Ephesians 6:4 – “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Fits with what Patrick said. Teach them that God’s way is good and how to follow it.
Ephesians 6:6-8 – If this is how slaves were to act, how then should I act as a mere employee? Or as a spouse? A church member? Sometimes it can be hard to do the right thing, to obey and authority or to respond with sincere respect and submission. But, it is good to remind ourselves, God is watching and he will reward me. Of course, truly following this passage would mean not doing the good looking for reward from God, but think it’s OK in the spirit of the passage to be comforted by its expectation.
I never noticed before, as I do now, the pairs of relationships addressed here in Ephesians 5-6. Paul has instructions, and challenging ones, both both wives and husbands, parents and children, slaves and masters. Their instructions are complimentary – wives must submit, but husbands better love them on the same level as Christ did the church; children obey, but fathers, don’t provoke them; slaves obey, but masters, remember they serve the same God in heaven. there is more responsibility laid on the leader’ to create and environment where the obedience is possible and even easy.
In both Ephesians 6:11 & Ephesians 6:13, Paul says to put on the full armor of God. Don’t leave any piece off. Though it may seem that your burden is lighter, you are left exposed. That involves truth, righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, the word of God and prayer. It’s too easy to leave one of these behind, or to put one down in order to pick up another.
In Ephesians 6:12 he reminds us that we are fighting a battle that is largely hidden in another realm. The battle s within our hearts and souls. Who will we be there, where no one but God can see?

Ephesians 5:1 sums up the previous section – Imitate God, not the world. Don’t do as everyone else does, as you used to do, but do as God would do, as Jesus did.
Ephesians 5:3 in the NIV has been used more literally than the ESV would allow. The NIV speaks of “not be even a hint of sexual immorality” which has often been used to dis-allow things like being alone with your boyfriend / girlfriend, living with the opposite sex, etc. (The NIV say the same thing about impurity and greed, but I don’t recall that being emphasized. Applying the same standard, my new car might be “a hint of greed” I guess. But I digress.)
In the ESV the same passage says “sexual immorality … must not even be named among you”. This comes across more as emphasis than command on behavior. In other words, this is so unbecoming a disciple of Jesus, we shouldn’t even speak of it! The application may be similar, i.e. double dating, but the ‘feel’ of it is very different. It speaks to the heart, the mindset, whereas the traditional view of ‘not a hint’ was more focused on behavior.
Ephesians 5:5 speaks of an inheritance, or rather a lack of one for those who live in immorality, impurity or greed. Back in Ephesians 3:6 Paul talked about being heirs as well, equally for both Jews and Gentiles. What’s also interesting is that Paul declares in no uncertain terms that a life characterized by sexual sin (immorality and impurity) or by greed (the ESV says ‘covetous’) will result in no inheritance. It seems that American Christianity rails against the sexual lifestyle, but turns a blind eye to greed & materialism. In fact, many ministries even preach that God wants you to be wealthy or successful.
What does Paul mean in verse 11 when he says to expose deeds of darkness? The easy interpretation of searching out sin and exposing it does not fit with the rest of the gospel, but I cannot think of what he may mean. Any ideas?
It’s easy to get bogged down in these specifics when the point is a continuation of Paul’s theme from chapter 4, that is for us to be different people, called out and separate. For us to think about who we are and what we do. He does not set out to give us rules and guidelines for every situation. Instead, he longs for the people of God to be able to live wisely, carefully, to understand God’s will. (Ephesians 5:15-17)
It is in that spirit that we should read Ephesians 5:22-33. Not as commands to be carried out, but as a calling to a new level of love and respect, a new mindset for marriage. It occurs to me that these two directives, for wives to submit and for husbands to love like Jesus, are in both tension and harmony. When both are practiced, each is easier to do, when one is missing the other is profoundly more difficult. For example, if a man is not laying his life down for his wife, how difficult is it for her to submit to him? And if she fights him every step of the way, how much more difficult is it for him to love her like Jesus?
But when the man is respected, his love for the wife soars and when the wife is loved, her respect for her man soars. God’s plan is good.

