The “book” of Ephesians was written by a man named Paul to the church in a city named Ephesus. Ephesians is actually a letter. Paul was an apostle, a word which means “sent one”, an idea very similar to our modern idea of a missionary. Paul had been a very devoted Jew but after a life-changing meeting with the resurrected Jesus he became even more serious about telling others about Jesus, Jewish people and non-Jewish people alike. Although he told all who would listen he was specifically chosen by Jesus to tell the gentiles (non-Jews) about who Jesus is and what he had done for them.

Paul made at least three journeys around the Mediterranean world telling people about Jesus and starting churches (gatherings of believers). The first journey was 46-48 AD, the second was 49-52 AD and the third was 53-58 AD. He was arrested in Jerusalem after his third journey and was imprisoned in Caesarea Philippi north of Jerusalem for about two years. When a new governor of the area suggested that he return to Jerusalem to clear up the charges against himself Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the king or Caesar to hear his case. He was shipped to Rome where he spent another 2-3 years under house arrest awaiting a trial. It was during this time that he wrote four letters that we have in the New Testament: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon.

It appears that three of these letters were written at the same time, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. First of all, all three claim to be written by Paul (Colossians 1:1, Ephesians 1:1, Philemon 1). In all three of the books Paul mentions being in prison. Both Ephesians and Colossians end with a description of a guy named Tychicus who was going to bring news of Paul to both places, probably while delivering the letters. In Colossians Tychicus would be traveling with a guy named Onesimus. In Philemon we see that Onesimus was a runaway slave who came across Paul in Rome. Onesimus evidently belonged to a guy named Philemon in Colosse who was a believer in Jesus. Onesimus became a believer while with Paul in Rome and realized he needed to return to his master and make things right. There are a lot of similarities in the language used in both Colossians and Ephesians. The greetings at the end of Ephesians and Colossians in which Paul introduces Tychicus are almost identical in fact. These facts, along with information about Paul’s life that we know from the book of Acts and other letters that he wrote, strongly suggest that he wrote all three books during a house arrest near Rome about 62 AD.

Although the language in Colossians and Ephesians is very similar it is somewhat different from the language used by Paul in other letters. Also the language is used differently in both of those books, though it is not contradictory. The style of the writing is also different from some of Paul’s other writing. As far back as the 1500’s some scholars wondered how Paul could write such a strange book as Ephesians (style wise). By the 1800 some scholars started to doubt that Paul wrote it at all. Many of those scholars were guys who seem to doubt everything in the Bible and especially dislike anything supernatural.

There are a couple of things we need to keep in mind about the authorship of these books that show us that the skeptics don’t really have a case. First of all a general principle of history is to give the benefit of the doubt to the document. It clearly claims to be written by Paul. Anyone can write in different styles and use different language and Paul was very educated, meaning that he probably had more ability in that respect. Next we need to understand that the situation or reason we write something affect the style and language. I send my wife little love note texts and sometimes include little emoticons. I would almost never use an emoticon in a business text and you can bet that the language is much different. Many people are kind of sloppy with their grammar in emails and texts but on papers for school we tend to be a lot more careful. In the 1500’s some scholars realized that the language and style didn’t really match what they were used to with Paul but they still felt that he wrote it based on the “feel” of it, I hope they also took into consideration that it claimed to be from Paul.

There are a couple of problems with the book of Ephesians itself. Paul spent three years in Ephesus during his third missionary journey (53-58 AD). Ephesus is an important port city in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). During this time people all over Asia Minor heard about Jesus. It was during this time that Epaphrus told people in and around Colosse about Jesus. He probably heard the message from Paul in Ephesus. In the book of Ephesians though Paul talks like he doesn’t even know the people in the church there and like they don’t know him. That would be understandable in the letter to Colosse but is harder to understand in the letter to Ephesus.

In addition some very old copies of the letter don’t have the name Ephesus in verse 1. That makes the wording of the verse very weird too. Two very early church leader (who were native Greek speakers, the language Paul wrote in) seemed to have copies that were that way and tried to make sense out of the language without the name of a place. Although they came up with solutions they ultimately affirmed that the letter had been sent to Ephesus. All of this has led scholars to doubt that the letter was written by Paul to Ephesus.

With respect to the place name we need to remember that letters were all hand written in those days. We also know that the early churches shared their letters and copies were made. In Colossians Paul specifically told that church to share their letter with the church in Laodicea and to read one he had sent there too. In the book of Revelation there are seven letters, or notes, to seven churches in chapters 1-3. The whole book is actually a letter written to all seven of those churches and was to be shared among them. It is very likely that copies were made rather than sharing one copy around with all seven. Some experts think that when Ephesians was copied that scribes might have taken the name out so that the copy could be personalized for a new city. There is evidence with some of the copies of Romans that scribes would do that.

The fact that Ephesians seems to present the believers in Ephesus and Paul as strangers is pretty easy to explain. Paul did spend a lot of time in that city, in 55-57 AD. But it had been 5-6 years since Paul had been there and a lot could have changed. Also we know that there were others sharing the good news about Jesus in Ephesus, like Apollos. And believes like Lydia had moved there from other parts of the empire. The church in the beginning had been a few Jewish converts, now it was mostly Gentile. It is very likely that there were a lot of believers in Ephesus who only had a vague idea if any about who Paul was.

