Ephesians 3
BSASBPaul explains the “mystery” God kept hidden for ages and has now revealed: Jews and Gentiles are made one people in Christ. He sees himself as a servant of this grace, and says the church shows God’s wisdom even to the powers in heavenly places. He then breaks into prayer that believers would be strengthened, know Christ’s love, and be filled with God’s fullness. The chapter ends in praise.
Ephesians 3:1
Paul writes as a man in chains, held in Rome for preaching to the Gentiles. He does not call himself Caesar’s prisoner. He calls himself Christ’s prisoner, because he sees his chains as part of his Lord’s plan. His thought breaks off here and resumes in verse 14.
BSA: prisoner (“held captive, in bonds”): Paul’s real master is Christ, and his chains are a service he bears for the Gentile believers.
See also: Philippians 1:12-14.
Ephesians 3:2
Paul says God entrusted him with a task. Grace was given to him as something to manage and pass on for the benefit of the Gentiles. It was not a private possession. The grace was a gift, and the work of sharing it was a duty to others.
BSA: stewardship (“management, administration”): Paul sees himself as a household manager handing out what belongs to the Master.
Greek: οἰκονομίαν (oikonomian, G3622) — “household management, a trust.” The word comes from the work of a steward who runs a master’s house. Paul’s apostleship is a trust he must handle faithfully, not a rank to be proud of.
See also: 1 Corinthians 4:1-2.
Ephesians 3:3-4
Paul did not invent his teaching. God revealed it to him directly. He points back to what he has already written in this letter, especially chapters 1 and 2, and says that reading it will show the reader how deeply he understands Christ’s mystery.
BSA: mystery (“a secret or hidden truth”): In the Bible a mystery is not something puzzling. It is something once hidden that God has now disclosed.
Greek: μυστήριον (mystērion, G3466) — “a secret now revealed.” Paul does not use the word for something that stays unknowable. He uses it for God’s hidden purpose that is now made plain to all who believe.
Ephesians 3:5
Earlier generations were given glimpses of God’s plan to bless the nations, but not its full shape. Now the Spirit has opened it up to the apostles and prophets who laid the church’s foundation. The insight is God’s gift to them, not their own achievement.
BSA: revealed (“uncovered, made manifest”): The truth was not made up. It was always there, and God has lifted the covering off it.
See also: Ephesians 2:20; Colossians 1:26.
Ephesians 3:6
This is the mystery in plain words. Gentiles are not guests at the edge of God’s people. They share the inheritance, belong to the same body, and receive the same promise. Everything comes through the gospel and nothing is earned. In Christ the old wall between Jew and Gentile is gone.
BSA: fellow heirs (“co-inheritors, joint heirs”): Gentiles receive an equal share in the family inheritance, with no second-class status.
Greek: σύσσωμα (sussōma, G4954) — “fellow members of one body.” Paul coins or stresses three words beginning with “syn-” (together-with): fellow heirs, fellow body, fellow sharers. The repeated “together” stresses full equality.
See also: Galatians 3:28; Romans 8:17.
Ephesians 3:7
Paul did not choose this ministry or qualify for it. He was made a servant by grace, and God’s power carried him in the work. He gives God the credit both for the calling and for the strength to do it.
BSA: working (“effectual operation, active energy”): God’s power is not idle. It actively works in and through Paul to get things done.
See also: 1 Corinthians 15:10.
Ephesians 3:8
Paul calls himself less than the least of all God’s people. He remembers his past as a persecutor of the church. Yet grace made him a preacher, sent to announce the limitless wealth found in Christ. Humility and calling are not opposed here.
BSA: unsearchable (“incomprehensible, untraceable”): The riches of Christ cannot be fully mapped or tracked down, however long we explore them.
Greek: ἀνεξιχνίαστον (anexichniaston, G421) — “untraceable, beyond tracking out.” The word pictures footprints that cannot be followed to their end. Christ’s wealth is so vast that we can keep exploring it and never reach the edge.
See also: Romans 11:33; 1 Corinthians 15:9-10.
Ephesians 3:9
Paul’s task is to bring this plan into the light for everyone. God had kept it hidden since before time, yet it comes from the same God who made all things. The one who created everything is now saving a people from every nation.
BSA: illuminate (“make clear, reveal”): Paul’s preaching is meant to switch on the light so that all can see God’s plan.
See also: Colossians 1:26-27.
Ephesians 3:10
The church is more than a social group. Its unity of Jews and Gentiles shows even the unseen powers in the heavens how rich and varied God’s wisdom is. People once divided are now one family, and that points to the wisdom of God.
BSA: manifold (“varied, multifaceted”): God’s wisdom has many sides, like a jewel that shows a different colour from each angle.
