What is the meaning of Ephesians Chapter 2?

Answer 1

Since the English clergyman Evanson first raised doubts about the authorship of Ephesians in 1792, New Testament scholars have raised doubts about its authenticity. Written decades after Paul's death, the epistle would have ben intended as an encyclical to the whole Christian community, so that chapter 2 does not have the same meaning as if it had been written by Paul to the Ephesians.

Although Paul usually writes in short, pointed sentences, verses 2:1-9 form a single, continuous sentence (i) in which Paul tells the recipients of this letter that having been dead in their transgressions and sins, they have been raised up by the love of Christ and seated us with him in the heavens. Verses 2:8-9 tells us that their salvation was through faith and as a gift of God, and not because of any good deeds. In verses 10-22, the author reminds the Ephesians (ii) that they were once gentiles but through Christ Jesus are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone.

Footnotes

(i)Paul wrote the nine verses as a single sentence in the original Greek text, but some English translations break this into shorter, more readable sentences.

(ii)In the oldest and best manuscripts, the epistle is simply addressed to the ‘saints’, without mentioning ‘in Ephesus’, so the reference to Ephesus is considered likely to be a later interpolation.