Pauline letters

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Introduction

In the year 50 A.D., Paul arrived in Thessalonica, a major city and the capital of the province of Macedonia (see Acts 17:1). Here, after being rejected by the Jews, he addressed his preaching to the pagans and succeeded in forming a community. After barely three months, a riot caused by the Jews forced him to leave.

What is going to happen to these new Christians who have only received the basics of Christian life from Paul? Because of his concern, Paul asks Timothy to go and to strengthen this young church. Upon his return, Timothy is optimistic and being reassured, Paul sends this letter at the beginning of the year 51 A.D. This is the oldest text of the New Testament.

We do not always find this letter very inspiring. We might say that Paul’s style is still quite “green.” We sense both a missionary’s attachment to the converts for whom he had spared no effort, his concern about them and the remnants of Paul’s early training as fanatic as it was generous.

Christian faith was going against reason in the first communities of the Greco–Roman world, just as it does in our own communities. Sexual freedom seemed just as legitimate to them as it does to our contemporaries. The resurrection of the dead and the afterlife did not readily enter into their perspectives even if, from time to time, some “mystery-prone” philosophers or some religions were trying to revive such hopes.

In Chapter 4, Paul re-asserts the biblical doctrine concerning these matters. There, we will find the clear and sound affirmation of the moral demands to form an integral part of Christ’s followers: be holy, alert and be people who are waiting for something else.

We will also find the first affirmation of the resurrection of the dead expressed in apocalyptic language and images.

From its beginnings, the community is invited to live in constant prayer and to give priority to the care of its weakest members.

•  1.1 Faith, endurance, love. For us, sometimes hope (or: endurance) goes unnoticed between faith and love. For Paul it has two important meanings:

– Those who hope bear trials and persecutions with patience and perseverance. That is why Paul speaks of faith, perseverance, and love. As we know from the Gospel, hope is not an easy optimism; it is the capacity to endure when faced with trials.

– The person with hope looks forward to the glorious coming of Christ who will judge this world and take us to the next one. He frees us from impending trial (v. 10). In those years, all believers were convinced that judgment was imminent and that they would witness Christ’s coming.

The gospel we brought you was such not only in words (v. 5). There were many signs, miracles, and other manifestations in Thessalonica. Perhaps God increased the signs in view of the coming persecution; since very soon there would not be many with adequate formation to orient the community. In fact, the Gospel cannot be proclaimed without God doing something to confirm it (Mk 16:17). Jesus criticized those who came to him to see miracles, but he performed miracles throughout his ministry. Let us not say: “I do not need miracles to believe.” Human beings as we are, we will have quite a different enthusiasm if we see that God is beside us, doing the incredible to confirm his word.

 

•  2.1 As a nursing mother who feeds and cuddles her baby (v. 7): Such was Paul’s tenderness. Paul recalls the work and energy he spent to convince, to call each one personally. The conversion of a single person demands perseverance, weariness, and struggles for the apostle.

All the Christians of Paul’s time know that the mother Church in Jerusalem has been the first to suffer heavy persecution. For the Thessalonians, it was also an honor to have remained steadfast in the face of persecution.

 

•  14. Some people will find Paul’s words concerning the Jews harsh and exaggerated: It is obvious that verses 15-16 do not refer to all the Jews or to the Jewish people of future time. Paul means those Jews and Judeo-Christians who persecute him from city to city. The divine sentence condemning them has already been pronounced yet they reflect his experience, verified in Acts 15–28.

The anger that Paul mentions in verse 16, means a decision of divine justice that is preparing punishment. It does not concern the Jewish people as a whole or the Jewish people of the future, as some fundamentalists believe but rather, it deals with those Jews and Judeo-Christians who persecute Paul and constantly thwart his preaching to the pagans. The judgment of God is soon coming upon them.

 

•  3.1 You know that such is our destiny (v. 3). There is no church, nor Christian life, without trials and persecutions.

May the Lord increase more and more your love for each other and for all people (v. 12). Love manifests itself first within the community and then it must be expanded to all people.

Note also Paul’s constant preoccupation: his apostolic mission does not allow him to remain in any community. He is always moving, leaving his work unfinished, but he entrusts his converts to the grace of God that does not suppress the freedom of the recent converts nor the work of the Tempter in the world.

 

•  4.1 If we have given ourselves to Christ, that should surely make our life different from what we lived before. The Jews who accepted baptism had a solid moral basis in the laws of the Old Testament. On the other hand, the pagans had only the moral laws observed in their society. Chastity, among others, was completely foreign to them. They considered occasional sexual relationships a necessity of nature, having nothing to do with moral values.

Paul reacts strongly: The will of God for you is to become holy and not to have unlawful sex (v. 3). Facing what humans consider demands of nature, are other demands due simply to the fact that God has called us and put us on the path to divinization (Paul says: sanctification). Paul will take up the same argument in other words in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Here in verses 4-8, Paul is certainly thinking of adultery and relationships with prostitutes. If he were living in our social context, he would surely include sexual freedom among youth.

Paul never ceases telling us we are free. He passes over liturgical rules, customs proper to Jewish people—reminders of the past—all that kept believers in a religion of obedience to laws. He reaffirms fundamental moral rules that are valid at all times and in all places, especially when one has entered through the Gospel the age of spiritual maturity.

Paul then gives a warning he will repeat at the end of this letter (5:14): All should work and avoid being idle. The community is disturbed by certain believers more inclined to attract attention with an enthusiastic show of faith rather than work; they discredit the Church in the eyes of pagans. Paul, the good Jew, and Pharisee he was, could earn his own living by manual labor. He would not have understood how a believer could be without some qualification and unable to find an outlet, be it well or poorly considered and paid.

 

•  13. Lest you grieve as do those who have no hope. The Thessalonian community is made up of Christians who are all recent converts with little experience. For years they had accepted the fate of being born to die. Now, on the contrary, they awaken each day with the assurance of overcoming death: Christ will come soon and take them to the heavenly kingdom. They are grieved nevertheless over their dead relatives whom Christ will not be able to save. This is what they thought because Greek culture had difficulties believing in a resurrection of the dead.

Those who are already asleep. Those who have died are not dead, but they are asleep, waiting for the time of the resurrection, the time of rising as new persons transformed by Christ: we will all be transformed. The word “cemetery” comes from a word meaning sleeping place.

God will bring them together with Jesus (v. 14). Paul supposes that he and his readers will be alive when Christ returns and he describes the event according to the cultural expressions of the time. Let us not forget that up to the time of Galileo, everyone thought that heaven had its place in the universe, very high above and that God, although a spirit, was in some way present there.

We will be with the Lord forever (v. 17). That is essential and always true even if it does not mean that Jesus will come on a beautiful cloud to the sound of heavenly trumpets. We already have some experience of the Lord’s presence in our earthly life, but then there will be nothing but this presence and this joy.

This brief message of hope leaves obscure essential questions concerning the resurrection of the dead. Paul will fully deal with this subject later on in 1 Corinthians 15. There he will show that resurrection is first a transformation of our whole being through the energies flowing from the resurrected Christ.