Paul spent a lot of time starting churches, that definitely involved sharing the news about who Jesus is and what he has done for us; the Gospel (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-11). In the early church baptism seems to have been a common action to show that a person had given their life and eternity to Jesus (see Acts 8:35-36). In 1 Corinthians 1-3 Paul is dealing with divisions in that church. At least part of the problem seems to have been that the believers in Corinth were identifying with certain teachers, “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Peter, I am of Christ” they were saying (1 Corinthians 1:12). In verses 13-15 Paul asked the believers there if Jesus had been divided. He went on to say that he was not the one who was crucified for them, they were not “baptized” in his name (as if to identify with him), and then he said he didn’t even baptize many of them. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-10 he told the believers that he and Apollos were just men doing the job God gave them. He laid a foundation (the bottom part of a building) and others were building on it. He was using this as an example of their relationship with God. It seems quite likely that even after three years in Ephesus that there was a lot that those believers still needed to learn (Paul spent 18 months in Corinth wrote 1 Corinthians about 3 years after he left so it didn’t take long for problems to develop there) and Paul may not have even been the one who told many of those believers in Ephesus about Jesus to begin with. In spite of this possibility Paul always felt responsible for believers, especially non-Jewish believers, in his world. After all he was sent to tell gentiles (non-Jews) in the Roman world about Jesus (see “Paul: Sent one to the Gentiles”). The book of Romans is to a church in a city he had never been to when he wrote it.

So about 62 AD Paul was under house arrest waiting for a hearing. He was allowed to have visitors and do his thing. One visitor was Onesimus, a run away slave. Onesimus heard about Jesus from Paul and gave his life to Jesus. Being a run away slave was very serious in Roman times, and remember Paul was chained to a Roman guard. Onesimus’ master was one of the believers in Colosse and Paul knew this man. Paul decided to write a letter to Philemon, the master, and send Onesimus back with it. In the letter Paul tells Philemon that he has authority to order Philemon to release Onesimus and that Onesimus has been a great help and encouragement to him. Paul goes on to say that he doesn’t think that is the way things should be though, he doesn’t want it to be about orders. Paul encourages Philemon to accept Onesimus back as a brother (which they now are as members of God’s forever family). Paul also tells Philemon that if Onesimus’ absence has cost him anything that He (Paul) would pay for the loss. This was an urgent matter and Paul certainly wanted to take care of it quickly. As he was writing Philemon he was also thinking about the church at Colosse and other churches in the area. He had another visitor from the area, Tychicus, and had no doubt heard news about those churches and maybe even Ephesus which was on the road from Colosse to Rome. Tychicus and Onesimus were returning to Colosse so Paul wrote Colossians and Ephesians to send with them, probably in that order. The quick dictation of the letters and the specific situations in both Colosse and Ephesus no doubt had an effect on the content of them. The ideas and examples from one would still be in mind as he addressed the different situation in the other. The strange vocabulary used in them probably had to do with the situation in Colosse where Paul was dealing with a particular group of Jews who were bringing false teach to the churches in the area. The Ephesians didn’t seem to have much contact with that particular group but the words and word pictures Paul had just used would have still been in his mind as he wrote Ephesians to send along with Colossians and Philemon.

There is no reason to doubt that Ephesians was written by Paul. That has been the understanding of the church deep into its history, in spite of the difficulties with the language and the copies of the book. And Paul’s lack of familiarity with the believers in Ephesus can be explained by both the time that had passed since he had been there, the nature of his ministry while there, and the fact that the church there had been growing and changing. If “all who lived in Asia [Minor] (modern day Turkey) heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:10) and not directly from Paul but thorough word of mouth from people who had been visiting or lived in Ephesus, it is a safe bet that some of these people might have eventually moved to Ephesus and joined the church there. Ephesus was a major city in the region and not everyone stayed out on the farm forever.

So why did Paul write this letter to this church. Unlike others of his letters there doesn’t seem to be a major problem about to blow up. In those days churches met in houses and houses were not usually mansions. Perhaps 40 people might make up a typical group. In Ephesus there would have been several of these house-churches. And as we have seen they probably had different beginnings, some with Paul and others through others. Some of the early groups would have contained many Jewish believers while many of the groups might be entirely Gentile. These groups would probably have different understandings about how to live for God in this renewed relationship through Jesus. The Jewish believes would have been influenced (and to some extent rightly so) by their old religion. The non-Jewish believers (Gentiles) also might be influence by their past way of thinking about god (in general).

In addition there would have been external pressures and influences from their society or culture that would have drawn the believers in different directions. There were a lot of different gods represented in Ephesus (as in all cities in ancient days). And there was pressure in the culture to honor all of theses so called “gods”. One of these “religions” was worship of the Roman emperors. Ephesus had a temple for worship of both the most prominent former emperor of Rome, Caesar Agustus and one for his son Tiberius. Emperor worship was basically mandatory in the empire. For Christians it was difficult because we believe in only one God and that we should not honor any other so called gods.

It was to this young (spiritually, theologically) fragmented church living in a world hostile to their beliefs that Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians. It’s broad general nature made it useful to many early churches in the Roman world and probably explains why some of the early copies are missing the name of Ephesus. It is just as useful today as each generation of believers needs to focus on what is important and overcome the distractions of society. Churches too can learn what is important and how to work together to bring Jesus to a world who needs him.