Ephesians

Paul spent his life teaching Gentiles that they could become Christians without becoming Jews first. As we learned from our study of Acts, this was very displeasing to the Jews in general, because they believed that Mosaic Law was applicable to anyone who wanted to seek a relationship with the One True God. They were bitterly prejudiced against uncircumsised Gentiles who presumed to call themselves followers of the Jewish Messiah.

However, Paul did not want the Gentile Christians to return this bitterness in the form of prejudice against their Jewish fellow-Christians. He wanted them to regard them as "brothers in Christ".

Paul did not want to see a Jewish Church and a Gentile Church. He wanted to see one United Church. To encourage this, you may recall from our readings in Acts 11:29-30, that the "Gentile" church in Antioch gave donations to the "Jewish" church in Jerusalem when a famine was prophesied.

This is one of the four "prison epistles" written by Paul during his Roman imprisonment in AD 61-63. The other three are his letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.