Comfort one another (v. 18). The way of celebrating funerals in the Church must comfort the dead person’s relatives and strengthen their faith in the resurrection. There is no room for expressions of despair which Jesus himself scorned (see Mk 5:40): these are peculiar to people who consider the separation to be final. A funeral Mass without any spectacular display, when the fervent prayer of the community is experienced, produces a great impact on people who are indifferent.

 

•  5.1 The Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (v. 2) but believers are people of the light. These words are rich in meaning. Those who follow their evil desires are people of darkness, hiding to do evil. While children of the light are beyond reproach, transparent before God, and with nothing to hide from him. The unbeliever sleeps and is off-guard while the believer keeps watch and stays awake: he likes to pray all night long until dawn as if waiting for the day to welcome Christ. As for those who have died, they are not dead: they are only “asleep,” ready to rise when the Lord comes.

Encourage one another and build up one another (v. 11). In this, the Church is seen as the true community needed by believers so they can grow in faith and overcome trials. In every difficulty, the help of the community will be the proof that we are surrounded by the love of God and of Christ, as was said in the first line of the letter.

According to verse 12, after only three months of evangelization, this community already had leaders in charge.

 

•  19. Do not quench the Spirit (v. 19). A community such as this with few traditions and written instructions, depended on the intervention of the Spirit. Among these Christians, there were some gifted with the charism of prophets: they would receive their communications during the Eucharistic assemblies. That is why Paul asks to profit by these spiritual messages, but not without first examining them as he will remind them in 1 Corinthians 14. This is a delicate situation: the community is subject to the Spirit who speaks through the prophet, but it must—and its leaders must—judge if it is truly the Spirit of God speaking.

May you be completely blameless in spirit, soul, and body (v. 23). Neither the Jews nor the majority of Greeks would have agreed with our definition of the human: body and soul. They spoke at the same time of the soul that gives life to the body and deals with material activities, and of the spirit that is capable of truth and justice.

Paul’s way of speaking, like the great spiritual Christians, shares this conception. When Paul speaks of the deep life of believers, he does not use the word soul but spirit. We do not face God as we do in facing an interlocutor and look at each other from the exterior: to understand better our relationship with God, through the Spirit, we must think of what unites beings who love each other and in some way live in one another.

According to Scripture, God’s Spirit can be omnipresent, insinuate itself, adapt itself, become our spirit without ceasing to be itself. Our spirit is not a part of ourselves, it is us, and it is at the same time our access to God. Our soul expresses itself in different ways, for example in dreams. We only discover our spirit in the measure of our experience of God. Only when we see God shall we truly know what and who we are.

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Introduction

Towards the year 62 A.D., Paul, a prisoner in Rome, writes to the Christians of Colossae, who, without being aware of it, belittle Christ. They do not feel assured with only faith in Christ and they want to add some practices from the Old Testament. Or they try to include Christ in a board of celestial persons, or “angels” who are supposed to have the key to our destiny in hand.

Something was lacking in them and in the majority of their contemporaries. They were caught in the Roman Empire, which had imposed its peace on the known world at that time, but also prevented them from living a life of their own. They fell back on the “spiritual.” Secret doctrines offered to lead their “perfect ones” to a higher state and theories called “gnosis” (that is, knowledge) were drawn up on the origin of the human and the world. According to them, all comes from a cosmic soup that had been boiling for ages, with impressive celestial families of angels or “eons”, male and female, who devour each other, couple and finally imprison sparks of spirit in material bodies. So people are manufactured who, after “putting on” a series of successive existences, may return to the kingdom of light.

Caught in the wind of these fine discourses, the Colossians went the way of certain Christians today who trust in their devotion to souls or who allow their life to be led by spiritualism, astrology, and horoscopes. They no longer consider Christ as the only savior since they give the priority to others or to practices that are not of the Church.

This crisis in the Church of the first century gave us this letter of Paul where he establishes the absolute supremacy of Christ. As in other letters of Paul, the letter to the Colossians mentions that Timothy is with him (1:1). Paul chose him as assistant and looked on him as “his true Son in Christ.” Perhaps it was Timothy who wrote a fair part of this letter; it would explain the difference in style from the more authentic of Paul’s letters while its content—exceptionally rich—is constantly faithful to the inspiration of the apostle. On this subject, see the Letter to the Ephesians, which has the same themes as the one to the Colossians, but in a more developed way. In several passages of Colossians, relevant commentaries in Ephesians will be indicated.

•  1.1 Paul, as usual, praises his readers. Actually, he is writing because of the information Epaphras gave him about the Colossians’ concerns.

Epaphras, about whom Paul speaks (v. 7), is a man from Colossae. When Paul was organizing the evangelization of the province of Ephesus (see Acts 19:26 and 20:4), he did not go to every city, but would send his assistants. Epaphras of Colossae announced the Good News and had started to form communities in Colossae and then in the neighboring cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis (see Col 4:13). He was the man who came to Rome to inform Paul of the difficulties.

Your faith… your love… in hope… (vv. 4-5). Paul constantly regroups these three Christian powers: believe, love, and hope. In the Christian world, they are called theological virtues (i.e., powers that go straight to God). The three go together otherwise, they do not exist. In a sense hope is the first: if it is no longer alive, faith and love remain powerless.

Straight away, Paul presents faith as being matchless: the Gospel has already been preached and believed throughout the world (v. 6) (which is rather too quickly said); faith opens for us the way to true knowledge: precisely what the Colossians are looking for (see Introduction); through this faith, God has already placed us in the kingdom of light (v. 12).

He transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son (v. 13). While the Colossians are interested in an invisible world of supernatural forces, where luminous powers battle with those of darkness (see the Introduction, and also Eph 1:21), Paul immediately clarified the situation: there is nothing other than the Power of Darkness and the Kingdom of the Son.

 

•  15. Paul shows that the angels or invisible powers (v. 16) whether from Scripture or the storytellers of “gnosis” with their Thrones, Authorities, Principles… are nothing compared with Christ. He is neither agent nor intermediary of a creative adventure without a true creator. He is not one of the saviors of a history rather impersonal: there is only God-Creator and in him is Christ. See the same idea in Hebrews 1.

In Galatians 4:1-5 Paul recognizes that the history of humanity has been deeply marked by natural and social forces that he does not name. He also affirms that since the resurrection of Jesus, it is he who has in hand all the movement of history (Rev 5:3-5). Something that may astonish those among us who think all history is the responsibility of humankind. In one sense, they are right but on condition that they do not forget the Firstborn, the one who has already come to the end of history and of whom we say he is Lord (Phil 2:11) of history.

He is the image of the unseen God. We should not imagine that God has a human form beyond the clouds, and that Jesus is his image; the human creature is the image of God, but God is not in the image of the human creature.

In all that he is and in all that he does, Christ among us is the perfect image of the Father and of his mercy: his actions reveal God’s way of thinking and acting. Already before he became man, the Son of God existed in God, as the eternal and invisible image of God eternal and invisible, the radiance of the glory of the Father (Heb 1:3), the Expression or Word of God (Jn 1:1).

For all creation, he is the firstborn. We take this word in its biblical sense. He is not the first of many creatures, but the one who has a place apart. In his human nature, Christ is a Galilean Jew, a descendant of David. His person, however, is rooted in God and is presented to us as the model and the firstborn not of people but of all creation.

