Verse 1: Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
From the mutual duties of husbands and wives, Paul passes to those of children and parents. He has a Christian family in view (“in the Lord”), and does not contemplate the situation where parental orders might be contrary to the law of Christ. In the last resort, the law of Christ must take precedence. Disobedience to parents is a symptom of the disintegration of society (cf. Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:3); Christian families should, by the example they show, put a check upon disintegrating tendencies in their environment. “This is right” (Gk. dikaios), says the apostle here; “this is well-pleasing in the Lord,” he says in the parallel passage in Colossians 3:20. And it has already been enjoined in the Old Testament law.
Verse 2: Honour thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise),
The fifth commandment (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16) is not only the first commandment in the decalogue with a promise annexed (the words about God’s mercy to those who love him and keep his commandments at the end of the second commandment are a declaration of God’s character rather than a promise); it is the only such commandment in the decalogue. But when Paul calls it “the first commandment with promise” he is thinking not only of the decalogue but of the whole body of Pentateuchal legislation which is introduced by the decalogue.
Verse 3: that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
This is the Deuteronomic form of the commandment in the Septuagint version. Long life in the land of Israel is a reward held out for the keeping of the divine law in general, and not only for this commandment in particular (cf. Deuteronomy 4:40; 5:33). Paul, of course, omits the specific reference to the land of Israel, as being inapplicable in this wider setting.
Verse 4: And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.
Parents (for the plural pateres may mean this rather than simply “fathers”) have an obligation to their children as well as children to their parents; if children must obey their parents, parents should deserve their children’s obedience. It is possible, even for Christian parents, to be so unreasonable in their demands on their children that the children are irritated beyond measure and wonder whether it does any good to try to please their parents and do what they say. Children should be brought up “in the discipline (paideia) and instruction (nouthesia) of the Lord” (RSV); since they are a “heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3), their training should be undertaken with a sense of responsibility to him, so that from their early days they may learn to worship and love him.
“ . . . if children must obey their parents, parents should deserve their children’s obedience.”
5c Servants and masters (6:5-9)
Verse 5: Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters,
In Ephesians, as in Colossians and 1 Peter, the injunctions to slaves are more extended than those to masters, and are accompanied by special encouragements. This may well reflect the social structure of the churches addressed. The Epistle to Philemon provides an illuminating commentary on the mutual duties of slaves and masters within the Christian fellowship, and the transforming influence of this fellowship on their relations with one another. The slave-master relationship belongs to the passing temporal order; it is a relationship “according to the flesh.” In the spiritual realm, Christian slaves and masters alike were fellow-servants of one Lord, Jesus Christ. And in the service of Christ – in the church fellowship, for example – a Christian slave might be recognized as a leader and teacher because of his spiritual gifts and attainment, and receive due deference from his Christian master. But the Christian slave would not on that account render his master less obedience or serve him less faithfully; his obedience and faithfulness would be all the greater because of their spiritual relationship. If the Christian slave had an unbelieving master, he would serve him the more faithfully now because the honor of Christ and the gospel was bound up with the quality of his service. It might very well be that the fact of his Christian profession would expose him to greater exploitation and persecution at the hands of his pagan master or fellow-slaves; but the sense of Christ’s approval would be his prized recompense.
“For Christian slaves the service of their earthly masters was a special form of the service of God, to be discharged in a spirit of reverence towards him.”
with fear and trembling,
Not with servile fear of his master, but with the fear of God in his heart. The collocation of “fear and trembling” in the service of God appears in 1 Corinthians 2:3 with reference to Paul himself and in 2 Corinthians 7:15 and Philippians 2:12 with reference to Christians. For Christian slaves the service of their earthly masters was a special form of the service of God, to be discharged in a spirit of reverence towards him. They were not to tremble lest anything unpleasant might happen to themselves, but lest their Lord’s name should be brought into disrepute through them.
in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
Let them do their appointed work honestly, for Christ’s sake.
All may of thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with this tincture, “for thy sake”,
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.
