Ephesians 3:10

3:10 The purpose of this enlightenment is that ¹  through the church the multifaceted wisdom ²  of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 1:5

1:5 He did this by predestining ³  us to adoption as his ⁴  sons ⁵  through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure ⁶  of his will –

Ephesians 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ⁷  to us the secret ⁸  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ⁹  in Christ, ¹⁰ 

Ephesians 4:12

4:12 to equip ¹¹  the saints for the work of ministry, that is, ¹²  to build up the body of Christ,

[3:10]  ¹ tn Grk “that.” Verse 10 is a subordinate clause to the verb “enlighten” in v. 9.

[3:10]  ² tn Or “manifold wisdom,” “wisdom in its rich variety.”

[1:5]  ³ tn Grk “by predestining.” Verse 5 begins with an aorist participle dependent on the main verb in v. 4 (“chose”).

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Grk “to himself” after “through Jesus Christ.”

[1:5]  ⁵ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as…sons.”

[1:5]  ⁶ tn Or “good pleasure.”

[1:9]  ⁵ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

[1:9]  ⁷ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

[1:9]  ⁸ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[4:12]  ⁷ tn On the translation of πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων (pro" ton katartismon twn Jagiwn) as “to equip the saints” see BDAG 526 s.v. καταρτισμός. In this case the genitive is taken as objective and the direct object of the verbal idea implied in καταρτισμός (katartismo").

[4:12]  ⁸ tn The εἰς (eis) clause is taken as epexegetical to the previous εἰς clause, namely, εἰς ἔργον διακονίας (ei" ergon diakonia").