All was made through him (v. 16): John 1:1 and Hebrews 1:2.

And was the first raised… (v. 18). Paul says more precisely “and as the first fruits offered to God, was raised” (as in 1 Cor 15:23). He has not come only for the forgiveness of sins, but for a “passover,” a passage from death to life, and his Resurrection after his total surrendering to his Father was a first necessary step so that we too would have a resurrection.

God was pleased to let fullness dwell in him (v. 19) who is the only bridge between God and the universe. The fullness of God is in him to be communicated to the universe, and the fullness of the universe will be found in him when all human beings are reconciled and reunited in him.

God willed to reconcile (v. 20). Once again the work of Christ is presented as reconciliation: reconciliation between people (2 Cor 5:17-21) and reconciliation of the whole of creation.

 

•  21. Paul now requires the Colossians to keep their feet on the ground. Do not waste your time imagining struggles between celestial beings and evil ones. The struggle is here below and costs blood and life. This is why Paul reminds his readers what he himself is suffering because of the Gospel.

The body of Christ is the place where the peace of all humanity with God, and peace between individuals and nations can be achieved (Eph 2:11).

That you may be, without fault, holy and blameless before him (v. 22): see commentary on Ephesians 5:26.

I complete in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (v. 24). After Christ’s death, something would be lacking in the salvation of the world, if Jesus’ followers and apostles did not, in their turn, meet with trials and sufferings. Working for the Church means suffering for the Church; to work for the rule of justice is to suffer for the sake of justice.

His mysterious plan (v. 27): see Ephesians 3:5. We must not forget that in those days, no one even thought of the common destiny of humanity: they did not even speak of humanity. Moreover, neither the Greeks nor the Romans looked beyond their actual existence. Paul is amazed by the generosity of God whose promises are for all people, without distinction (v. 27). We, too, are offered nothing less than a share in the glory of God, that is to say, all the riches found in him.

 

•  2.1 I want you to know how I strive for you. This struggle of Paul signifies labor (1:28-29) and prayer (4:2 and Rom 15:30). It would be very tempting (and it is the temptation of the Colossians) to make Christianity an attractive religion, with beautiful explanations, leaving people hanging on to their dreams and passions, a religion that does not attack the sin rooted in our way of life and in our society. To join the attack we must first be convinced that it is in Christ that we find the whole mystery of God.

Let no one deceive you (v. 4). Philosophy and the search for wisdom are highly respectable. Philosophies always contain some truth; their danger is in seeming to give a total response to our problems. They are deceptive insofar as they come from philosophers who have in fact had either a limited or questionable experience of human reality. In faith, on the contrary, rather than a discourse on human concerns, we have a person: Christ. While all the currents of thought are the product of their day and grow old with time, Paul assures us that all the fullness of God is in Christ in a human form.

 

•  11. Paul has just said that a Christian has wisdom and is on a way of knowledge. He now reminds us that our entry into the Church has been much more than an exterior rite. Through baptism, we have become part of this renewal of the world brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Paul had been circumcised, and knew from experience that it did not save him. We can be fairly sure baptism did not also miraculously free him of his aggressiveness and weaknesses, but he began to live his human existence differently. He had been liberated, among other things, of what weighed heavily on him: religion with all its commandments. Religion for him was not, as it is for some who like principles, a defensive shield as necessary as a policeman: religion was for him a reminder of a debt toward God, something that made love and real trust impossible. Jesus in dying had nailed to the cross all kinds of fears of God; at the same time, he did away with all the moral principles and pressures (“powers and authorities” of v. 15) that smother our free response to God.

In some countries, many people are baptized but baptism scarcely changes their life, and generally speaking, they do not belong to communities seeking to renew their faith. It is not enough for us to admit that we are poor Christians, that we have not really buried the sinner within us. Our resurrection depends, first of all on faith in God who resurrected Jesus, who has pardoned us, and prepared everything so that we may live our life.

 

•  16. Paul has just reminded us that baptism is the beginning of a new life. It is not a matter of replacing old commandments with better commandments: the coming of Christ has put an end to all religions with commandments. That will perhaps shock many Christians: should we not obey the commandments of God and of the Church? What will become of us if there are no longer religious duties?

Indeed there is no religious group—no Christian community—without rites, habits, commandments: what would become of a community where the members would no longer gather to hear the word of God or celebrate the Eucharist? Paul nevertheless shows it is finished with religions where the most important consideration is to do or not to do, where it is believed that God likes us to rest on such a day, not to eat such and such a food, to dress in a certain way, abstain from this or that. Religions give great importance to these laws for they help the faithful to maintain their cohesion and to retain their own identity. All that deforms the idea we have of God. All that is human regulation, very useful perhaps, old fashioned perhaps, but still always human. Paul says: God does not share our interest in what is transient, in our cooking, feast days and the like; he does not treat us like little children, saying, “Don’t do that!”

All that may seem very religious (2:3). Religious prohibitions always impress those who are not free of their fear of God. Instead of freeing us and leading us to child-like trust in God, these restrictions favor narrow-mindedness, and later violence exerted against those who think differently from us.

Do not be mistaken in thinking that contempt for the body is a sign of holiness (v. 23). Fewer kilos do not mean more Spirit! The penances and sacrifices that we impose on ourselves could cause us to feel superior to others. If you belong to a group that has its fasts, would you not like it to be known?

Let no one criticize you (v. 16). Who is going to criticize us for celebrating Sunday with the Resurrection of the Lord instead of the Jewish Sabbath?

 

•  3.1 Here we have what was said about baptism (2:12) which joins us to Christ and makes us share in all his wealth. Since Christ left this earth, we leave it too: what is best in our lives, what motivates us to do things is neither visible, nor is it of the earth. God alone knows the riches of the believer’s heart, even when her life seems tarnished by various faults and weaknesses: one day God will manifest the goodness, the “glory” which we do not yet see (see Mt 25:31-46).

Put to death what is earthly in your life (v. 5). It is not that we have to kill ourselves, but to destroy egoism, wickedness, envy, excessive confidence in self, for sin is there. Being free of a religion of commandments should not make us less aware of what is required in a new life: it means being still more perfect (Mt 5:20 and 48).

 

•  9. See Ephesians 4:20-24 where Paul develops the same idea of the new self created in Christ and of the old self which must be abandoned.

While the old self is self-centered, enslaved by passions, the new self is characterized by a communal attitude, a constant concern for others. He lives with a thankful heart.

 

•  18. The brief counsel given to spouses (vv. 18-19) will be largely developed in Ephesians 5:21-33. Paul would not accept the attitude of many Christians who say: “Religion has nothing to do with what I do in my home, my work, my leisure, or in politics.” On the contrary, Paul insists that Christians live all of this before the Lord, for the Lord, and in the Lord.

This is why Paul preaches the same ethics to everyone: men, women, slaves (we would say bosses and workers); all must be just, loyal and respectful of others, even when they have faults. We should struggle to bring about change and defend our rights; but we must lead these struggles and live our commitments according to the Spirit of Christ. Very often, it is less important what we ask for to change the world than the way how we ask for it, and it is often there that a Christian will give a witness that only she can give. Let others be successful whatever the means that are taken and whatever the disastrous consequences for society: see on this subject the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7).

