1. We begin with the writer of this epistle. You might like to discuss the arguments for and against the apostle Paul being its author. What conclusion do you come to and why?
2. What characteristics of apostleship does Paul stress in these verses? Why are these significant for us?
3. We turn next to Paul’s readers. Discuss what it means to be ‘saints’, ‘faithful’ and ‘in Christ Jesus’?
4. ‘The letter focuses on what God did through the historical work of Jesus Christ and does through his Spirit today, in order to build his new society in the midst of the old’. How much of this message can you draw from 1:2?

1. Pick out from this great hymn of praise all the things which God the Father does. How is the Lord Jesus Christ involved in these?
2. What does it mean to say the blessings we have in Christ are ‘spiritual’? Why is this important?
3. What are the practical consequences of affirming that ‘every blessing of the Holy Spirit has been given us by the Father if we are in the Son’?
4. What is the doctrine of election? Why is it difficult to accept?
5. ‘Scripture nowhere dispels the mystery of election …’. But the Bible does indicate some of the practical consequences of this doctrine. What are they?
6. ‘Election is with a view to adoption’. Paul goes on to outline something of the privilege and responsibility enjoyed by God’s children. What aspects does he highlight? How do these apply to you?
7. Can you explain what Paul means by God’s ultimate plan ‘for the fullness of time’ (1:10)?
8. What does ‘universalism’ mean? Can it be defended from these verses? If not, what does Paul mean by saying that all things will be united in Christ?
9. ‘Easily and naturally we slip into a preoccupation with our own petty little affairs’. What ‘petty little affairs’ preoccupy you at the moment? How do they appear in the light of this chapter?
10. What teaching in 1:11–14 is ‘entirely hidden by RSV and obscured by most of the English versions’?
11. ‘… our becoming members of God’s new community was due neither to chance nor to choice (if by that is meant our choice), but to God’s own sovereign will and pleasure’. Where then do a) evangelism and b) faith fit in?
12. What do these verses teach about the activity of the Holy Spirit? What indications of these aspects of his ministry can you think of in your life?
13. What does it mean to live ‘to the praise of his glory’ (1:14)? Do you find this difficult to do? Why do you think this is?

1. ‘For a healthy Christian life today it is of the utmost importance to follow Paul’s example and keep Christian praise and Christian prayer together’. Why is this the case? Which do you think you tend to over emphasize?
2. Spend a moment recalling the sort of things you pray for other people. Now look again at 1:15–17. How do your prayers compare with Paul’s?
3. What sort of things are summed up by ‘the hope to which he has called you’ (1:18)?
4. ‘Paul does not regard it as presumptuous that we should think about our heavenly inheritance or even anticipate it with joy and gratitude’. Why is it important for us to take this attitude towards heaven?
5. Paul illustrates the greatness of God’s power by showing how he has overcome death and evil in Christ. In what ways does God’s power in these areas affect us now?
6. What are the three main explanations of Paul’s description of Jesus as ‘the fullness of him who fills all in all’ (1:23)? Which do you find most convincing and why?
7. Why is it important to insist that ‘divine illumination and human thought belong together’?

1. What does Paul mean by saying that his readers used to be ‘dead’ (2:1)?
2. Paul goes on to talk about sin in terms of slavery. Can you identify the forces that hold humanity captive?
3. Why do some find Paul’s description of humanity as ‘by nature children of wrath’ (2:3) unacceptable? What do you think?

1. How does Paul describe salvation in these verses?
2. ‘Fundamental to New Testament Christianity is …’. How would you complete this sentence? How does the author justify what he says?
3. For what reasons did God save us? Draw out the two strands which Paul mentions in this passage.
4. In what ways does Paul stress that salvation is a gift from God which cannot be earned?

