A bold vision of a cosmic church: Ephesians
When we turn from Galatians to Ephesians, the change of tone is startling. This is one of those letters where the tone is rather less argumentative as well as less specific than Paul normally is. For many scholars, that suggests a disciple of Paul summarising some key elements of his master’s teaching. For others, it represents simply a different scribe, and Paul in a more reflective and different mode of teaching. The letter certainly shares Paul’s love of long and convoluted sentences, with Eph 1:3-14 essentially being a single sentence in the original Greek (depending on your view of what a sentence is!). Extracts from Ephesians are mainly read in the summer months in Year B. It also provides a number of epistles for saints’ days. As I say, it seems less specific than many of Paul’s letters, which is a reason some people raise questions about how closely it is connected with Paul himself. Indeed, some of the best and earliest manuscripts don’t actually have a destina...