Ephesians 3:1-13 – I love how this entire passage is sort of an aside. Paul starts in verse 1 “For this reason I, Paul, ..” and then interrupts himself a few words later in verse 2 ” – assuming that you have heard of …”. He picks it back up again in verse 14 “For this reason I …”
The aside is simply to reiterate to these gentiles that God was watching out for them. So much so that he picked out Paul specifically to preach to them. God gave Paul, and the other apostles, access to a profound mystery. Not any of the mysteries that you and I would think of – what is the trinity, how was Jesus God and Man, how are we reborn at baptism. This “mystery of Christ” was “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Doesn’t sound to mysterious to you and I, does it? In fact, we take this truth for granted, but in that culture I suspect it would be profound. It had been for centuries, Gods people and the rest, the Jews and the Gentiles. This separation was right and proper and God ordained. How could it be that these two could be made one? Only God could do o and he did in Christ, giving both the same inheritance.
What’s really cool is in Ephesians 3:9-10, that the church would make known the power of reconciliation. That we would “bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known …” (ESV) Not only the intangible reconciliation of God to man, but the very real, visible and touchable reconciliation of Jew and Gentile. At the foot of the cross Jew and Gentile are one.
Perhaps the church today can do this same thing, revealing the reconciliation of God in our own fellowships. Can we bring the instrumental and non-instrumental together? How about the ICOC and the ‘mainline’? Are we not all “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”?
Paul goes on and makes his point in Ephesians 3:14-19, which is this. Don’t settle for a shallow gospel. He nearly begs God that the Ephesians would understand how grand this faith that they have is. He says it is rich, broad, long, high and deep and that it surpasses knowledge. Paul’s amazement with God and his love and his plan is obvious in this passage. It’s as if he’s saying “See it’s like this. No,no, that’s not good enough, it’s like THIS! No, I don’t think you understand it! It is so amazing! See, it’s like … ”
After all those superlatives, after nearly wearing himself out trying to get them to understand, Paul goes on in Ephesians 4:1 to call them to live “in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called”. What does that look like? Verses 2-3: Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, love and “eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” This is in the context of Paul’s continual reminder throughout the letter that God has made Jew and gentile one. Two who were separate and who did not understand or know each other. If God has gone to all this work to unite Jew and Gentile, shouldn’t they be eager to maintain it? Since they are different people with different histories and a history of division, what would it tale to maintain this unity that God had established through his Spirit? Just what Paul calls for: humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and love. You were tow, and now are one. Resist becoming two again, after all there is only one body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism and God.
In Ephesians 4:11-16, Paul indirectly charges the leaders with the unending work of striving toward perfect unity. Each of us leaders have been established by God to equip the members for the work of ministry and build them up until we are mature, not subject to the schemes of men and doctrinal fads. “When each part is working properly, he says, the body as a whole will grow.
As I read this, I feel as though we in the US are far to individual in our faith. Paul, as seen here, saw the the health, growth and maturity of the saints collectively, not individually. We tend to see our faith as a personal, individual thing. I think we deprive the Spirit of opportunities to work and our vision is shortsighted. Look at verses 15-16 in the ESV (emphasis added):

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

We are the joints that equip the church, if we take our faith as our own, as personal, we deprive the church of what may be an essential ligament and therefore limit her growth. Of course we, as only a ligament, are very limited in what we can do on our own as well.
It’s interesting to me that after all that attention to telling these Gentiles that they are no different than the Jews in Christ, Paul then calls them in Ephesians 4:17 to “no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” I suspect, if he were to write to a primarily Jewish audience, he would tell them to “no longer walk as the Jews do, in the futility of their minds.” His point is to leave the old ways behind and embrace the new live in the likeness of Christ. And he goes on in verses 25-32 to describe some of the new ways they should live.

There’s a distinct contrast in Ephesians 2:1-10 between the then and the now. Once dead, walking in sin, children of wrath, sons of disobedience. Now alive in Christ, raised up, seated with Christ in heavenly places. It’s a reminder of where we’ve come from and where we are – and why: By grace, through faith. “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” Ephesians 2:8, ESV. We have nothing to boast about, we could have done none of it without God.
Ephesians 2:11-22 carries a common theme of Paul’s writings, the common salvation of both Jew and Gentile. He points out that before Christ, the Gentiles were separate from Go and His promises, “having no hope and without God in the world.” But then points out that Jesus destroyed that division, “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two”. No, both Jew and Gentile follow the same path to God through Jesus. We are joined together, unified on our journey to God. The message of the cross is a message of reconciliation and unification on many levels, not just God to man, but Jew to Gentile as well.
Paul goes beyond just being friends or being nice to each other. He makes a point at several places in this passage to call the Jew and Gentiles together “one”. Not two men standing together, but “one new man”. Not two bodies of believers walking together, but “one body.” It’s not a truce or even a treaty, it’s a merging of nations into a new nation, “a dwelling place for God”. It’s a powerful thought and one we would do well to meditate on and pursue.