The New Testament in 90 Days

In the second half of Ephesians, Paul (or one of his disciples) writes about what this expansive vision of the grace of God means for the community life of the Ephesians (and everyone...) "live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called", he begins, and he goes on to paint a picture of what that will look like.  Humility and patience, compassion and truthfulness -- and most of all, striving for unity, because there is only One Lord, One Baptism, One Faith, even though it looks so much different sometimes ( some things never change).  There seem to be many factions and warning sects in the church (much to our detriment, Paul understands), but in reality, there is only one Bod you Christ.  Speak the truth, but speak in Love.  Work together.  Come out of the darkness and into the light.  Forgive each other. Easy words to understand, perhaps.  Harder to do, certainly. Especially when Paul uses the words, "Be imitators of God, as beloved...

One thing you might notice about the letter to the Ephesians right away is that, unlike Galatians and both of the letters to Corinth, Paul has almost nothing personal or specific to say to the church at Ephesus.  that has led some people to speculate that this short letter really was not written to the Ephesians, but was a letter more generally circulated to all of the churches.  It has led others to speculate that Paul did not actually write it, but that instead it was written by one of his disciples.  (it would not have been a terrible thing in those days to write a letter "in the name of" one of your teachers.) So this letter doesn't have juicy details about the sins of the Ephesians, or greetings to individuals that we want to know more about, except Tychicus (Darn).  But it does have (and you'll just have to trust me on this) those really really long sentences that Paul is famous for (you can tell this especially if you read the original Greek).  I believ...