Please read all of Ephesians. Choose one of the questions below and select a verse that particular helps in answering that question. Please explain your choice.1. What seem to be the most import ethical challenges the Ephesian Christians are facing?
2. In what ways does Ephesians seem different than Romans and Corinthians?
3. What specific standards does Paul set for servants, masters, children, wives, and husbands? Is he right is saying that the husband is the “head” of the wife? How do Paul’s ideas differ from those of contemporary society?
4. What is Paul’s advice to leaders on handling ethical problems?
What I gathered from the book of Ephesians is that there were many moral challenges facing the Ephesian Christians. Paul talks about sexual immorality, vulgar language, lying, and stealing. This was all talked about in chapters 4 and 5. Paul also talks about how to avoid sin. He explains how trying to refrain from anger will help avoid sin and being able to live in the light of God will make everyone better people.
ReplyDeletePaul sets standards for husbands, wives, servants, and masters, and the general theme with all of that is that you should fulfill your office with its due respect, and you should also do what you’re supposed to with “sincerity of heart” (Eph. 6:5). Children are to obey their parents. Husbands are to love their wives. Wives are to be subject to their husbands. Servants are to serve their masters. There’s definitely a clear hierarchy of what everyone’s roles are, and hopefully unity can be more easily achieved if everyone follows their set way for life.
ReplyDelete1. Ephesians are facing problems of not letting go of their evil ways like in Ephesian 4:17-32. This quote says that you should give up your evil ways because you have found God and Christ. This is kind of repeat throughout the whole book.
ReplyDeleteLike my fellow classmates, I have gathered that the Ephesians were not necessarily the best people in the world. The letter starts out pretty positive, then Paul really gets into all the issues the Ephesians are facing. Mt favorite verse is Ephesians 4:29-32. I believe that this is especially important, and is one of the most import ethical challenges the Ephesian Christians are facing. I believe that this is one of the most important ethical challenges Christians face today.
ReplyDelete1. In 5:21-33 it talks about how a marriage should work. That in the time this was written people were not being true to their husbands and same for their wife’s so Paul talks about how they need to love and obey each other like Jesus dose with the church.
ReplyDelete1. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:8-10 NIV)
ReplyDeleteThe ethical challenges that were bothersome to the Ephesian Christians, at least at the time of Paul's letter, was sin; it seems that the Ephesians forgot that they weren't too big for their britches. It's through the Grace of God, not their own deeds that they have been forgiven of their past transgressions through God and Jesus.
I chose these verses because of the message they bear; one that Martin Luther also thought useful. In fact, Uncle Marty (I am a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) used the exact passage from Ephesians listed above for his work "On Bondage of the Will". It's not about what you have done here on Earth to praise the Triune God, it's about belief in said God and how well you followed His plan.
Petra- Defector
Based partially on Ephesians 2:1-7 (with Colossians 1:13 and Isaiah 61:1,2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiS4MObCO0
The Ephesians have numerous ethical problems. From stealing to foul language, the Ephesians have some problems that need to be fixed. The one verse that talks of the problems is Ephesians 4:17-19, which says "Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more."
ReplyDelete4. It seems that a lot of Paul's advice on handling ethical problems is to just be aware of them and then watch what you do to make sure you are not living in the same sin in Ephesians 5:15 -16 says "Pay careful attention,then to how you walk - not as unwise people but as wise- making the of the time, because the days are evil." a little later he gives suggestions how they can interact with each other and be filled with the spirit by giving thanks to God the Father and speaking to one another in hymns and spiritual songs.
ReplyDelete3. The standards that Paul sets for servants, children, wives, and husbands are basically that they are all to obey the people that they are supposed to obey. He says that servants should be obedient to their masters, children should obey their parents, and that wives should be subject to their husbands and says that the husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church. I definitely disagree with what he says about the husband being the "head" of the wife. It seems to be very different from the ideas of contemporary society or if not the ideas of all of contemporary society than at least the ideas that I have developed in my life that no one should be seen as the "head" of someone else.
ReplyDeleteIn chapters 4 and 5, Paul talks about the many moral and ethical challenges that were facing the Ephesians. Paul sets the standards for the relationship between husband and wife, how children are to respect their parents, and that servants are to respect and serve their master. Paul talks about how living the right way, by living in the light of God, will make us better people.
ReplyDeletePaul addresses how husbands and wives, and children and parents, and slaves and masters should act in chapters five and six in Ephesians. He discusses how one has power over the other and that the one with lesser power should obey the other as if it were Jesus Christ and he was head of the church. "Wives submit to your husband as to the Lord"Ephesians 5:22. This is very different from contemporary standards today. And no I do not believe that Paul is right in saying that the husband has to be the head of the household. Currently, households have become much more equal and require much more teamwork and collaboration, thus there is no true need for a head of the household.
ReplyDeleteWhat I always got from Ephesians is that it seems as if this was the New Testament version of the law. Paul writes this as a bit of a rulebook to correct disputes in Ephesus.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am as bold to say that Ephesus is more relevant today than then. Maybe there would less family issues in today's world...