 

•  4.2 All this is commented on in Ephesians 6:18-21.

Onesimus is a runaway slave who returns to Colossae with Tychicus after Paul converted him to the faith (see Letter to Philemon).

The evangelist Mark, now reconciled with Paul (see Acts 15:38), is with him. Luke (v. 14) mentioned here is the author of the Gospel and Acts.

We can see there was much communication between churches of different places. Each one was not locked within its own community: had this been the case, within a short time, there would have been as many religions as there were churches. Quite to the contrary, they were conscious of being the Church of Christ, established in various places, but with one testimony concerning Christ, which explains the interest the believers had in keeping in close contact with one another. At a time in which it seemed difficult to preserve unity due to the distance and differences among the people, the power that preserved unity—more than a rigid organization—was the profound sense all the people had that the church was a “communion” or a community enlivened by the Spirit of Christ.

Nowadays, when we attempt to form “basic Christian communities,” we must also be careful to remain in contact and in harmony with other communities.

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Introduction

Here again a real letter from Paul, personal, full of attention and tenderness that Paul sent from prison to the community that had always been the most concerned for his well-being. More than once Paul counted on their material assistance, showing the confidence he had in them. Usually, to avoid any suspicion of personal interest, he preferred to earn his living while continuing his mission. In this letter, we have the famous page: “Let the same project that was in Christ Jesus be found in you.”

We have just said it is a real letter from Paul. Actually, all in it does not follow, as if fragments of several letters from Paul had been combined. We shall draw attention to it as we proceed: 2:19, 21; 4:1. It may well be a question of two short letters, one where Paul wanted to give his news and to thank, the other a warning, in the same style as the letter to the Galatians.

When Paul’s letters were gathered together, the most important were arranged according to length: Romans, Corinthians, Galatians. Then came those we call “captivity letters.” It is there we have Philippians between Ephesians and Colossians as if the three had been sent from the same prison. Yet there is every reason to think that Philippians was not written when Paul was in Rome, about the year 60 A.D., but several years earlier, more like the year 56 A.D. Perhaps he was at that time imprisoned in Ephesus.

•  1.1 With their bishops and deacons. In Acts, we saw how the apostles used to establish a community, a church, in every city where they proclaimed the Gospel. They did not leave without having established a council of leaders, called presbyters, or elders, according to Jewish custom. After a few years, bishops, or supervisors, stood out: they may have been the leading members of the council of presbyters. They were not then like today’s bishops.

As to the deacons, they were in charge of various services in the community. And may have done missionary work in areas that did not yet have a community.

God began such a good work in you, I am certain that he will complete it in the day of Christ Jesus (v. 6). The end for which they long is always the manifestation (2 Thes 1:7), or the visit, or the Day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 1:8). No work is done without the expectation of the day when there will be all that one dreamed about. There is no Christian life where someone is content with looking forward to his retirement or feels fulfilled because he has a country house or because the family is growing up without a problem. Let us stop saying these first Christians still had the “illusion” of an early return of Christ. They wanted to meet him personally and be transfigured by him. That is an illusion only for those who enclose themselves in oases of peace within a world in crisis.

Knowledge and discernment… (v. 9). A good heart and generosity are not everything in Christian life. We are not saved, we do not reach our true stature, we are not remade as God would like us to be, unless clarity has guided generosity. It is the same for world salvation. God calls us to discover new ways. We need to reflect, to be attentive, what we could call “revision of life,” in order to discover what is positive and negative in our daily life, work relationships, social duties, leisure. This reflection, however, is not sufficient: among God’s gifts, there is spiritual knowledge that gives us a fresh vision of the order of values and of the will of God.

 

•  12. Paul is not only persecuted by the Jews: even in the Church “false brothers,” delighted he is in prison, see in this situation the possibility of increasing their own importance. The problem is one for all times: the great names of the apostolate have spent half of their energy in limiting the harm caused by rivals or by powerful groups in the Church. Paul, however, is gifted with wisdom: he sees that even if many do for personal interest what they believe they are doing for God, he knows how to turn it to account.

I am hopeful, even certain, that I shall not be ashamed (v. 20). Paul’s concern is that his trial and his appearances should serve to reveal Christ’s message to the authorities.

For to me, living is for Christ (v. 21). It is quite trendy to say that Christians should “understand the world” and be “fully human.” This is true in a certain way, but it does not say everything. God’s love increases in us through the gift of ourselves to persons and to tasks that he entrusts to us, but as the love of God grows, the desire of Christ and eternity takes root with it: this desire makes us like strangers in the world.

Paul would like to see his friends but not for that will he linger over fraternal meals in which his friends would try to provide him with a warm atmosphere. His deep desire is for what he still lacks: to meet Christ in his glory (see 2 Cor 4:16 and Phil 3:10).

I desire greatly to leave this life and to be with Christ (v. 23). St. Paul teaches that those who say that a person ceases to exist at the time of death and only recovers life in the resurrection at the end of times are wrong. See 2 Corinthians 5:8 also.

 

•  27. See how throughout this paragraph Paul invites the Philippians to fully share his own struggle: he is in prison, but they must remain in the front line of the battle. What does he expect? First that their community be a true one. Unity is a decisive sign for those who see us from the outside. Uphold the faith of the gospel with one heart. Whether there be a persecution or not, people from the outside will try to divide us.

 

•  2.1 Unity is often supported by a shared feeling of being the best, or the strongest, or having to contend with another group: in that way, many religious groups maintain their strength, their discipline, and the efforts and sacrifices needed for this. All that is also found in Christian groups, but it should not be, for we have another spirit (Lk 9:55). With us, unity will follow from much humility and understanding of others. Here, Paul gives the secret of Christian co-existence: look for what is humble and do nothing through rivalry or vain conceit (v. 3).

In a hymn which is a sort of creed, Paul proposes the example of Christ: his path from God to man, from rich to poor, from first to last, from master to servant.

The Lord Jesus desired to identify with the most humble, the most afflicted, the most despised. Such were Jesus’ attitudes and they must be those of his followers, the Christians. A desire to identify with the most humble and to share with them is the motivation for a truly evangelical life.

In this, we must differ from the majority of people who are mainly interested in their personal or family fulfillment. Their ambitions are legitimate, and who among us does not share them at least partly? Yet they have been devalued by Christ by the simple fact that he took the opposite way.

He did not regard equality with God (v. 6): the mystery of God’s Son who became a mortal man and gave up God’s glory, although he could have preserved it even in his human life. Since Christ was to be the New Man, glorified by God and placed above everything, his being subject to misery and limitations was a way of being reduced to nothingness.

God exalted him (v. 9). The humiliation and obedience of Christ were the condition for receiving his glory. He gave him the name (of God), that is, he made him fully enjoy in his human nature the divine Power (or name).

 

•  12. Continue working out your salvation “with fear and trembling”. It is not a matter of being afraid of God. Paul has just urged his readers to rejoice, since they no longer have the spirit of slaves to make them fearful, but the spirit of sons and daughters (Rom 8:15).