Greek: πολυποίκιλος (polypoikilos, G4182) — “many-coloured, richly varied.” The word was used for intricately woven or embroidered cloth. God’s wisdom is not plain or simple, but a pattern of many colours in His plan.
See also: 1 Peter 1:12.
Ephesians 3:11
None of this was a rescue plan made up after something went wrong. It is God’s eternal purpose, and He carried it out in Jesus our Lord. The cross and resurrection are the center of what God had planned all along.
BSA: purpose (“plan, intention”): God acted with settled intention, so the church exists because of His design and not by accident.
See also: Ephesians 1:9-10.
Ephesians 3:12
Because of Christ, believers may come straight into God’s presence without fear. We do not need to bring a sacrifice or to find someone to speak for us. Faith in Jesus opens the door, and we may walk through it freely.
BSA: boldness (“freedom, courage, openness”): We may speak to God openly, like children to a father, without shrinking back.
Greek: προσαγωγὴν (prosagōgēn, G4318) — “access, a bringing into someone’s presence.” The word suggests being formally introduced to a king. Christ brings us in and presents us to the Father, so we do not stand at the door.
See also: Hebrews 4:16; Ephesians 2:18.
Ephesians 3:13
Paul’s imprisonment might have shaken the Gentile believers. He asks them not to lose heart. His suffering is part of his work for them, and it shows that the gospel is worth any cost. What he bears for them becomes their honor.
BSA: discouraged (“lose heart, faint”): Paul fears his readers might grow weak inside when they see the cost of the gospel.
See also: Colossians 1:24.
Ephesians 3:14-15
Paul now returns to the thought he began in verse 1 and prays. He kneels before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. All of God’s people, whether Jew or Gentile, living or already with Him, belong to one household.
BSA: bow (“to bend, kneel in reverence”): Paul prays with a humble, reverent posture of body as well as heart.
Greek: πατριὰ (patria, G3965) — “family, a group descended from one father.” The word is built on the word for “father.” Paul plays on it: every family is named from the one Father, and all fatherhood takes its pattern from Him.
Ephesians 3:16
Paul asks for inner strength, not an easier life. He asks the Father to give it from the riches of His glory, which means from a store that never runs out, through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit strengthens us from within, in the hidden center of who we are.
BSA: strengthen (“empower, make strong”): The request is for real inner power that lets believers stand, not just for comfort.
See also: Philippians 4:19; 2 Corinthians 4:16.
Ephesians 3:17
Christ already lives in believers by faith, but Paul prays that He would settle in and feel at home in their hearts. Believers are then like a tree with deep roots and a building with a firm foundation, and love is the soil and the ground.
BSA: dwell (“make his home, reside”): Christ is not a passing visitor but a resident who makes His home in us. rooted (“firmly established, like a tree”): Love is the soil in which the believer’s life grows deep and steady.
Greek: κατοικῆσαι (katoikēsai, G2730) — “to settle down and live permanently.” This is not a word for a short stay. It means taking up permanent residence, so Paul prays that Christ would be at home in every room of the heart.
See also: John 14:23; Colossians 2:7.
Ephesians 3:18-19
Paul asks that believers, together with all God’s people, would grasp how vast Christ’s love is. It reaches in every direction. It is deeper than we can fully understand, yet we can still know it by experience. The goal is to be filled with God’s own fullness.
BSA: comprehend (“to grasp, apprehend fully”): Paul wants believers to take hold of Christ’s love in experience, not just in theory. fullness (“completion, perfection”): The aim of knowing Christ’s love is to be made complete in God Himself.
Greek: πληρωθῆτε (plērōthēte, G4137) — “may be filled.” The word means filled right up, like a vessel with nothing left empty. Paul prays for believers to be filled to the brim with God’s fullness.
See also: Romans 5:5; Ephesians 1:23.
Ephesians 3:20
Paul’s prayer is large, yet God can do far more than we ask or think. The power that does this is not far away. It is already at work in us. The verse invites us to expect great things from a great God.
BSA: imagine (“think, consider”): Even our best thoughts and dreams fall short of what God is able to do.
Greek: ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ (hyperekperissou, G5228) — “far beyond, over and above all measure.” Paul stacks prefixes to make one overflowing word, something like “super-abundantly beyond.” Ordinary words were not big enough for God’s power.
Ephesians 3:21
The chapter ends in praise. God is to be glorified in the church, which is His people, and in Christ Jesus. This glory does not stop with one generation. It runs through every age and on without end. Amen means “let it be so.”
BSA: church (“assembly, community of believers”): The church is the gathered people through whom God’s glory is seen.
See also: Romans 11:36.