Digital Logos Edition
Learn from New Testament and Pauline studies expert Dr. Lynn Cohick as she guides you through each chapter and theological concept in Ephesians, including salvation, the Trinity, and the church. She devotes additional time to exploring God’s vision for marriage, and the institution of slavery. She also explains various interpretive theories—like the new perspective on Paul—and how these theories compare with traditional ideas. Dr. Cohick’s goal is for you to become better equipped to read the rest of Paul’s letters and more confident in reading the Bible as a whole by better understanding the theology, history, and interpretive possibilities of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, and for you to grow in your faith each step of the way.
“So this New Perspective says Jews were not doing the law in order to earn salvation. They were doing the law to be faithful, and there were particular laws that symbolized the whole of being Jewish, particularly circumcision, food laws, and resting on Sabbath. Those three activities became definitional for what it meant to be a Jew at this time.” (source)
“The New Perspective analyzes Second Temple Judaism from the writings, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and concludes that in fact, Jews at the time of Jesus and at the time of Paul did not do the law to earn their salvation. Rather, they did the law in response to—out of gratitude to—God, who called them as His people. So Jews believe they were born into the family of God, and then they were responsible to act appropriately as a good member of the people of God. So the law was there to train them, to show them God’s ways, to help them to live in a way that would honor God because, after all, they’re the people of God.” (source)
“Paul is speaking here not about an individual person being chosen, or even more an individual person not being chosen but being rejected by God. Paul is not speaking, most likely, at that individual level. Instead, what he’s showing us is a map of our salvation—where we are headed, where we started—which is in Christ, the means of which is His blood and the cross that achieves our forgiveness and makes us a holy people, and not just us as a holy people but also that all things in heaven and on earth will be set in right order; that what seems like chaos around us, will instead in the end be made whole, will be renewed in Christ.” (source)