Ephesians 1:22

1:22 And God ¹  put ²  all things under Christ’s ³  feet, ⁴  and he gave him to the church as head over all things. ⁵ 

Ephesians 4:6

4:6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:19

4:19 Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. ⁶ 

Ephesians 3:13

3:13 For this reason I ask you ⁷  not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, ⁸  which ⁹  is your glory. ¹⁰ 

Ephesians 4:10

4:10 He, the very one ¹¹  who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.

Ephesians 4:26

4:26 Be angry and do not sin; ¹²  do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger. ¹³ 

Ephesians 6:16

6:16 and in all of this, ¹⁴  by taking up the shield ¹⁵  of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Ephesians 1:21

1:21 far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Ephesians 3:20

3:20 Now to him who by the power that is working within us ¹⁶  is able to do far beyond ¹⁷  all that we ask or think,

Ephesians 6:12

6:12 For our struggle ¹⁸  is not against flesh and blood, ¹⁹  but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, ²⁰  against the spiritual forces ²¹  of evil in the heavens. ²² 

[1:22]  ¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:22]  ² tn Grk “subjected.”

[1:22]  ³ tn Grk “his”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:22]  ⁴ sn An allusion to Ps 8:6.

[1:22]  ⁵ tn Grk “and he gave him as head over all things to the church.”

[4:19]  ⁶ sn Greediness refers to an increasing desire for more and more. The point is that sinful passions and desires are never satisfied.

[3:13]  ¹¹ tn Grk “I ask.” No direct object is given in Greek, leaving room for the possibility that either “God” (since the verb is often associated with prayer) or “you” is in view.

[3:13]  ¹² tn Grk “my trials on your behalf.”

[3:13]  ¹³ sn Which. The antecedent (i.e., the word or concept to which this clause refers back) may be either “what I am suffering for you” or the larger concept of the recipients not losing heart over Paul’s suffering for them. The relative pronoun “which” is attracted to the predicate nominative “glory” in its gender and number (feminine singular), making the antecedent ambiguous. Paul’s suffering for them could be viewed as their glory (cf. Col 1:24 for a parallel) in that his suffering has brought about their salvation, but if so his suffering must be viewed as more than his present imprisonment in Rome; it would be a general description of his ministry overall (cf. 2 Cor 11:23-27). The other option is that the author is implicitly arguing that the believers have continued to have courage in the midst of his trials (as not to lose heart suggests) and that this is their glory. Philippians 1:27-28 offers an interesting parallel: The believers’ courage in the face of adversity is a sign of their salvation.

[3:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “Or who is your glory?” The relative pronoun ἥτις (Jhti"), if divided differently, would become ἤ τίς (h ti"). Since there were no word breaks in the original mss, either word division is possible. The force of the question would be that for the readers to become discouraged over Paul’s imprisonment would mean that they were no longer trusting in God’s sovereignty.

[4:10]  ¹⁶ tn The Greek text lays specific emphasis on “He” through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos). This is reflected in the English translation through the use of “the very one.”

[4:26]  ²¹ sn A quotation from Ps 4:4. Although several translations render the phrase Be angry and do not sin as “If you are angry, do not sin” such is unlikely on a grammatical, lexical, and historical level (see D. B. Wallace, “᾿Οργίζεσθε in Ephesians 4:26: Command or Condition?” CTR 3 [1989]: 352-72). The idea of vv. 26-27 is as follows: Christians are to exercise a righteous indignation over sin in the midst of the believing community (v. 26a; note that v. 25 is restricting the discussion to those in the body of Christ). When other believers sin, such people should be gently and quickly confronted (v. 26b), for if the body of Christ does not address sin in its midst, the devil gains a foothold (v. 27). “Entirely opposite of the ‘introspective conscience’ view, this text seems to be a shorthand expression for church discipline, suggesting that there is a biblical warrant for δικαία ὀργή [dikaia orgh] (as the Greeks put it) – righteous indignation” (ExSyn 492).

[4:26]  ²² tn The word παροργισμός (parorgismo"), typically translated “anger” in most versions is used almost exclusively of the source of anger rather than the results in Greek literature (thus, it refers to an external cause or provocation rather than an internal reaction). The notion of “cause of your anger” is both lexically and historically justified. The apparently proverbial nature of the statement (“Do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger”) finds several remarkable parallels in Pss. Sol. 8:8-9: “(8) God laid bare their sins in the full light of day; All the earth came to know the righteous judgments of God. (9) In secret places underground their iniquities (were committed) to provoke (Him) to anger” (R. H. Charles’ translation). Not only is παροργισμός used, but righteous indignation against God’s own people and the laying bare of their sins in broad daylight are also seen.

[6:16]  ²⁶ tn Grk “in everything.”

[6:16]  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.

[3:20]  ³¹ sn On the power that is working within us see 1:19-20.

[3:20]  ³² tn Or “infinitely beyond,” “far more abundantly than.”

[6:12]  ³⁶ tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”

[6:12]  ³⁷ tn Grk “blood and flesh.”

[6:12]  ³⁸ tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.

[6:12]  ³⁹ tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.

[6:12]  ⁴⁰ 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.