George Herbert, The Elixir
Verse 6: not in the way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
Any slave would put on a show of working hard when the master’s eye, or the foreman’s, was on him. But why should he exert himself except when it was to his advantage to do so? He owed his owner nothing; he was enslaved against his will. Much more blame attaches to the modern clock-watcher, who has freely entered into a contract with his employer and receives an agreed remuneration for his services. But a Christian slave in the first century (and much more a Christian employee in the present) has the highest possible motive for doing his work well; it is primarily Christ, and not his earthly master, that he is endeavoring to please. A Christian is Christ’s bondslave, and therefore he will do God’s will with heart and soul, not as a burden but as a delight.
Verse 7: with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men:
Whereas “from the heart” (ek psyches) is the reverse of listlessness, “with good will” (meta eunoias) suggests a ready willingness, “which does not wait to be compelled” (J.A. Robinson).
Verse 8: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
It is Christ, and not one’s earthly master, who is the final arbiter and rewarder of work well done. This would encourage a Christian slave to work cheerfully and zestfully even for a master who was unreasonable in his demands and impossible to please; he knew that it was from Christ that his thanks would come. The “receiving again” might no doubt be experienced in measure in the present life (the consciousness of Christ’s commendation is a most satisfying reward), but ultimately it is the judgment-seat of Christ that the apostle has in view, where his decisive “Well done” will be pronounced. The converse truth is emphasized in Colossians 3:25: “For he that doeth wrong shall receive again the wrong that he hath done; and there is no respect of persons” (RV margin).
“The hostile powers of evil which Christians must encounter are already vanquished powers, but it is only through faith-union with the victorious Christ that Christians can make his triumph theirs.”
Verse 9: And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, and forbear threatening: knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with him.
Masters like Philemon had their obligations, as had slaves like Onesimus. Onesimus’ heavenly Master is Philemon’s Master as well, and Philemon is responsible to him for his treatment of Onesimus. The Christian master therefore must not adopt a hectoring or browbeating attitude towards his slaves, but treat them fairly, rendering to them “that which is just and equal” (Colossians 4:1). The Lord is impartial in his assessments, but more is required from those to whom more is given.
No command is given for the emancipation of slaves. In the Epistle to Philemon, indeed, Philemon is given a broad hint of what is expected of him personally in this regard, but at the same time it is made clear that the virtue of such an action would lie precisely in its being done “not … as of necessity, but of free will” (Philemon 14). But to counsel the emancipation of slaves on a general scale would have been to confirm the suspicion of many people in authority that the gospel aimed at the subversion of society. It was better to state the principles of the gospel clearly, and leave them to have their own effect in due course on this iniquitous institution. The slave was legally a member of the master’s household or family, and if a Christian master took seriously Paul’s injunction to masters, his slaves would be members of his family in more than a merely legal sense, and have more real protection than they might have if released. But slavery under the best conditions is slavery none the less, and it could not survive where the gospel had free course.
No doubt critical situations could arise between Christian masters and slaves for which no detailed prescription could be found in Paul’s exhortation to both. But the basic and abiding Christian principles are there, so firmly rooted in the eternal gospel that they can be applied in all changing social structures, and speak to the condition of many today as they did when first they were written.
6 The panoply of God (6:10-20)
Verse 10: Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.
An exhortation to spiritual strength is common in the New Testament; we may compare 1 Corinthians 16:13, where “be strong” represents Gk. krataioomai, and 2 Timothy 2:1, where “be strengthened” (RV) renders Gk. endynamoomai, the same verb as is used here (it is used of Paul in Acts 9:22, and Paul uses it in the active voice with reference to God as his strengthener or enabler in Philippians 4:13; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2 Timothy 4:17). Earlier in this epistle (3:16) Paul has prayed that his readers might “be strengthened (Gk. krataioomai) with power (Gk. dynamis) through his spirit in the inward man,” and here again he makes it plain that the Christian’s spiritual strength must be a sharing in the power of God as he imparts it to his people. Colossians 1:11 is a noteworthy parallel. The phrase “in the strength (Gk. kratos) of his might” (Gk. ischys) is probably to be regarded as a Hebraic genitive construction, meaning “in his mighty strength,” as previously in Ephesians 1:19, where the reference is to the power of God exerted in the raising of Christ. It is that same resurrection power that is put at the believer’s disposal.
