Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Ephesians 2:1-10, The ruler of the kingdom of the air
Paul reminds his readers that they were once dead in sins, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air, until God in his mercy made them alive and seated them with Christ in the heavenly realms, saved by grace.
Ephesians 2:1-10, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul reminds his readers what their life was before Christ: cut off from God by their wrongdoing, following the world's ways and an evil spiritual ruler, and driven by their own desires. Then God, out of mercy and love, brought them to life with Christ and gave them a place with him above. All of this is God's free gift received by trusting him, not something they earned, and it leads into a new life of doing good.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/powers-over-the-nations\/","n":"Rulers and powers over the nations","s":"Many Jews believed each nation had a spiritual ruler set over it, often hostile to God's people. Paul's rulers, authorities, powers and thrones belong to that picture.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/fate-and-the-stars\/","n":"Fate and the stars","s":"Most people in Paul's world believed their lives were ruled by Fate, worked out through the stars, which many took to be heavenly beings. Few thought there was any escape, and cults that promised one drew followers.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/present-age-and-age-to-come\/","n":"This age and the age to come","s":"Jews divided history into the present age, under the rule of evil nations, and the age to come, when God would rule unchallenged. The sufferings expected before the change were called birth pangs.","r":""}
Air was the usual word for the atmospheric heaven, and evil spirits were thought to rule this lowest level (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). A magical papyrus calls a spirit helper "the only lord of the air" (Arnold). Who the ruler is, is read in more than one way: Satan (the ESV and CSB Study Bibles, Arnold, Wright, the Zondervan dictionary), Satan or the chief angel of the nations (Keener), or, Heiser suggests, it may turn on whether Paul had Israelite or Greco-Roman cosmology in mind, since the verse names neither Satan nor the devil. Arnold declines a precise map: the air reflects "the common belief that demons inhabit the air." He rejects reading it as a spiritual climate, the picture Wright uses of ideas felt in the atmosphere of a place. For readers once afraid of Fate or the stars, being seated with Christ meant being enthroned above the powers (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes; Arnold). Most Jews held that God's grace, given through the covenant, had saved them, but they did not apply that grace to Gentiles (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Ephesians 2:1-2, 2:4-7 and 2:8-10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 2:2, 2:6 and 2:8-9
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Ephesians 2:2
- CSB Study Bible, note on Ephesians 2:2
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 37, This Means War, Observations on Paul's Vocabulary
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 1, Magic and Divination, Spirit Guides, ch. 8, Dead, Resurrected and Exalted, ch. 9, The Threefold Nature of Evil Influence, and ch. 15, The Powers and Society, Recent Interpretations of the Powers
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Ephesians 2:1-7
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry air
