Ephesians
Chapter 1
Overview
Paul opens this letter to the believers in Ephesus by widening the view from their local community to God’s purpose for the whole creation. In one long surge of praise, he describes what God has done through Jesus the Messiah: choosing people, adopting them into his family, forgiving them, and giving them his Spirit as a guarantee of what is still to come. Paul then turns to prayer. He asks that his readers may truly grasp their hope, the value God places on his people, and the immense power revealed when God raised Jesus from death.
1From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus because God willed it. To God’s people in Ephesus, those who are faithful and united with Christ Jesus.
2May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because we are united with Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm.
4Before the world was created, God chose us in Christ to be devoted to him and without fault in his presence, living in love.
5He decided beforehand to adopt us as his children through Jesus Christ. This was his desire and his good purpose,
6so that his glorious grace would be praised—the grace he freely gave us through the Son he loves.
7Through God’s beloved Son, we have been set free at the cost of his blood: our wrongs have been forgiven. This comes from God’s abundant grace,
8which he poured out on us, giving us every kind of wisdom and understanding.
9God made known to us the once-hidden purpose of his will. This pleased him, and he had planned it through Christ
10for the time when his plan would reach its completion: to bring everything in heaven and on earth together under Christ as its head.
11United with Christ, we were also appointed to receive an inheritance. God decided this beforehand according to his purpose, for he makes everything happen in keeping with what he intends and wills.
12He did this so that we, who were the first to place our hope in the Messiah, would cause his glory to be praised.
13You also became united with Christ when you heard the true message—the good news that brought you salvation—and believed in him. God then marked you as belonging to him by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised.
14The Spirit is the advance guarantee of our inheritance until God fully sets free the people he has made his own. All this leads to the praise of his glory.
15Because of this, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people,
16I have never stopped thanking God for you. I remember you in my prayers,
17asking the glorious Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you may know him fully.
18I pray that the eyes of your hearts—your inner understanding—will be filled with light. Then you will know the hope to which God has called you and how rich and glorious his inheritance among his people is.
19You will also know the immeasurable greatness of his power working for us who believe. It is the same mighty strength
20that God put to work in the Messiah when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand, the place of highest honor, in the heavenly realm.
21God placed him far above every ruler, authority, power, and lord, and above every title that can be named—not only in the present age but also in the age to come.
22God placed everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, the community of believers.
23The church is Christ’s body, the fullness of the one who fills everything in every way.