“Christ has won the victory, and those who place their faith in him may win the victory, too.”
Verse 11: Put on the whole armour of God,
The spiritual equipment which is necessary for the Christian’s strengthening is described in detail under the figure of various pieces of armor, defensive and offensive. Something like this appears in an earlier epistle of Paul’s, where he encourages the Thessalonian Christians to “be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). Here the figure is developed more elaborately, as he mentions one by one the parts which make up the divine panoply (the Greek word which he uses is panoplia, here rendered “whole armour”). It is difficult to think of any element in the Christian’s spiritual equipment which is not included under one head or another in the following sentences. One writer, indeed, the Puritan William Gurnall, so expounded Ephesians 6:10-17 in his massive work, The Christian in Complete Armour (1655), as to make his exposition an exhaustive body of practical divinity.
It has been suggested that Paul goes into greater detail here than elsewhere in listing one by one the pieces of the Christian’s armor because he had an object-lesson constantly with him in the person of the Roman soldier who guarded him. However that may be, he frequently speaks of Christian life and service in military terms. These are specially common in the Pastoral Epistles, where, for example, Timothy is exhorted to suffer hardship with Paul “as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3) and to “fight the good fight of the faith” like the apostle himself (1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7). But in the earlier letters, too, Paul regards his apostolic labors as so many campaigns in which he fights with spiritual weapons and storms spiritual strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4); his colleagues are fellow-soldiers (Philippians 2:25; Philemon 2) and those who share his captivity are fellow-prisoners-of-war (Romans 16:7; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 23).
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
As when he warned his readers against “the wiles of error” (Ephesians 4:14) he had in mind deceptive stratagems by which the truth of the gospel was liable to be perverted, so here (using the same Greek word methodia) he refers to the stratagems by which the supreme enemy endeavors to gain an advantage over the people of God in their spiritual warfare. Paul himself had had abundant experience of those stratagems: Satan could put obstacles in the way of his apostolic service (1 Thessalonians 2:18), could exploit the most intimate human relationships to the detriment of Christian testimony (1 Corinthians 7:5), could take the form of an angel of light so as to lead believers astray from the true path of simplicity and purity (2 Corinthians 11:3,14). Well might the apostle say: “we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). But if his devices are to be detected and frustrated, heavenly strength is necessary.
Verse 12: For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers,
For wrestling or fighting on the human plane, human strength will suffice. But it is not on the human plane that the Christian warfare is fought out, but in the spiritual realm, and in that realm only spiritual resources can avail. In himself the Christian is incapable of gaining the mastery over the principalities and powers that would fain bring him into bondage; only the power of Christ can help him. A general reference to principalities and powers has already been made in Ephesians 1:21 and 3:10; more about them may be learned from the companion Epistle to the Colossians. They rank among the highest angel-princes in the hierarchy of the heavenly places, yet all of them owe their existence to Christ, through whom they were created (Colossians 1:16), and who is accordingly “the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:10).But some at least of these principalities and powers have embarked upon rebellion against God and not only seek to force men to pay them the worship that is due to him, but launched an assault upon the crucified Christ at a time when they thought they had him at their mercy. But he, far from suffering their assault without resistance, grappled with them and overcame them, stripping them of their armor and driving them before him in his triumphal procession (Colossians 2:15). Thus the hostile powers of evil which Christians must encounter are already vanquished powers, but it is only through faith-union with the victorious Christ that Christians can make his triumph theirs.
