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 4:1-16, The conqueror goes up and gives gifts
Paul urges unity, one body and one Spirit, then reads Psalm 68 as Christ ascending in victory and handing out gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, to equip the church to grow up into him.
Ephesians 4:1-16, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul turns from teaching to living and begins with unity. Because there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord and one God, the believers are to bear with one another humbly and keep the peace. He reads a psalm as a picture of Christ going up in victory and handing out gifts, and those gifts are people, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, who equip the whole church to grow up together into Christ.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/orators-and-sophists\/","n":"Orators, rhetoric and boasting","s":"Public speaking was the great skill of the Greek city. Traveling orators performed for crowds and gathered paying students, audiences judged them on voice and gesture as well as argument, and the fans of rival speakers boasted of their own man against the rest.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-triumph\/","n":"The triumph and the arena","s":"Rome celebrated a great victory with a triumph, a parade of the general, his army and the spoils, with chained captives at the end who were killed or sold. Cities also staged shows in which condemned criminals fought or were thrown to beasts.","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\/shepherd-and-sheep\/","n":"Shepherd and sheep","s":"Scripture pictured Israel without a leader as sheep without a shepherd, and promised that God himself would come to shepherd them.","r":""}
Paul turns from praise to exhortation, and unity was a stock theme of ancient exhortation (Keener and his notes). Wright suggests that the list of unities in 4:4-6 may be a formula new converts learned. Paul adapts Psalm 68:18, which Jewish interpreters applied to God going up at Sinai and which Wright thinks a Jew might read of Moses; a later Aramaic paraphrase also has gave where the psalm has received (Keener and his notes; the ESV Study Bible). A conqueror took tribute and shared out the spoils (Keener and his notes). Who the captives are is disputed: defeated enemies (Heiser), most likely demons (the ESV Study Bible), the hostile powers (Arnold), or Christ's new followers (the CSB Study Bible). So is the descent of 4:9: to the realm of the dead (Keener; Arnold, who notes that Artemis and Hekate were thought to rule the underworld and that papyri give Hekate "the keys to Hades"), to earth at the incarnation (the ESV Study Bible), or Christ's coming in the Spirit (Heiser; Wright). Pastors are literally shepherds (Keener and his notes). Verse 14 joins a child, a storm-tossed boat and tricksters with loaded dice (Wright).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Ephesians 4:1-16, and on Ephesians 4:1-2, 4:4-6, 4:7-8, 4:9-10 and 4:11
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 4:1, 4:3, 4:8 and 4:9
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Ephesians 4:8 and 4:9
- CSB Study Bible, note on Ephesians 4:8
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 33, A Beneficial Death, Taking Prisoners
- Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon, Claiming Mount Hermon
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Ephesians 4:1-10 and 4:11-16
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 7, The Powers As Christ's Captives (Eph 4:8-10)