Paul, in fact, has just recalled Christ’s sacrifice and he draws this conclusion: take your life very seriously (this is the meaning of fear and trembling: as does the one who carefully carries a precious load). Be aware that God is at work in you through these good desires that come to you. Live in the presence of God.

 

•  19. Paul usually deals with personal matters at the end of his letters. Here he seems to interrupt the subject of his letter that he will take up again in 3:1. Paul announces two visits to the Christians of Philippi.

Timothy is Paul’s assistant; he is entrusted with several missions to the communities. It seems that Timothy did not have much authority and could be easily humiliated by those who disliked Paul’s direction.

As to Epaphroditus, he was a Christian from Philippi who had left his family, spent his money, and faced risks in order to go and visit Paul. The community of believers must pay attention to its most committed members, who have little means, in order to assist them. The Church sometimes presents as examples, militants from the working class, or peasants who were quite forgotten by their brothers and sisters in the faith during their lives.

 

•  3.1 The discourse of Paul seems to be interrupted here. Paul begins a violent argument against ill-converted Jews who keep repeating that one must first be faithful to the laws and customs of the Old Testament to be a good Christian.

Beware of the dogs…! (v. 2) Paul applies to the Jews, proud of being the chosen people, the very insults that they reserved for non-Jews. Jews were sealed by circumcision, but they mocked people of other religions who incised their skin (1 K 18:28).

Through what Paul says concerning his faithfulness to Judaism, we know something of his past. He was born in Tarsus to a Jewish family who had left their country and had settled there, in “Greek” territory, where they dedicated themselves to business. His parents were wealthy and well thought of since they had the dignity and the rights of Roman citizens (see Acts 22:28). Along with Greek culture, Paul received religious education from Scripture and the Jewish people. He saw firsthand the pagan feasts and sacrifices, but was proud of belonging to God’s people, of being circumcised and instructed in God’s promises to his race. His parents sent him to Jerusalem to study Scripture and the law with the great masters of his time (see Acts 22:3).

He was a model of strict Pharisee. He did not meet Christ but did meet the early Christians. Because he was faithful to the religion of his ancestors, he believed it was necessary to persecute, imprison and even kill those preaching a new doctrine and deceiving (so he thought) the people, since they proclaimed a false, defeated, and crucified Messiah.

At times, Paul must have had doubts (Acts 26:14), and increasingly so, when he felt duty-bound to increase repression. The Pharisees were against the death penalty. To hesitate or to go backwards was to recognize that God had taken another road than the one where he himself had been the defender of God’s cause. Worse still: with Jesus, never more would he be the just man but rather the pardoned sinner. When Jesus forcefully entered into Paul’s life, it was a matter of losing all and Paul from then on accepted to regard as garbage all that he had been proud of.

Forgetting what is behind me (v. 13). Paul only wanted to “forget.” Forget his merits and his gains (in the judgment of others) so as to receive more fully the free grace of God; forget what he already knew of God and be available for new experiences.

The greatest thing for Christians is not to perform miracles, or to speak in tongues, but to know Christ and meet him as a living person. May I know him and experience the power of his resurrection (v. 10). All of us would like to feel the presence of God and to see him in some way, but the way to experience his power that transfigures us is by sharing in Christ’s sufferings (2 Cor 1:3-5).

All of us who claim to be perfect (v. 15). See what was said in 1 Corinthians 2:6. Paul speaks ironically again about those who believe they belong to a superior class of Christians, while he would not dare consider himself to be perfect (v. 12).

Finally, he insists on the resurrection. Because we know that our bodies (or persons) will be raised and that the universe will be renewed, we must put passing things in their place: food, wine, sex—all must stop being the idols that enslave us.

 

•  4.1 Once again the theme is interrupted; this passage seems to be the continuation of 2:19–3:1.

The Book of Life (v. 3) is a common Jewish term meaning those who will be saved (Rev 20:12).

Fill your minds with whatever is truthful, holy, just, pure, lovely, and noble (v. 8). Paul continuously repeats that it is not enough to avoid what is forbidden. Let us discover this free and open attitude of a believer who knows that God speaks to him in a thousand ways through others. How many examples before our eyes each day! What great, noble, and true things there are in this world about which we speak negatively! Let us accept what is good, wherever we find it, even among unbelievers.

 

•  10. Paul thanks the Church of Philippi for their help. He, who is so jealous of his independence and anxious not to seem to take advantage of others under the pretext of religion, accepts what his real friends give him.

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Introduction

Should we speak of a “letter” of Paul? It does not contain any news or personal message to a specific community. Like the letter to the Romans, it is an exposé on faith and the salvation of the world. Was it a kind of circular letter intended for the churches of the Ephesus region? Instead, should we accept testimonies according to which this letter, written as the same time as the epistle to the Colossians, was meant for the Laodiceans (Col 4:16)?

As we are told in Acts (Chaps. 24–26), Paul was a prisoner in Caesarea between the years 58–60 A.D. He thought that his apostolate in the East was over and he had been arrested as he was getting ready to leave for Rome, the capital of the empire. A few months earlier, he had written the letter to the Romans, a brilliant presentation of the work of salvation, when the news he received from Ephesus prompted Paul to elaborate a new presentation of the divine work. There were new religions springing up in the Roman province of Asia and soon they would spread to Rome. To the extent that these religions claimed to be offering everyone a way of salvation, they were challenging Christ as the sole savior of humankind.

Christians had to be given a broader vision of the hope of which they were the bearers. Where is humankind going? Is Christ the only Savior? These are questions we have to confront more insistently every day insofar as these past few years have seen a type of “mass movements” on the part of very diverse people. Those who want to dominate can only succeed if they appear to be speaking for the majority. Is there a way and hope for human beings? From his prison, Paul responds to us.

This letter to the Ephesians is parallel to the letter Paul sent to the Colossians at the same time. The same messenger took it to the two communities at the same time as the note for Philemon (Col 4:2; Phlm 2). Paul takes up again and develops God’s plan that he said he had understood in a revelation. At the core of this revelation, we have Christ, the Firstborn of God and the world has been created for new Human Beings, a single family in Christ. From now on, every Christian is urged to live this call to a holy and responsible life.

Some people think that Paul is not the author of this letter. How could he have spoken so impersonally to a community where he had worked for over two years, approximately from 55 to 57? As we have said, the letter was not addressed to the Christians of Ephesus but rather to communities in the valley of the Lycus River: Hierapolis and Laodicea that Paul had not personally evangelized.

Others think that the questions raised are more suited to a time after Paul. Or when they see that, compared to Paul’s previous letters, his style has been renewed, they imagine that someone else wrote those letters. However, all the theories run into enormous obstacles. When one is aware of the very low level of Christian literature immediately after the death of the apostles, it is difficult to think that a letter of such theological conviction, such doctrinal richness and so typically “Pauline” in every page, could have matured in someone other than Paul, even if that someone, Tychicus (Eph 6:21) or Timothy (Col 1:1), assisted in writing it.

•  1.3 This first page of the letter to the Ephesians is the best comprehensive expression of the Christian mystery in the Scriptures. It also serves to balance Paul’s great presentation in his letter to the Romans, which could appear to center God’s work in the tragedy of sinful humanity. The Letter to the Ephesians, like the Gospel of John, speaks of a re-creation of the world whereas the Letter to the Romans used more juridical terms: debt and reparation for sin.

