Ephesians Teaching Series

This beautifully constructed letter can best be understood by paying attention to its amazing structure.

The Surprising Literary Structure of Ephesians

  • Seeing how this letter is structured, on the one hand provides a helpful framework for fully understanding the message, and on the other is a work of art which frames the beauty of the truth, like a diamond setting holds a diamond.

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A paper presented at the 11th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society
ON & QC Region, at the University of Toronto, Oct 2023

  • Abstract:

 

There have been many suggestions for how the Epistle to the Ephesians is structured. Some have even questioned whether it has any literary features at all. Some authors, such as Arnold, focus on the Greek syntactical structure, while others such as Heil pay little attention to the Greek and concentrate on literary features.

This paper will survey the literature on this question, evaluate the suggestions, and present a new structure which answers the objections and provides strong support for the coherence of the letter. Most importantly, it provides a helpful framework for fully understanding the message.

The Surprising Literary Structure of Ephesians

  1. Brief Literature Review and a New Proposal
  2. Examples of Clear Structural Features
  3. Is there an Overall Literary Structure?

1. Brief Literature Review and a New Proposal

  • On one extreme we have the whole book cast as a single chiastic structure

John Paul Heil

Ephesians: Empowerment to Walk in Love for the Unity of All in Christ
Society of Biblical Literature Studies in Biblical Literature 13
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Heil’s Structure of Ephesians

  • Not made on the basis of the Greek text
  • Tends to run roughshod over syntax
  • Some of the clearest structural features in the epistle, which I will come to later, do not even align with his schema
  • Arnold: I have not found his overall thesis persuasive.
  • What we find in the literature
  • Unfortunately those who come up with elaborate chiastic structures often do not pay a lot of attention to the Greek syntax.
  • They just look at matching words and phrases. It is possible to find structure in just about anything if you set the bar low enough.

Syntax has to be the starting point.

  • On the other hand, if we look at a sampling of some of the best known academic commentaries, there seems to be little interest in examining the literary structure

Sample of Commentaries

  • Arnold, Clinton E. Ephesians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary Series on the New Testament Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.
  • Hoehner, Harold W. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.
  • Lincoln, Andrew T. Ephesians. Word Biblical Commentary 42. Dallas: Word, 1990.
  • O’Brien, Peter T. The Letter to the Ephesians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
  • None of them see literary structure as a topic even to be investigated
  • All of them do see some evidence of very small chiasms – on average each author finds two, but not always the same ones.

A Third Way

  1. The whole book is organized as a formal poetic structure (e.g. Heil)
  2. There are a few odd chiastic verses
  3. There is not a rigid formal structure all the way through, but it is written in a semi-poetic style that frequently embeds crafted structures to support the flow of ideas.
  • This is helpful for helping to identify the key ideas and flow of meaning, and of drawing attention to what Paul wants to emphasize.
  • It is surprising because it breaks our categories. We are used to a prose structure or poetry, but not something that has large amounts of poetic content within a reasoned logical argument
    • We see reasoned logic and poetry as different categories
    • This was not true in the ancient world

The Surprising Literary Structure of Ephesians

  1. Brief Literature Review and a New Proposal
  2. Examples of Clear Structural Features
  3. Is there an Overall Literary Structure?

2. Examples of Clear Structural Features

  • We are going to look at some examples:

Types of Structure in Ephesians

  1. Pure chiasmus
  2. Small chiasms embedded in the flow
  3. Highly structured, but not chiastic

1. Pure Chiasmus

  • what I consider to be the purest form: foldable text
    • hold up the paper example
  • What I mean by that is that if you have a structure, say A B D D D’ C’ B’ A’
    • You can read just A and then A’ and it flows
    • But something is missing, which is supplied by “unfolding” B and B’
    • Again, the whole argument flows, but more is added by unfolding the next inner piece
    • Right at the center is usually a new idea which is key to all the other changes in the higher levels
  • e.g:
  • View the structure and click on ‘How the Body is Built’: Ephesians 4:12–16
    • Note this is all one sentence in the Greek!
  • Another example: (not quite as elegant, but still flows well
  • View the structure: Ephesians 5:1–6

2. Small chiasms embedded in the flow

3. Highly structured, but not chiastic

  • 1:3–14 Past, present and future blocks
  • 3:1–13 – 2 stage revelation of the mystery
    • More of an Inclusio than full-blown chiasm
  • View the structure: Ephesians 3:1–13
    • What reinforces our confidence in these structures I have been showing you is that they exactly fit the logical sections of the book, on which all the commentators are pretty much in agreement.
  • A final great example of highly structured but not Chiasm
  • The early Christian hymn in 5:14

The Surprising Literary Structure of Ephesians

  1. Brief Literature Review and a New Proposal
  2. Examples of Clear Structural Features
  3. Is there an Overall Literary Structure?

3. Is there an Overall Literary Structure?

Two Overall Structuring Devices

  • Eph 1–3 Introductory “Table of Contents” in 1:3–14
  • Eph 4–6 The Seven “Walks” (introduced in ch.2)
  • 1:1–14 Overview: A. Past: forgiveness; B. Present: unfolding of mystery; C. Future: Hope through the Spirit

Ephesians 1–3

  • 1:1–14 Overview:
    1. Past: forgiveness, chosen to be blameless
    2. Present: unfolding of mystery
    3. Future: Hope through the Spirit
  • 1:15–23 Prayer
  • A. 2:1–10 Old Walk replaced by New Walk
      Forgiveness, Union & New Identity
      2:11–22 Peace by the blood of Christ
  • B. 3:1–13 unfolding of mystery
  • C. 3:14–21 Prayer for Revelation of Love through the Spirit
  • The 7 walks as a structuring device

Ephesians 4–6

  • 2:1–10 Old Walk replaced by New Walk
  • 4:1–16 Walk Worthy
  • 4:17–32 No longer walk as the Gentiles, but put on the new
  • 5:1–6 Walk in Love
  • 5:7–14 Walk in the Light
  • 5:15–6:9 watch Carefully how you walk
  • 6:10–20 “Finally, be strong in the Lord”
Last updated on 14 Oct 2023
Published on 14 Oct 2023