norms of “tolerance” and “acceptance,” to the extreme sense in which the meanings of both terms were stretched beyond reason or logic.
There was also a heavy influence of Artemis (goddess)-inspired feminism, and this threatened the stability of marriages and families. As in today’s American culture, there was a strong tendency to think of truth as nothing more than preferences, such that something could be “true for you” but not “true for me.”
As for the structure and conduct of the Christian church in Ephesus, it is virtually certain that believers did not meet in one central location. There was no “First Church of Ephesus” building with an address and a listing in the Ephesus phone book. Smaller “cell” groups of believers undoubtedly met in homes in various parts of the city as well as in towns and villages in the region and in the towns and cities surrounding Ephesus.
CONTENTS
Genre – This is an epistle (letter).
Message & Theme:
Central Theme and Purpose – Paul does not appear to address a particular crisis among the believers in Ephesus, but he does write into a culturally chaotic, temptation-laden environment in which his implied purpose is to instruct and encourage Ephesian believers in their calling to unity as the Body of Christ, both Jew and Gentile, and in their growing in Christian maturity.
A concise statement of the theme of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians might be: For those who are saved by God’s grace: towards unity in Christ as the Body of Christ, called to discipleship, increasing spiritual maturity, and progressive victory over the evil one.
This is certainly a fitting theme statement for our own day.
Plan of Redemption – In chapters 1-3, Paul addresses several aspects of the plan of redemption, including (1) praise to God for the work of redemption and “to the praise of His glorious grace,” which appears, in variations, as a refrain after each section; (2) thanksgiving for the blessings of redemption (1:15-2:10); and (3) the propagation of redemption for all without regard to race (2:11-13), making all one in Christ and revealing redemption through people who have been redeemed. Redemption has a goal: revelation of the nature of God’s love through Christ. (3:14-21) Paul emphasizes God’s sovereign choosing and predestination of those He justifies and saves by grace, and of those to whom the gift of faith is granted.
Ethics – Paul focused also on various life applications of redemption to the church and to personal and domestic life (4:1-6:24). He taught unity in the Spirit, while celebrating the diversity of individual gifts of the Spirit for the building up of the believers into unity and maturity.
We might find it intriguing that Paul, writing to believers in a heavily individualizing culture (which all pluralistic cultures invariably are), speaks BOTH of unity and solidarity among believers AND the diversity of individual gifts. It is as though Paul is saying, Yes, you are in fact individuals with your own individual strengths, weaknesses, preferences and gifts – BUT these individual attributes are to be subservient to the collective Body of Christ, that is, to the community living in harmony and unity in Christ. It is not to be the other way around, where the Church exists as a place to build, house and showcase “me, myself and I.”
In reading Ephesians, it is very helpful to note that typical of Paul’s writing and organization, the first three chapters are concentrated on principles, while the final three chapters are focused on practices. Accordingly, the reader does well to seek out doctrinal and theological wisdom from chapters 1-3, and behavioral guidance from chapters 4-6, as the following outline illustrates.
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