Ephesians 3 Bible study: The mystery of Christ

The chapter opens, "For this cause I, Paul, am the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles" (3:1). Here the letter's I names himself, as its first verse named its sender: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God" (1:1). He calls himself "the prisoner of Christ Jesus" (3:1) (tap prisoner), and the chapter says no more about it. The sentence runs on: "if it is so that you have heard of the administration of that grace of God which was given me toward you" (3:2), "how that by revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before in few words" (3:3). Just before the prayer he says, "Therefore I ask that you may not lose heart at my troubles for you, which are your glory." (3:13) (tap lose heart). The readers are those the letter names, "you Gentiles" (3:1), and these notes say nothing about them, or about the writer's being a prisoner, beyond the letter's own words.

Job 11:8→leads toEphesians 3:18-19

Zophar asks Job, "Can you fathom the mystery of God?" (11:7), and goes on, "They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea" (11:8-9). Paul prays that believers "may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge" (Ephesians 3:18-19). Paul doesn't name Job or Zophar, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting them side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, not only on a picture of height and depth: a measure past what a person can know. Zophar gives four measures, high, deep, long and broad, and asks, "What can you know?" (11:8); Paul names the same four and speaks of a love that "surpasses knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19). Some read the two together for that subject: Zophar asks what a person can know of heights and depths like these, and Paul prays that believers would know Christ's love, which goes past knowing. Others read each in its own setting: Paul is praying for those he writes to, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" (Ephesians 3:17), while Zophar's words come between "God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves" (11:6) and "If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away" (11:14), and the LORD's word on the friends is 42:7. Neither reading makes Paul's prayer an answer to Zophar or a verdict on him.

μυστήριονmysterionsay moos-TAY-ree-on

Strong's: "a secret". "how that by revelation the mystery was made known to me" (3:3), "the mystery of Christ" (3:4), and "the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God" (3:9): behind mystery each time is this noun (in all eight editions TAGNT compares). Ephesians has it earlier in "making known to us the mystery of his will" (1:9), and later in "to make known with boldness the mystery of the Good News" (6:19). In each of those three verses, 1:9, 3:3 and 6:19, the mystery is made known, and behind make known each time is one Greek verb (in all eight editions). Favor's Mark 4 studies the noun where Mark's Gospel has it.