20:18 Plans 1 are established by counsel,
so 2 make war 3 with guidance.
14:1 Now 6 one Sabbath when Jesus went to dine 7 at the house of a leader 8 of the Pharisees, 9 they were watching 10 him closely.
6:10 Finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 6:11 Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes 14 of the devil. 6:12 For our struggle 15 is not against flesh and blood, 16 but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, 17 against the spiritual forces 18 of evil in the heavens. 19 6:13 For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground 20 on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. 6:14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening 21 the belt of truth around your waist, 22 by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, 6:15 by fitting your 23 feet with the preparation that comes from the good news 24 of peace, 25 6:16 and in all of this, 26 by taking up the shield 27 of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation 28 and the sword 29 of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 6:18 With every prayer and petition, pray 30 at all times in the Spirit, and to this end 31 be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints. 6:19 Pray 32 for me also, that I may be given the message when I begin to speak 33 – that I may confidently make known 34 the mystery of the gospel, 6:20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak.
6:1 Children, 35 obey your parents in the Lord 36 for this is right.
4:7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
1 tn The noun form is plural, but the verb is singular, suggesting either an abstract plural or a collective plural is being used here.
2 tn The clause begins with vav (ו) on “with guidance.” But the clause has an imperative for its main verb. One could take the imperfect tense in the first colon as an imperfect of injunction, and then this clause would be also instructional. But the imperfect tense is a Niphal, and so it is better to take the first colon as the foundational clause and the second colon as the consequence (cf. NAB): If that is true, then you should do this.
3 sn There have been attempts by various commentators to take “war” figuratively to mean life’s struggles, litigation, or evil inclinations. But there is no need and little justification for such interpretations. The proverb simply describes the necessity of taking counsel before going to war.
4 tn The participle καθίσας (kaqisa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.
5 tn On the meaning of this verb see also L&N 55.3, “to meet in battle, to face in battle.”
6 tn Grk “Now it happened that one.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.
7 tn Grk “to eat bread,” an idiom for participating in a meal.
8 tn Grk “a ruler of the Pharisees.” He was probably a synagogue official.
9 sn See the note on Pharisees in 5:17.
10 sn Watching…closely is a graphic term meaning to lurk and watch; see Luke 11:53-54.
11 tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”
12 tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.
13 tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”
14 tn Or “craftiness.” See BDAG 625 s.v. μεθοδεία.
15 tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”
16 tn Grk “blood and flesh.”
17 tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.
18 tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.
19 sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.
20 tn The term ἀνθίστημι (anqisthmi) carries the idea of resisting or opposing something or someone (BDAG 80 s.v.). In Eph 6:13, when used in combination with στῆναι (sthnai; cf. also στῆτε [sthte] in v. 14) and in a context of battle imagery, it seems to have the idea of resisting, standing firm, and being able to stand your ground.
21 sn The four participles fastening… putting on…fitting…taking up… indicate the means by which believers can take their stand against the devil and his schemes. The imperative take in v. 17 communicates another means by which to accomplish the standing, i.e., by the word of God.
22 tn Grk “girding your waist with truth.” In this entire section the author is painting a metaphor for his readers based on the attire of a Roman soldier prepared for battle and its similarity to the Christian prepared to do battle against spiritually evil forces. Behind the expression “with truth” is probably the genitive idea “belt of truth.” Since this is an appositional genitive (i.e., belt which is truth), the author simply left unsaid the idea of the belt and mentioned only his real focus, namely, the truth. (The analogy would have been completely understandable to his 1st century readers.) The idea of the belt is supplied in the translation to clarify the sense in English.
23 tn The definite article τοῖς (tois) was taken as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “your,” since it refers to a part of the physical body.
24 tn Grk “gospel.” However, this is not a technical term here.
25 tn Grk “in preparation of the gospel of peace.” The genitive τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (tou euangeliou) was taken as a genitive of source, i.e., “that comes from….”
26 tn Grk “in everything.”
27 sn The Greek word translated shield (θυρεός, qureos) refers to the Roman soldier’s large rectangular wooden shield, called in Latin scutum, about 4 ft (1.2 m) high, covered with leather on the outside. Before a battle in which flaming arrows might be shot at them, the soldiers wet the leather covering with water to extinguish the arrows. The Roman legionaries could close ranks with these shields, the first row holding theirs edge to edge in front, and the rows behind holding the shields above their heads. In this formation they were practically invulnerable to arrows, rocks, and even spears.
28 sn An allusion to Isa 59:17.
29 sn The Greek term translated sword (μάχαιρα, macaira) refers to the Roman gladius, a short sword about 2 ft (60 cm) long, used for close hand-to-hand combat. This is the only clearly offensive weapon in the list of armor mentioned by the author (he does not, for example, mention the lance [Latin pilum]).
30 tn Both “pray” and “be alert” are participles in the Greek text (“praying…being alert”). Both are probably instrumental, loosely connected with all of the preceding instructions. As such, they are not additional commands to do but instead are the means through which the prior instructions are accomplished.
31 tn Grk “and toward it.”
32 tn To avoid a lengthy, convoluted sentence in English, the Greek sentence was broken up at this point and the verb “pray” was inserted in the English translation to pick up the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseuxomenoi, “praying”) in v. 18.
33 tn Grk “that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth.” Here “word” (λόγος, logo") is used in the sense of “message.”
34 tn The infinitive γνωρίσαι (gnwrisai, “to make known”) is functioning epexegetically to further explain what the author means by the preceding phrase “that I may be given the message when I begin to speak.”
35 tn The use of the article τά (ta) with τέκνα (tekna) functions in a generic way to distinguish this group from husbands, wives, fathers and slaves and is left, therefore, untranslated. The generic article is used with γύναῖκες (gunaikes) in 5:22, ἄνδρες (andres) in 5:25, δοῦλοι (douloi) in 6:5, and κύριοι (kurioi) in 6:9.
36 tc B D* F G as well as a few versional and patristic representatives lack “in the Lord” (ἐν κυρίῳ, en kuriw), while the phrase is well represented in Ì46 א A D1 Ivid Ψ 0278 0285 33 1739 1881 Ï sy co. Scribes may have thought that the phrase could be regarded a qualifier on the kind of parents a child should obey (viz., only Christian parents), and would thus be tempted to delete the phrase to counter such an interpretation. It is unlikely that the phrase would have been added, since the form used to express such sentiment in this Haustafel is ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ/Χριστῷ (Jw" tw kuriw/Cristw, “as to the Lord/Christ”; see 5:22; 6:5). Even though the witnesses for the omission are impressive, it is more likely that the phrase was deleted than added by scribal activity.
37 tn Or “craftiness.” See BDAG 625 s.v. μεθοδεία.
38 tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”
39 tn Grk “blood and flesh.”
40 tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.
41 tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.
42 sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.
43 sn A quotation from Exod 20:12 and Deut 5:16.