Blessed be God! Usually, Paul starts his letters with praise and thanksgiving. Here, however, the prayer is unusually lengthy: Paul gives thanks and at the same time proclaims God’s mysterious plan, which he understood through a revelation (3:3).

God chose us in Christ (v. 4). Note the expression in Christ on which we have commented in 1 Corinthians 1:4. Every creature comes from God through his Son in whom God contemplates his own riches, and on whom he pours his love. We are as God has loved us, and we are in him, in some way, from the beginning.

In creating us free, God knows that our freedom is fragile: it will be difficult for us to give him a filial response. How can we return to God, at the heart of his mystery, without dying to ourselves? All history must necessarily be a continual death and resurrection, for nations as for persons. So Divine Wisdom foresaw that the Son would be in our midst, with his cross and his resurrection, to show us the love of the Father who has called us (v. 5). And of course, wherever the Son is, the Spirit will be given (vv. 7 and 13).

Many Christian authors have spoken as if, in the beginning, God created man without considering his possible fall and that Christ only came to save the lost sinner. This is not what Paul says here: from the beginning the coming of Christ and the gift of the Spirit together with the laws of life and the course of history are mysteriously linked with the order existing in God himself.

From eternity he destined us in love (v. 5). Here we recognize what Paul has affirmed in Romans 8:29-30. We cannot omit the word “predestination.” Many have used this word in the past in a different way from Paul’s. While Paul shows the Father’s decision to pour on created sons and daughters the infinite love which is lived within God, these preachers later spoke of a God who decides freely (and even capriciously) who will, and who will not, be saved. On this subject see “PREDESTINATION” in Romans 9.

It is impossible for us to understand how we can be free if we are known by God in eternity. It is not for that reason that we should share the doubts and anguish of those who believe they are subjected to a destiny or a fearsome “will of God.” In reality, we are “subject” to love and blessings (cf. v. 3) that await our response (see commentary on Rom 9).

Paul does not speak of condemnation of anyone: he only affirms that God gives proof of a special love for those he calls to become members of Christ.

Many Christians are shocked when told they have received more than others, that in no other place have people been gifted with truth as they have, and they think: would it not be more honest and more humble to accept that all religions have their own truth? Yes, in a way all have some truth, but to doubt this unique grace that is to know God in Christ, is to deny the entire revelation of the Scriptures. See on this subject the note “The three sayings of God” in Genesis 12.

The Beloved (v. 6) is always the first for God and for us the desire to be “saved” cannot be the basis of our faith. It would be just as egoistic as practicing one’s religion in order to enjoy good health. The Son has revealed to us the Glory of the Father and how he returned to the Father. He wished to draw us out of our egoism, even our religious egoism (Jn 17 and Phil 2:9).

In Christ we obtain freedom, sealed by his blood (v. 7). This does not mean that Christ shed his blood to make amends to his Father offended by sin, as if God were resentful as we often are, and as if his dignity were offended. Paul is referring to a biblical law: the emancipation of slaves used to be signed in blood (Ex 21:6).

His mysterious design (v. 9). Actually, Paul says: this mystery; this term designated at the time a decision or a secret doctrine. Here Paul speaks of the plan of God the Creator: a plan rooted in the mystery of the three divine Persons. We know that from God the Father proceed the Son and the Spirit, and from him, they receive his very divinity, the three being only one God. Besides this communication and this effusion of life in God, before the creation of the world, God the Father wished to communicate his riches, beyond himself, to created beings. It is there that we have the beginning of all human history. God willed that sons and daughters (v. 5) multiply around his only Son and in him, be capable of receiving his Spirit and returning it to him. They would return to him at the end of history, forming one body (v. 10).

Sealed with the Holy Spirit (v. 13). The Jews were branded, “sealed” in the flesh by the circumcision ritual that showed they belonged to God. Christians, on the other hand, had received the Holy Spirit who acted in them: from the Spirit come faith, hope, and love, the many forms of service, the gift of knowledge, miracles and healings. These gifts are the most obvious proof that they have become children of God. These gifts are only a foretaste of all the marvels that God has in store for us.

Paul distinguishes something like two insights: God’s plan in eternity (vv. 1-10) and its realization in time (vv. 11-14). The last two stanzas correspond to two stages in sacred history:

– We have been chosen and called (v. 11). Paul speaks for himself and in the name of the Jewish people chosen to be the people of God.

– You now… (v. 13). Here Paul means the pagan people like the Ephesians, whom he is addressing. And so, the fullness of time had come, that is to say, the time of the Gospel proclaimed to the entire world so that everyone could receive the gifts of the Spirit.

This page clarifies some essential points of faith.

 

•  15. I have been told of your faith and your affection. Paul delights in the faith of the Ephesians but, above all, he prays they may have hope that must be the source of their dynamism. He describes the stages of hope this way: to know the Father; to appreciate the inheritance set apart for his saints; to understand the power of God to bring us to the realization of these hopes.

It is this hope that cracked open the immobility of ancient societies. Paul lived in a world where hope was considered an illness. Any project to transform humanity was taken as an illusion, and so the hopes of a nascent science were quickly smothered. Believers, on the contrary, lived the experience of a resurrection. In Christian countries appeared the certainty of a common destiny of humanity (the word “humanity” was non-existent at the time). People were beginning to be seen as persons in a truer way and it was this that set history in motion, never to return. How astonishing to see in our world so many Christians who believe, but who have very little hope: are they not the ones who carry the hope of the world?

Far above all power (v. 21). In Paul’s days, neither Jews nor Christians doubted that the world was governed by supernatural powers, “angels.” They called them: Rulers, Powers, Authorities, Dominion, and Paul was saying to them: all these Powers are inferior to Christ. In our days we express ourselves differently. Nevertheless, we see the universe subject to the laws of nature, to the forces of matter and of life. It is also subject to obscure forces: collective prejudices, vice, and fanaticism. These ruled the world, preventing the emergence of humanity, until the coming of Christ: see Galatians 3:23.

God has put all things under the feet of Christ (v. 22). This means the same as the words of our creed: “Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.” It means that in rising, Christ, the God-Human became the First in the universe. All things under his feet except humankind.

Paul adds: “He made him head of the Church” (v. 22). Christ acts differently in two areas: in the world, where he is the invisible center in charge; in the Church, of which he is the head, where he can show the riches of his Spirit.

 

•  2.1 The path of humans without Christ leads to death.

We obeyed the urges of our human nature and consented to its desires (v. 3). There is no need to seek a clearer affirmation of what we call original sin. Paul does not speak of a fault committed before our personal sins, and in addition to the sins we are responsible for. It is a flaw easily seen in the human condition and in all our acts; it is the liabilities of our life insofar as God has not taken us in hand.

The account of Genesis (Chaps. 2–3) has placed in the past this “original” sin, as well as creation. It is a way of speaking proper to Hebrew culture. In fact, both our creation by God (v. 10) and our revolt against him are a part of our daily reality.