1. ‘We need to exhort one another to avail ourselves of this privilege’. To what privilege does the author refer? Why is this so important?
2. The author draws attention to the phrases ‘in Christ Jesus’ and ‘in (or by) the blood of Christ’ (2:13). What is the significance of these?
3. ‘It is not a universal reconciliation that Christ achieved or Paul proclaimed …’(p. 98). Why not? What is it then?
4. Look up Matthew 5:17. In the light of this, what does Paul mean by saying that Christ abolished the law (2:15)?
5. The abolition of the law in this way had two consequences. What were they?
6. On 2:17 the author comments: ‘Jesus Christ is still preaching peace in the world today, through the lips of his followers’. In what ways is this true of you?
7. How does this passage help us to have ‘no practical difficulty with the mystery of the eternal Trinity’?

1. Paul now summarizes the difference that being in Christ has made to his Gentile readers. What pictures does he use and what is their significance?
2. Paul focuses particularly on the picture of the church as a new temple (2:20–22). What does he say about it? How is what he writes relevant for us today?

Paul turns now to his own special role in God’s purpose for the Gentiles. What does the word ‘mystery’ mean? What does Paul understand to be the ‘mystery of Christ’ (3:4)?

1. Pick out all the things that Paul says about his ministry. In what way are these relevant to your Christian life and experience?
2. ‘Verse 9 does not simply repeat verse 8. There are three significant differences’. What are they and why are they significant?
3. What does Paul mean by ‘the principalities and powers in the heavenly places’ (3:10?) How and why is ‘the manifold wisdom of God’ to be made known to them?

1. ‘For this reason I how my knees before the Father …’ (3:14). What reason? What does Paul’s example teach you about how your own prayer life should be?
2. The author sees Paul’s prayer as a staircase with four steps. Express in your own words what Paul asks for at each stage. Why does he ask for these things in particular?

‘God’s ability to answer prayer is forcefully stated …’. How?

1. In what senses might you be described as ‘a prisoner for the Lord’ (4:1)?
2. ‘Unity and purity are two fundamental features of a life worthy of the church’s divine calling’. How does your experience of the church appear in the light of this statement? Why do you think this is?
3. Commenting on Christian unity, the author writes: ‘Too many start with structures … but the apostle starts with moral qualities’. Which ones does he select and why? To what extent are your relationships with fellow Christians characterized by these?

1. ‘Christian unity arises from the unity of our God’. Can you explain how this is so?
2. What is the difference between the ‘visible’ church and the ‘invisible’ church? Why is it important to maintain this distinction?
3. ‘… the fact of the church’s indestructible unity is no excuse for acquiescing in the tragedy of its actual disunity’. Why not? Think of a situation of ‘actual disunity’ known to you. What should you do in the light of these verses?

1. What is the significance of Paul’s quotation of Psalm 68 in 4:8?
2. Paul gives a list of some of the spiritual gifts given by Christ to his church. What are they, and to what extent do they operate in today’s church?
3. ‘Nothing is more necessary for the building up of God’s church in every age than an ample supply of …’. How would you complete this sentence? Do you agree with the author?
4. How do these verses support the vision of an ‘everymember ministry’? To what extent is the description ‘Ministers: the entire congregation’ true to your church?

1. What do these verses teach about the characteristics of 1) maturity and 2) immaturity? How can we become more mature?
2. ‘Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love; love becomes soft if it is not strengthened by truth’. Can you think of situations where the balance of truth and love has been lost? How can they be held together?

1. ‘What is immediately noteworthy is the apostle’s emphasis on the intellectual factor in everybody’s way of life’. What does the author mean? What practical implications of this statement can you think of?
2. Trace the ‘terrible downward path of evil’ depicted in 4:17–19. How does this sequence ring true in your experience?
3. In what way is the RSV translation of 4:22–24 misleading? Why is this important?
4. ‘They had been taught that becoming a Christian involves …’. Look again at the passage and complete this sentence in your own words.
5. What are ‘the two solid doctrinal foundations for Christian holiness which Paul has laid’? What is the relationship between them?

Paul now gives six instances of how Christian holiness works out in practice. What are they? What three features do they have in common?

What reason does Paul give for putting away falsehood and speaking the truth? Can you think of occasions in your experience when this has been relevant?