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
These “world-rulers” (Gk. kosmokratores) played a considerable part in the thinking of many in apostolic times. By some (for example, the heretical teachers who were urging their views on the Colossian Christians) they were evidently identified with the lords of the seven planetary spheres, who were believed to dominate the fortunes of men and nations. But a more biblical understanding of them may be obtained from a study of the book of Daniel, where the affairs of the Persian and Greek Empires are seen to be controlled by two angel-princes, who impede, although they cannot ultimately prevent, the execution of divine commissions in the upper world (Daniel 10:13,20). Each of these princes might well be called a kosmokrator. The leader of these hostile powers is referred to by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 as “the god of this age,” who has blinded the minds of unbelievers to the light of the gospel. The present world-order as organized in rebellion against God remains under the domination of these powers; only in Christ can men gain the victory over them and be released from their grasp (cf. 1 John 5:19). The appearance of Christ on earth was the signal for an unprecedented outburst of activity on the part of the realm of darkness controlled by these world-rulers, as though they knew that a mortal threat was being presented to their dominion. And indeed his coming sealed their doom, although, during the present overlapping of the new age and the old, they continue to exercise control over those who have not availed themselves of the way of release. Against such “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” the Christian must be equipped with the panoply of God if he is to withstand them successfully.
“Every Christian should be a bearer of God’s good news.”
Verse 13: Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
“The evil day” is the present age; compare Ephesians 5:16, “the days are evil.” The age is evil because of the evil forces which, although vanquished by Christ, are still able to exercise control over a world which will not avail itself of the fruits of Christ’s victory. The truth of the apostolic teaching on this subject is apparent to the clear-sighted observer of the world of today. Modern man may not think in terms of principalities and powers, and may consider himself emancipated from outmoded beliefs in angels and demons. But he is all too conscious of powerful and malignant forces operating against him, which he will not hesitate to describe as demonic. He knows that his individual strength is insufficient to resist them, and he is not at all sure that even united action will be more effective. These forces may be Frankenstein monsters of his own creation which no longer obey his commands; they may be subliminal horrors beyond his conscious control. He feels himself to be a helpless victim in a hostile cosmic order which is carrying him to destruction which he cannot avert. He knows himself to be involved in situations against which his moral sense revolts, but he cannot do anything effective about it. He fears that he may be little more than a puppet in the hands of a blind and unpitying fate, and that it matters little whether he resists and is crushed at once, or acquiesces and is crushed later.
“Faith in God is a comprehensive protection against the flaming shafts of evil which are aimed at the souls of the people of God.”
There is only one message that can bring hope to such a mood of frustration and despair, and that is the liberating message of the gospel. Christ has won the victory, and those who place their faith in him may win the victory, too – and know these forces, for all their malignity, to be beaten forces. “This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). But even so, so determined is the opposition which these forces offer to the believer that only by taking the armor of God and putting forth all his exertions can he hope to stand his ground against them.
Verse 14: Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.
The various pieces of defensive armor recommended to the believer are the Christian graces which are elsewhere described as “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22 f.). Truth is to be his girdle and righteousness his breastplate. Truth includes loyalty and faithfulness; the coming Messiah wears the girdle of faithfulness (LXX “truth”) in Isaiah 11:5. Righteousness is righteousness of character and practice here, rather than the believer’s righteous status in the sight of God; in Isaiah 59:17 God himself is pictured as putting on “righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head” (cf. Ephesians 6:17). John Bunyan notes that the armor with which Christian was fitted out in the House Beautiful included no protection for his back, so that in his encounter with Apollyon he could not turn back, but had to stand and face the foe.
Verse 15: and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
Here, too, we can discern an Isaianic background: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace” (Isaiah 52:7). Every Christian should be a bearer of God’s good news, and a ready activity in the discharge of this responsibility will be for his own spiritual well-being as well as for the blessing of others.