He raised us to life with Christ (v. 6). Actually, an authentic conversion is experienced as a resurrection. Paul is saying more: nothing can stop God’s merciful plan. He sees beyond time and has already raised us with Christ. We are seated with him in heaven, that is to say, assured of victory.

 

•  11. Another aspect of the human condition without Christ: death goes hand in hand with divisions. Before Christ, humanity was divided and people did not know our common Father. Since they were not mature enough for a quick unification in the true faith, God took that into account when he began to prepare for Christ’s coming. He chose a people and to avoid their being contaminated by the errors of the pagans, he separated them through a law that forbade their living together with other people (see Mk 7:14 and Acts 10:1). So there was in the Jerusalem temple, far from the Sanctuary, a patio open to the pagans and another one, near the Sanctuary reserved for the Jews, and a wall between the two. There came a time when this dividing line became a sign of all the barriers that Christ was going to destroy.

He taught them to share life with non-Jews, forbidden until then. Christ, put on the cross by Jews and pagans, overcomes the hatred of all by a love that forgives and, once risen, gathers all people to himself.

Thus, just as the cross is made of two pieces, one vertical, towards heaven and the other, horizontal, towards the earth, so peace goes in two directions: towards God and towards others. He has made the two people one… and reconciled us both to God (vv. 15 and 16). These are the two sides of only one thing, because human violence is the other expression of our inability to meet God.

Christ united them, that is to say, whether we like it or not, the Gospel will destroy all differences between people. No matter how much segregation emerges in our societies, our laws and our institutions will collapse perhaps through violence, but better by being discredited through the sacrifices of their victims.

In one Spirit. It is only through the Spirit that each one has communion with others. Often, unity among people means one party, one ideology, one religion. Imposed order destroys both the one who accepts it and the one capable of silencing his adversaries.

Unity in the Church is not uniformity: the believers are not of one mold. It is not a question of having the same options regarding human problems; we have the right to differ in our view of faith provided that we accept all that the Credo contains. The Spirit enables each person to be true to himself and to continue “in communion” with the community. This is how the “new creature” is born: not as the work of politics or of any ideology, but as the work of God, since we are dealing with a new creation as Paul says.

You are of the household of God (v. 19). In biblical language, this means: to belong to God’s family. From there, Paul moves on to another image: you are the household, namely, the true Temple of God. The community of believers forms the Temple, or better, is being transformed into the Temple of God.

This imposing vision of the Church and our unity in the Church will perhaps astonish many Christians of today who are usually more aware of their responsibilities towards the world than towards our antiquated Church. Yet, of what Spirit shall we be bearers, and shall we do this work if we are not supported by a community? Solidarity with those who share our options and our culture cannot replace participation in the Christian community. There are probably many things in the Christian community we are not happy with. However, it would be a bad sign if we were unable to recognize in it the truth that is missing in our non-Christian friends, and without which we would lose our reason for living.

 

•  3.1 Prisoner of Christ. Paul writes this letter from his prison in Rome, but he does not say: prisoner “for the cause” of Christ. He is a prisoner of Christ, for he cannot escape from Christ’s continual hold on him, nor from the apostolate that God has destined for him (1 Cor 9:16).

Paul emphasizes what he has meditated on in jail, what seems most new in the work of Christ: this is the “mystery,” or God’s plan calling all people to become a single body, without any racial distinctions. Jesus proclaimed this equality (Mt 20), but the early Christians needed several divine interventions before they were convinced (Acts 10).

The heavenly forces… (v. 10): see commentary on Galatians 3:23 and Ephesians 1:21. We would not be distorting Paul’s thinking by saying that multinational directors, presidents, and the great of this world are going to discover the true face of God, who manifests his glory in his poor and his saints (2 Thes 1:10), through the Church.

How fitting it would be to also express in poetry the wonderment of all nature, in discovering what God’s power has achieved after billions of years. Paul believes he is approaching the end, and we as well in this century where events move faster and faster, and we discover every day new signs of human awareness at a world level.

 

•  14. And now I kneel… without further delay. Paul moves from his presentation to prayer. Such is the way of the interior person (v. 16) who is not satisfied with thinking about God or talking about him as if he were an object. The Spirit preserves in him the awareness of this Presence that gives him life. As St. Teresa said: “I carry the heart of my God and the God of my heart everywhere.”

The Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth has received its name (v. 15). Our time has greatly devalued “the Father” with the obsession of an authority that would smother the personality of its children. This is not Paul’s way: he marvels before the One who alone is from all eternity. The Father is the source of the divine being, from him comes the order and the mystery of the divine persons. From him, the universe draws its riches. Paul, speaking of the common destiny of all the people, recalls that each one of them, every family, has received its name from the Father, which means its identity and its dignity.

Certainly, we must recognize that the word Father no longer has the same meaning as in Paul’s time, when father was given a greater authority and respect. Once woman found her rightful place in the family and in society we are inclined to speak of “parents” rather than of “father.” Yet it is not by chance that God revealed himself in a culture—that of the Hebrews—where God was a masculine figure. Indeed they had already passed the primitive culture in which the woman was the center of the family and the religion subsequently gave the highest place to a female divinity. Among the neighboring people, gods and goddesses went together. So God could have revealed to them with diverse faces, but this he did not do. Even if Scripture states that in God are all the riches of paternal and maternal love (Is 49:14), it keeps to the word Father. In so doing, it insists on the liberty and initiative of God in all that he does: the universe and we ourselves have not come from God as a spontaneous “emanation”, as naturally born from the bosom of the all-powerful divinity. Everything was a lucid and creative decision.

Therefore, the family, with parental authority, is the basis of society, and fatherhood is also seen in the Church: the succession of bishops, with the authority of the hierarchy not dependent on people’s votes, is part of the divine order in the Church. A society which does not acknowledge fathers and which scorns marriage, as well as “spontaneous” churches, are devious structures.

The love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge (v. 19). Paul is certainly thinking of the love Christ has shown and continues to show him personally even in proportion to his trials. The knowledge and experience of this love surpass all that could ever be imagined. We shall not find it through books and study or transcendental meditation. It will be freely given to us, on God’s initiative, on the way of love of which Christ made himself the model and the center.

 

• 4.1 Here, Paul returns to an important problem in communities where the style was still very free, we might say very charismatic, since the community counted on the unpredictable action of the Spirit through the charisms of different members. All in their own vocation must work for the building up of the one body. Paul enthusiastically names all that we have in common through Christ and the action of the Spirit. It is not merely a temple that is constructed (see Chap. 2:19-22); it is the Body of Christ, of the Perfect Man, the mature one, in which Christ expresses his fullness.

Jesus of Nazareth lived humbly until his death only once, but having been made the Head of humanity through his resurrection, he suffers everywhere; he works in every field of human activity; gives his life in every possible way; he gathers in himself every form of love, and lives the whole diversity of human existence in the person of his members.

Then no longer shall we be like children (v. 14). Paul suggests that the Ephesians are still children, at least from time to time, when they allow themselves to be influenced by some trend of opinion. He invites them to become a mature community, capable of being led by the truth, and of building itself up through love. We, too, should ask ourselves if we have really gone beyond the time when the “faithful” constantly waited for others to think for them, guide them, and push them.

