John 10:26-27

10:26 But you refuse to believe because you are not my sheep. 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Acts 13:48

13:48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began to rejoice ¹  and praise ²  the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed for eternal life ³  believed.

Ephesians 2:8

2:8 For by grace you are saved ⁴  through faith, ⁵  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Ephesians 2:2

2:2 in which ⁶  you formerly lived ⁷  according to this world’s present path, ⁸  according to the ruler of the kingdom ⁹  of the air, the ruler of ¹⁰  the spirit ¹¹  that is now energizing ¹²  the sons of disobedience, ¹³ 

Ephesians 2:13-14

2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴  2:14 For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one ¹⁵  and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility,

Ephesians 2:1

New Life Individually

2:1 And although you were ¹⁶  dead ¹⁷  in your transgressions and sins,

Ephesians 1:5

1:5 He did this by predestining ¹⁸  us to adoption as his ¹⁹  sons ²⁰  through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure ²¹  of his will –

[13:48]  ¹ tn The imperfect verb ἔχαιρον (ecairon) and the following ἐδόξαζον (edoxazon) are translated as ingressive imperfects.

[13:48]  ² tn Or “glorify.” Although “honor” is given by BDAG 258 s.v. δοξάζω as a translation, it would be misleading here, because the meaning is “to honor in the sense of attributing worth to something,” while in contemporary English usage one speaks of “honoring” a contract in the sense of keeping its stipulations. It is not a synonym for “obey” in this context (“obey the word of the Lord”), but that is how many English readers would understand it.

[13:48]  ³ sn Note the contrast to v. 46 in regard to eternal life.

[2:8]  ⁴ tn See note on the same expression in v. 5.

[2:8]  ⁵ tc The feminine article is found before πίστεως (pistews, “faith”) in the Byzantine text as well as in A Ψ 1881 pc. Perhaps for some scribes the article was intended to imply creedal fidelity as a necessary condition of salvation (“you are saved through the faith”), although elsewhere in the corpus Paulinum the phrase διὰ τῆς πίστεως (dia th" pistew") is used for the act of believing rather than the content of faith (cf. Rom 3:30, 31; Gal 3:14; Eph 3:17; Col 2:12). On the other side, strong representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts (א B D* F G P 0278 6 33 1739 al bo) lack the article. Hence, both text-critically and exegetically, the meaning of the text here is most likely “saved through faith” as opposed to “saved through the faith.” Regarding the textual problem, the lack of the article is the preferred reading.

[2:2]  ⁶ sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.

[2:2]  ⁷ tn Grk “walked.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Or possibly “Aeon.”

[2:2]  ⁹ tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”

[2:2]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).

[2:2]  ¹¹ sn The ruler of the kingdom of the air is also the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience. Although several translations regard the ruler to be the same as the spirit, this is unlikely since the cases in Greek are different (ruler is accusative and spirit is genitive). To get around this, some have suggested that the genitive for spirit is a genitive of apposition. However, the semantics of the genitive of apposition are against such an interpretation (cf. ExSyn 100).

[2:2]  ¹² tn Grk “working in.”

[2:2]  ¹³ sn Sons of disobedience is a Semitic idiom that means “people characterized by disobedience.” However, it also contains a subtle allusion to vv. 4-10: Some of those sons of disobedience have become sons of God.

[2:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “have come near in the blood of Christ.”

[2:14]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “who made the both one.”

[2:1]  ¹⁶ tn The adverbial participle “being” (ὄντας, ontas) is taken concessively.

[2:1]  ¹⁷ sn Chapter 2 starts off with a participle, although you were dead, that is left dangling. The syntax in Greek for vv. 1-3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4) to their spiritual dilemma.

[1:5]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “by predestining.” Verse 5 begins with an aorist participle dependent on the main verb in v. 4 (“chose”).

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “to himself” after “through Jesus Christ.”

[1:5]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Or “good pleasure.”