Verse 16: withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
Alongside “withal” (Gk. en pasin, lit. “in all”) there is a variant reading “in addition to all” (Gk. epi pasin), reflected in AV and RSV “above all.” The shield envisaged here (Gk. thyreos) is the large body-shield (Latin scutum), not the smaller circular shield used by the Greeks (Gk. aspis). Faith in God is a comprehensive protection against the flaming shafts of evil which are aimed at the souls of the people of God. Darts and similar missiles were dipped in pitch or some other combustible material, which was then set alight so that the missiles, when released, might serve the purpose of the incendiary bombs of our own day. But Satan’s darts, says Paul, are not only stopped but extinguished when met by resolute faith. So one of the subtlest of our Lord’s temptations, the temptation to put God to the test by placing himself in a position where only divine intervention could save him from death, spent itself ineffectively when met by a faith in his heavenly Father which required no outward sign to assure him that he was indeed his beloved Son.
“No word of man is capable of routing the spiritual hosts of wickedness, but they cannot stand their ground when God speaks.”
Verse 17: And take the helmet of salvation,
So Paul had previously exhorted the Thessalonian Christians to put on “for a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8), echoing the language of Isaiah 59:17, quoted above.
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
The “word” (Gk. rhema, as in Ephesians 5:26) is that utterance of God appropriate to the occasion which the Spirit, so to speak, puts into the believer’s hand to be wielded as a sword which will put his spiritual assailants to flight. Our Lord’s threefold use of this sword when tempted in the wilderness may serve as an example and encouragement to all his followers. This is the one weapon of attack in the panoply of God; against It there is no defense, “for the word (logos) of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). In the Old Testament God speaks of slaying his disobedient people by the words of his mouth (Hosea 6:5), and of the Messiah it is prophesied that “he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4). So when John in the Revelation sees the Conqueror whose name is called “The Word of God,” the sharp sword which proceeds from his mouth for the smiting of the nations is that same powerful utterance which speaks with all the authority of heaven (Revelation 19:13,15). No word of man is capable of routing the spiritual hosts of wickedness, but they cannot stand their ground when God speaks.
And let the prince of ill
Look grim as e’er he will,
He harms us not a whit,
For why his doom is writ;
A word shall quickly slay him.
Luther
Verse 18: with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit,
Paul now passes from metaphor to the literal language of the spiritual conflict. When Christian receives his armor in The Pilgrim’s Progress the weapon of “Allprayer” is given as one which will stand him in good stead when everything else fails, and with this he prevails against the fiends which beset him in the Valley of the Shadow: when he poured out his soul in fervent prayer “they gave back, and came no farther.” “Prayer and supplication” – proseuche and deesis – cannot be sharply distinguished, but their conjunction adds intensity to the apostle’s words. Like his Lord, he urges that men “ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1); but prayer, to be effective, must be prayer inwrought by the Holy Spirit. (In 1 Corinthians 14:15 “I will pray with the spirit” has probably a different force; the “spirit” there appears from the context to be the apostle’s own spirit, as the “understanding” in the following clause, “and I will pray with the understanding also,” is his own understanding.)
and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,
Their prayers should be offered “both for themselves and those who call them friend” (Tennyson). The bond of fellowship which unites the people of God is never more effective than when they are praying for one another. Persistence in prayer is enjoined, and also watchfulness, spiritual alertness, lest they be overtaken unawares by some spiritual enemy. Several times the exhortation to watch and pray recurs in the New Testament, most notably in our Lord’s warning to his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane: “watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Mark 14:38). Two words are translated “watch” in such contexts – agrypneo (as here) and gregoreo – but both have the same basic sense of keeping awake.
Verse 19: and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,
It is possible, as RV margin points out, to take “with boldness” (Gk. en parrhesia, “with full freedom of speech”) with “opening my mouth” instead of with “to make known”; RV text gives the more probable punctuation, but it makes little practical difference either way. Paul, living under house-arrest in Rome, felt his need of his friends’ prayers-not so much for his own well-being as for the cause of the gospel to which his life was completely devoted. So, in the companion-letter, he asks the Colossian Christians to pray “that God may open unto us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3 f.). Some authorities, possibly including the oldest of all, Papyrus 46, omit “of the gospel”; but the preponderant evidence favors its retention. In any case, the mystery here is the gospel – “the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25 f.).
