Efesus 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ¹  to us the secret ²  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ³  in Christ, ⁴ 

Efesus 3:11

3:11 This was according to ⁵  the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Efesus 1:11

1:11 In Christ ⁶  we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, ⁷  since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will

Efesus 3:9

3:9 and to enlighten ⁸  everyone about God’s secret plan ⁹  – a secret that has been hidden for ages ¹⁰  in God ¹¹  who has created all things.

Efesus 3:3

3:3 that ¹²  by revelation the divine secret ¹³  was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly. ¹⁴ 

Efesus 1:10

1:10 toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up ¹⁵  all things in Christ – the things in heaven ¹⁶  and the things on earth. ¹⁷ 

Efesus 3:14

Prayer for Strengthened Love

3:14 For this reason ¹⁸  I kneel ¹⁹  before the Father, ²⁰ 

Efesus 2:10

2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. ²¹ 

Efesus 1:12

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope ²²  on Christ, ²³  would be to the praise of his glory.

Efesus 3:21

3:21 to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Efesus 1:5

1:5 He did this by predestining ²⁴  us to adoption as his ²⁵  sons ²⁶  through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure ²⁷  of his will –

Efesus 3:2

3:2 if indeed ²⁸  you have heard of the stewardship ²⁹  of God’s grace that was given to me for you,

Efesus 3:5

3:5 Now this secret ³⁰  was not disclosed to people ³¹  in former ³²  generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by ³³  the Spirit,

Efesus 3:7

3:7 I became a servant of this gospel ³⁴  according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by ³⁵  the exercise of his power. ³⁶ 

Efesus 4:14

4:14 So ³⁷  we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. ³⁸ 

[1:9]  ¹ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

[1:9]  ² tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

[1:9]  ³ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[1:9]  sn In Christ. KJV has “in himself” as though the antecedent were God the Father. Although possible, the notion of the verb set forth (Greek προτίθημι, protiqhmi) implies a plan that is carried out in history (cf. Rom 1:13; 3:25) and thus more likely refers to Christ.

[3:11]  ⁵ tn Grk “according to.” The verse is a prepositional phrase subordinate to v. 10.

[1:11]  ⁶ tn Grk “in whom,” as a continuation of the previous verse.

[1:11]  ⁷ tn Grk “we were appointed by lot.” The notion of the verb κληρόω (klhrow) in the OT was to “appoint a portion by lot” (the more frequent cognate verb κληρονομέω [klhronomew] meant “obtain a portion by lot”). In the passive, as here, the idea is that “we were appointed [as a portion] by lot” (BDAG 548 s.v. κληρόω 1). The words “God’s own” have been supplied in the translation to clarify this sense of the verb. An alternative interpretation is that believers receive a portion as an inheritance: “In Christ we too have been appointed a portion of the inheritance.” See H. W. Hoehner, Ephesians, 226-27, for discussion on this interpretive issue.

[1:11]  sn God’s own possession. Although God is not mentioned explicitly in the Greek text, it is clear from the context that he has chosen believers for himself. Just as with the nation Israel, the church is God’s chosen portion or possession (cf. Deut 32:8-9).

[3:9]  ⁸ tn There is a possible causative nuance in the Greek verb, but this is difficult to convey in the translation.

[3:9]  ⁹ tn Grk “what is the plan of the divine secret.” Earlier the author had used οἰκονομία (oikonomia; here “plan”) to refer to his own “stewardship” (v. 2). But now he is speaking about the content of this secret, not his own activity in relation to it.

[3:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for eternity,” or perhaps “from the Aeons.” Cf. 2:2, 7.

[3:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “by God.” It is possible that ἐν (en) plus the dative here indicates agency, that is, that God has performed the action of hiding the secret. However, this usage of the preposition ἐν is quite rare in the NT, and even though here it does follow a perfect passive verb as in the Classical idiom, it is more likely that a different nuance is intended.

[3:3]  ¹² tn Or “namely, that is.”

[3:3]  ¹³ tn Or “mystery.”

[3:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “as I wrote above briefly.”

[3:3]  sn As I wrote briefly may refer to the author’s brief discussion of the divine secret in 1:9.

