What does Ephesians say about church?

What is “church”? Why does it matter? There are so many ideas about what the church is and what the church should be. How do we navigate them all?

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he says some very important, fundamental things about church, and gives many other very practical teaching about how to live together in light of these truths.

Here are ten key reflections on the topic of church in Ephesians in my series Lift Your Eyes: Reflections on Ephesians – click/press to read or listen to each reflection.

• The first thing to say about church (Ephesians 1:22–23)
• Christ the missionary (Ephesians 2:17–18)
• No second-class Christians (Ephesians 2:19)
• Built together (Ephesians 2:20–22)
• God’s multidimensional wisdom (Ephesians 3:9–11)
• This unity (Ephesians 4:2–3)
• Christ’s body: A brief history (Ephesians 4:11–13)
• The truth in love: A key principle for church growth (Ephesians 4:14–15)
• Christian singing: Why and how? (Ephesians 5:19–20)
• Submitting to one another (Ephesians 5:21)

Want more?

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This post is part of a series of 70 reflections covering every sentence in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It’s also available in audio podcast format. You can see all the posts in the series, and connect to the audio podcast using the platform of your choice, by following this link.

The academic details behind these reflections

In this series, I don’t go into detail justifying every statement I make about the background and meaning of Ephesians. I’ve done that elsewhere. If you’re interested in the reasons I say what I say here, and want to chase it up further with lots of ancient Greek, technical stuff, and footnotes, check out my book Reading Ephesians and Colossians After Supersessionism: Christ’s Mission through Israel to the Nations.