‘… When we fail to [feel or express anger], we deny God, damage ourselves and encourage the spread of evil’. Has this been true of you recently? What should you have done? What safeguards does Paul give against anger becoming unrighteous?

‘It is not enough that the thief stops stealing’. Why not? What more is required?

1. What practical differences would obedience to 4:29 have made in your life over the last twenty-four hours?
2. What does 4:30 reveal about the Holy Spirit and our relationship with him?

Are you aware of any of the attitudes of 4:31 in your own life? What antidotes does Paul recommend? How would they work out in practice for you?

‘Christians have a bad reputation for being negative towards sex’. Do you agree? Why? What does Paul say here to help us put God’s gift of sex in perspective?

Paul now moves on to give four reasons to help motivate his readers to live as those who belong to God’s new society.

1. Why should 5:5 ‘not be understood as teaching that even a single immoral thought, word or deed is enough to disqualify us from heaven …’?
2. How would you answer someone who claimed that ‘God is too kind to condemn anyone’?
3. In what way is the RSV rendering of 5:7 ‘unfortunate’? What does Paul really mean?

What does Paul’s use of the imagery of light and darkness teach us about living as Christians?

What characterizes those who are ‘wise’? How wise are you?

1. ‘There is no greater secret of holiness than …’. How would you complete this sentence? What does the author suggest?
2. Paul gives ‘four beneficial results of being filled with the Spirit’. What are they?
3. What does the command ‘Be filled with the Spirit’ (5:18) mean? How does knowing ‘the exact form of the verb plerousthe’ help?

1. In what ways does other New Testament teaching qualify this command to ‘be subject’?
2. What does the Bible teach about the source of authority? How should this affect your attitude to those in authority over you?
3. What does the Bible teach about how authority is to be exercised? How should this affect the way you treat those over whom you have authority?

1. Why does Paul’s argument for the husband’s headship within marriage have ‘permanent and universal validity’?
2. ‘In order to understand the nature of the husband’s headship in the new society which God had inaugurated, we need to look at Jesus Christ’. How does this help?
3. ‘… her submission is not to be an unthinking obedience to his rule …’. What then is it to be?

1. Paul writes that husbands are to love their wives ‘as Christ loved the church’ (5:25). How does what he says about the relationship between Christ and the church apply to husbands and wives?
2. He goes on to assert that husbands are to love their wives ‘as their own bodies’ (5:28). Why does he add this?

1. Why are children to obey their parents?
2. How should we understand and apply the promise of 6:3?
3. Is this an unconditional command? When do we stop being ‘children’?
4. What is the significance of children being told to obey their parents ‘in the Lord’ (6:1)?

1. In what ways are children provoked to anger? Why is it important to avoid this?
2. What are parents to do instead? What does this mean in practice?

1. ‘It is immediately remarkable that … Paul should address himself to slaves at all’. Why?
2. What attitude should slaves have to their masters? Why? What modern equivalents can you think of and how do they apply to you?

How are masters to treat their slaves? Why? What modern equivalents can you think of and how do they apply to you?

1. Who are our real enemies? What does Paul tell us about them?
2. How does Paul express ‘the proper combination of divine enabling and human co-operation’ in the area of spiritual warfare?
3. How would you answer someone who said that ‘principalities and powers’ refers to economical, social and political forces rather than to personal, demonic intelligences?

1. What is the purpose of the ‘armour of God’ (6:11, 13)?
2. List the six pieces of armour. What does each one signify? What weapons of the devil do they protect us against?
3. Can you identify any chinks in your armour? What do you need to do in order to become fully equipped?
4. ‘Prayer … is to pervade all our spiritual warfare’. Why?
5. Look again at 6:18. How does your prayer life look in the light of Paul’s guidelines?
6. What does Paul ask for himself? Why?

1. ‘Prayer, correspondence and visits are still three major means by which Christians and churches can enrich one another and so contribute to the building up of the body of Christ’. Think and pray about how you could do this more.
2. Unpack Paul’s final prayer and greeting. How does what he asks for summarize the message of the whole letter?