“The bond of fellowship which unites the people of God is never more active than when they are praying for one another.”
Verse 20: for which I am an ambassador in chains;
Strictly as RV margin points out, “in a chain”; that is, the chain (Gk. halysis) around his wrist by which he was handcuffed to the soldier who guarded him. The soldier would be relieved every four hours or so; but there was no relief from his chain for Paul, only a change of soldier. Many people have wondered from time to time what it must have meant for a Roman soldier to be handcuffed to a man like Paul! A prisoner? Which of the two was the prisoner? Paul thinks of himself as the ambassador of Jesus Christ, duly accredited to represent his Lord at the imperial court of Rome – a chained ambassador, indeed, but an ambassador none the less. “Because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain,” he could say to the Jews of Rome (Acts 28:20), but the hope of Israel was the hope of the Gentiles, too (Romans 15:12); and the apostle of the Gentiles wore his chain as a decoration or badge of office, since it had come to him through the exercise of his apostleship.
that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
By “in it” he does not mean the chain, but the gospel revelation; the Chester Beatty Papyrus 46 and the Vatican Codex read simply “it” (auto) instead of “in it” (en auto). Paul had no doubt about the message he had to proclaim; it was the one and only gospel. But he was concerned to proclaim it worthily, in the fitting manner; in other words, to proclaim it freely and boldly (parrhesiazomai). To this end he sought his readers’ prayers. Were their prayers answered? Let Luke, Paul’s companion, bear his testimony: “he abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness (parrhesia), none forbidding him” (Acts 28:20).
7 Final greetings (6:21-24)
Verse 21: But that ye also may know my affairs, how I do, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things:
The reference to Tychicus is almost word for word identical with Colossians 4:7 f. He was evidently the bearer of the letter to Colossae as well as of this one, and also possibly of a letter to Laodicea (Colossians 4:16). Onesimus, who went with Tychicus as his travel-companion, is not mentioned here, although it was appropriate to name him in the letter to the Colossian church, to which he belonged, and also, of course, in the letter to Philemon, of which he himself was the bearer. As for Tychicus, he was a native of the province of Asia, as can be learned from Acts 20:4, where he is included among the delegates of the Gentile churches who accompanied Paul to Judaea in AD 57 to hand over those churches’ gifts to their brethren in Jerusalem. He is mentioned also in the Pastoral Epistles as a messenger of Paul (2 Timothy 4:12; Titus 3:12). On the present occasion he was probably Paul’s special envoy to the churches of the province of Asia which had been planted in the course of Paul’s Ephesian ministry, to deliver this letter, or copies of it, to all of them. In Colossians 4:7 Paul not only calls him his “beloved brother and faithful minister” (diakonos, “attendant”), as here, but also his fellow-slave (syndoulos).
Verse 22: whom I have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may know our state, and that he may comfort your hearts.
“I have sent” is an example of the “epistolary aorist”; the writer speaks from the standpoint of his readers. Our idiom requires the present: “I am sending.” Tychicus will give the Asian Christians all the apostle’s news, and strengthen and cheer their hearts.
Verse 23: Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The more general terms of this verse and the following suggest the circular character of the letter, addressed to “the brethren, … all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness.” The peace which he bespeaks for them is no conventional salutation, but the enjoyment of the peace which comes “from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” From that source, too, comes the love combined with faith which he desires to abound among them. For the conjunction of love and faith we may compare the longer text of Ephesians 1:15 (cf. Colossians 1:4). The close association of God and Christ in such expressions has been commented on in the note on the initial salutation in Ephesians 1:2.
“Paul had no doubt about the message he had to proclaim; it was the one and only gospel.”
Verse 24: Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness.
He closes, as he began, with the invocation of God’s grace upon his readers. The RV rendering “in uncorruptness” is literal, but a trifle ungainly; the American Standard Version (1901) is better: “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible.” An unfading and undying love is meant; “uncorruptness” (aphtharsia) is practically synonymous with immortality. Where such love for Christ is present, the grace of God can never be absent.