[1:10]  ¹⁵ tn The precise meaning of the infinitive ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (anakefalaiwsasqai) in v. 10 is difficult to determine since it was used relatively infrequently in Greek literature and only twice in the NT (here and Rom 13:9). While there have been several suggestions, three deserve mention: (1) “To sum up.” In Rom 13:9, using the same term, the author there says that the law may be “summarized in one command, to love your neighbor as yourself.” The idea then in Eph 1:10 would be that all things in heaven and on earth can be summed up and made sense out of in relation to Christ. (2) “To renew.” If this is the nuance of the verb then all things in heaven and earth, after their plunge into sin and ruin, are renewed by the coming of Christ and his redemption. (3) “To head up.” In this translation the idea is that Christ, in the fullness of the times, has been exalted so as to be appointed as the ruler (i.e., “head”) over all things in heaven and earth (including the church). That this is perhaps the best understanding of the verb is evidenced by the repeated theme of Christ’s exaltation and reign in Ephesians and by the connection to the κεφαλή- (kefalh-) language of 1:22 (cf. Schlier, TDNT 3:682; L&N 63.8; M. Barth, Ephesians [AB 34], 1:89-92; contra A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians [WBC], 32-33).

[1:10]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “the heavens.”

[1:10]  ¹⁷ sn And the things on earth. Verse 10 ends with “in him.” The redundancy keeps the focus on Christ at the expense of good Greek style. Verse 11 repeats the reference with a relative pronoun (“in whom”) – again, at the expense of good Greek style. Although the syntax is awkward, the theology is rich. This is not the first time that a NT writer was so overcome with awe for his Lord that he seems to have lost control of his pen. Indeed, it happened frequently enough that some have labeled their christologically motivated solecisms an “apostolic disease.”

[3:14]  ¹⁸ sn For this reason resumes the point begun in v. 1, after a long parenthesis.

[3:14]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “I bend my knees.”

[3:14]  ²⁰ tc Most Western and Byzantine witnesses, along with a few others (א² D F G Ψ 0278 1881 Ï lat sy), have “of our Lord Jesus Christ” after “Father,” but such an edifying phrase cannot explain the rise of the reading that lacks it, especially when the shorter reading is attested by early and important witnesses such as Ì⁴⁶ א* A B C P 6 33 81 365 1175 1739 co Or Hier.

[2:10]  ²¹ tn Grk “so that we might walk in them” (or “by them”).

[2:10]  sn So that we may do them. Before the devil began to control our walk in sin and among sinful people, God had already planned good works for us to do.

[1:12]  ²² tn Or “who had already hoped.”

[1:12]  ²³ tn Or “the Messiah.”

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Grk “by predestining.” Verse 5 begins with an aorist participle dependent on the main verb in v. 4 (“chose”).

[1:5]  sn By predestining. The aorist participle may be translated either causally (“because he predestined,” “having predestined”) or instrumentally (“by predestining”). A causal nuance would suggest that God’s predestination of certain individuals prompted his choice of them. An instrumental nuance would suggest that the means by which God’s choice was accomplished was by predestination. The instrumental view is somewhat more likely in light of normal Greek syntax (i.e., an aorist participle following an aorist main verb is more likely to be instrumental than causal).

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn Grk “to himself” after “through Jesus Christ.”

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as…sons.”

[1:5]  sn Adoption as his sons is different from spiritual birth as children. All true believers have been born as children of God and will be adopted as sons of God. The adoption is both a future reality, and in some sense, already true. To be adopted as a son means to have the full rights of an heir. Thus, although in the ancient world, only boys could be adopted as sons, in God’s family all children – both male and female – are adopted.

[1:5]  ²⁷ tn Or “good pleasure.”

[3:2]  ²⁸ sn If indeed. The author is not doubting whether his audience has heard, but is rather using provocative language (if indeed) to engage his audience in thinking about the magnificence of God’s grace. However, in English translation, the apodosis (“then”-clause) does not come until v. 13, leaving the protasis (“if”-clause) dangling. Eph 3:2-7 constitute one sentence in Greek.

[3:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “administration,” “dispensation,” “commission.”

[3:5]  ³⁰ tn Grk “which.” Verse 5 is technically a relative clause, subordinate to the thought of v. 4.

[3:5]  ³¹ tn Grk “the sons of men” (a Semitic idiom referring to human beings, hence, “people”).

[3:5]  ³² tn Grk “other.”

[3:5]  ³³ tn Or “in.”

[3:7]  ³⁴ tn Grk “of which I was made a minister,” “of which I became a servant.”

[3:7]  ³⁵ tn Grk “according to.”

[3:7]  ³⁶ sn On the exercise of his power see 1:19-20.

[4:14]  ³⁷ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[4:14]  ³⁸ tn While the sense of the passage is clear enough, translation in English is somewhat difficult. The Greek says: “by the trickery of men, by craftiness with the scheme of deceit.” The point is that the author is concerned about Christians growing into maturity. He is fearful that certain kinds of very cunning people, who are skilled at deceitful scheming, should come in and teach false doctrines which would in turn stunt the growth of the believers.