Ephesians 1 is the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Traditionally, it is believed to have been written by Apostle Paul while he was in prison in Rome (around AD 62), but more recently, it has been suggested that it was written between AD 80 and 100 by another writer using Paul's name and style. This chapter contains the greeting, followed by a section about "The Blessing of God" and Paul's prayer.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 23 verses.
Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are: Papyrus 46 (~AD 200) Papyrus 92 (~300; extant verses 11–13,19–21) Codex Vaticanus (325–50) Codex Sinaiticus (330–60) Codex Alexandrinus (400–40) Codex Claromontanus (~550)
Old Testament references
: Psalm
New Testament references
: 1 Corinthians
Greeting (1:1–2)
The greeting of this epistle follows the typical of Paul's usual address format, "X to Y, greeting" (in Greek style) or "peace" (in Jewish style).
Verse 1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: While English translations indicate that the letter was addressed to "the saints who are in Ephesus", the words "in Ephesus" do not appear in Papyrus 46, one of the earliest manuscripts containing this epistle. See the section on the place, date, and purpose of the writing of the letter in the article on Epistle to the Ephesians for more details.
Verse 2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Blessing of God (1:3–14) Theologian James Dunn considers this section "one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible" among Christian praise, "unlike anything else in Pauline letters". The Greek text of this part can be punctuated as a single sentence. It contains a four-dimensional blessing, sketched a circle starting from God and directing to God as the source and resource of it, reaching from the time "before the foundation of the world" (verse 4), into the revelation of the divine mystery (verse 9), until the end of time ("the fullness of time") to "sum up everything in Christ" (verse 10) with "the Spirit as the guarantee" of "the final redemption of God's own possession" (verse 14).
Verse 3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. An rhetorical antanaclasis: God has blessed us in one sense, we bless Him in another; an "ingenious correlation of the passive εὐλογητός (eulogētos) and the active εὐλογήσας (eulogēsas)".
Verse 13
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
"In Him you also trusted" (KJV: "In whom ye also trusted"): The same promise, grace and privileges belonged to all that God called, both the believing Jews and the Gentile believers in Ephesus, whom Paul particularly addresses; as they were saved by the same Christ, and were "heirs of the same inheritance". Codex Alexandrinus alone reads "we" (ημεις), instead of "you".
"The word of truth" here refers to "the Gospel of your salvation", while the Jews use the phrase for "sublime and heavenly doctrine". Paul uses it to denote the "declaration and publication of salvation by Christ", in which they believed after hearing it.