 

•  20. The old self and the new self (vv. 22, 24). This image of Paul opposes two kinds of life that co-exist in every society and, in a certain sense, in each of us. Conversion has not installed us in a state of perfection; even if we are at peace with God in a very real sense (Rom 5:1) unity is not in us. We experience temptation and struggle; our decisions both small and great lead us in one of two directions, either the old self hopelessly ruined and a slave of selfishness, or a person transfigured by love.

The self according to God (v. 24). God created Man in his image, but the one who is truly this image is the risen Christ, conqueror of sin and of death. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, Man is both Christ and humanity at the same time, and it is each one of us at our place in the “Body.” All that we admire in Christ is also for our benefit.

The white garment that adults put on at baptism denotes the change of life that they are beginning. This renewal may also take place after a retreat or when God unexpectedly makes us abandon a routine Christian life devoid of ambition. Then we put on Christ with rediscovered faith.

Paul immediately points out some of the moral requirements of this daily renewal: frankness, sobriety, cleanliness of language, and imagination. Christian faith does not allow us to live in a carefree way, as did the oriental religions in the time of Paul. There much was said about renaissance and knowledge of mysteries, but nothing about the slavery of sex and the evil of social life.

Old self, new self correspond with other expressions of Paul: “according to the flesh” or “according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:5); “children of darkness” or “children of light” (Eph 5:8); “slaves of sin” or “persons free in Christ” (Gal 5:1).

Do not sadden the Holy Spirit (v. 30). It is easy to understand this expression if we think of the sadness we feel each time we reject a good idea, a desire to do better: sadness of the “Holy Spirit” who suggested it in the first place, sadness of our own spirit, for it knows what we have lost.

 

•  5.1 Here are a few elements of a new way to live, as was already shown in the previous verses.

To imitate God (Rom 5:6-11) who loves everyone, the good and the bad (Mt 5:48). In a more tangible way, we have a model in Christ, the Son of God, who gave himself out of love for us, as the way, the light, and life.

Reject all that is shameful (v. 12) and that can only be done in the dark. Much that was shameful has indeed become normal today for many people: will it be so for a person who often seeks light and looks for it in the face in Christ? The witness of one Christian who lives in light (and still more of a community) is enough to condemn what has been taken as normal (v. 13).

To be more sensible and responsible in our lives. Because these days are evil (v. 16): that means that if we are unable to judge, choose, make a personal decision, the very current of daily events will keep us in mediocrity or will lead us to evil. Everything changes when a believer, a couple, a group “awakens” and takes daily or weekly time out to discover what is God’s will for them, in the time and circumstances in which they live.

Do not get drunk (v. 18)! We need stimulants; there is nothing wrong in experiencing a sort of trance to the point of feeling happy and relaxed when ice is broken and tongues untied. Scripture has praise for wine. It is impossible, however, to experience at the same time the ecstasy that comes from the spirit and that which is the effect of alcohol, drugs, and dangerous diversions. We must constantly make choices.

Sing and celebrate the Lord in your heart, giving thanks (v. 19)! Experience the comfort of the Spirit and find it in a community gathering.

 

•  21. In the passage 5:21–6:9, Paul more or less repeats what he wrote in the letter to the Colossians (3:18–4:1). Here he has so much on his mind on the role of Christ as head of redeemed humanity that he will develop in an unexpected way the meaning of marriage.

So wives to their husbands (v. 22). It is not Paul who in the name of God demands that the wife be submissive: it is the society of the time that required it. And Paul says: “Let all kinds of submission become obedience to Christ.”

So, even if Paul’s way of speaking reflects the culture of his day with regard to marriage, there is no reason to scorn his teaching in support of feminism. There have been and there are different cultural models regarding the relationship between husband and wife. In our time, the models differ in the economically developed countries from those of the Third World, for the middle and lower classes. What is still better is that each couple should find its own balance, and the taking of initiatives be according to the natural authority and the capacity of each one.

In any case, whether one partner makes a decision or follows it, neither will feel superior or inferior since the ideal for both is to “make oneself slave” (Mk 9:35). Paul says: The husband is the head but being the head is not the same as being the boss. Think of Christ: he has authority since he is the truth of God (which the husband is not to his wife); Paul, however, prefers to show him as the savior of his partner baptized humanity.

Paul points out what is essential in conjugal love when he recalls the word of Scripture: a man shall leave… (v. 31). He applies this word to the union of God with humanity in Christ, the Beloved (Mk 2:19). For marriage contains a mystery, that is a divine treasure which cannot be understood before the coming of Christ. When it is said that marriage is a “sacrament,” that does not mean primarily that there is a Church ceremony: it signifies that through marriage and the couples who live a life of love “according to Christ,” the mystery of the love of God is manifested among humankind. That is, in our midst, the sign of a Covenant that God made with humanity, as the husband with his wife: a covenant of love, fidelity, fruitfulness.

He gave himself up for her (v. 25). Christ finds us in our sins and he takes charge of us, even to the ultimate consequences: he gives his life to purify us. This is the way to show the main quality of Christian love, which is faithfulness. The self-gift of the spouse is permanent and from that moment on, each will do his best to save the other, that is, to help the other grow and be better. The perfect couple is not the one that lives without problems and accepts mediocrity, but the two who compel each other to give their best.

He washed her and made her holy by baptism in the word (v. 26; see Jas 1:18-21 and Jn 15:3). If the ritual of baptism is important, what is even more important is for us to welcome the word of God that gives us life.

Many young people flee marriage, partly because they fear a risk (total fidelity is indeed a way of losing one’s life: Mk 8:35), partly because they consider that their love is their own business. Paul shows that Christ’s love for us, however personal it may be, never forgets his love for all those who make up his body. It is an example: married Christians are invited to have their place in the transformation of the world through the radiation of their love and their service to others.

 

•  6.1 Paul reminds children that God asks for obedience, and parents that they must not neglect their duty as educators (see commentary on Sir 30:1-2). Parents have the difficult task of leading their children to true freedom, teaching them first to obey a law, to serve rather than be served, to share rather than demand. Later, they will show them how to follow the calls of the Spirit, well beyond what is considered good or bad all around them.

Paul reminds the slave of his nobility. Let him live without servility: this is the first step toward genuine liberation.

 

•  10. Paul has said what he had to say. What does his invitation to be strong mean, when he takes his examples from military life? Is it because he feels the Christians of Ephesus are not sufficiently strong? See verses 18-20: Paul invites them, without saying it, to compare their situation with his. Free or slaves, most of them were people of modest means of the cities near Ephesus. Subjected for a long time to the Roman Empire that imposed peace on them, they were free of serious problems. They were not rich but they were able to content themselves with little. Under a Mediterranean sky, they had abundant light and a friendly, natural environment. They found the faith at a time when it cost them little; what would they do the day the Empire became an obstacle and when suddenly they would be classed a bad lot, responsible for all that was wrong?

This is why Paul warns them: peace is only provisional, for the demon is waiting for his hour (vv. 11 and 16). Paul asks them to persevere in prayer: the only effective arms against evil are those that Christ has left us: truth, faith, the word of God… and if they believe they have found salvation, let them exert themselves to evangelize others.