Structure of Ephesians

When digging in the actual text of this bible book, it is not that easy to summarize what Ephesians is about. Or, to put it better: it is not that easy to summarize what the book is NOT about! It actually contains both very deep and practical insights, it’s about God, Christ and the Spirit; about the individual believer as well as the Church; it talks about mysteries and revelations… the width and depth of the book is simply stunning.

Yet, there is something very simple about the overarching theme: it’s all about Jesus Christ. He is the beginning and the end (literally of the book), and everything in between is either a description of Him or an example from Him. And guess what – the exact center of the book (chapter 3:10) is actually a very good summary of it all: His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The writer, Paul, knew how to write a good piece of text, and that is what he did here. See how he follows the structure of God’s big story with mankind. It starts with an (incredibly powerful) acknowledgement that God is the creator and everything lives and breathes because of Him (chapter 1). Then it shows how we (human beings) stepped out of Gods plan for us, tried to live on our own but miserably failed (chapter 2). Introduce Jesus Christ: the solution for this problem; his death and resurrection brought peace and restored life in us (chapter 3). But the story is not over: now we do not just have a new life for ourselves, we even have been made part of Gods plan to bring peace to the entire creation (both on earth and in heaven!) by living out his life as one body together (chapter 4). This means: doing the walk and talk of Jesus – in harmony, humility and honesty on earth (chapter 5), and with authority, strength and boldness in heaven (chapter 6).

We can also visualise the structure in a slightly different way so it reveals even more of the intelligent structure:

Chapter 1: > Our position in Christ: we in Him

Chapter 2: >> Our behaviour before we knew God

Chapter 3: >>> Christ’s body of flesh and blood brings peace to the world

Chapter 3: >>>> Gods purposes are fullfilled in and through Christ Jesus

Chapter 4: >>> Christ’s body in spirit (the church) brings peace to heaven and earth

Chapter 5: >> Our behaviour after now that we know God

Chapter 6: > Our position in Christ: he in us

Again, the pivotal of this all is the person of Jesus Christ. Everything relates to Him. Chapter one repeatedly tells: IN HIM we… and in the verse mentioned above we read that the eternal purpose of God was accomplished through Jesus. Amazing!

Created over 1 year ago