Ephesians 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~AD 60-62
Location
Letter written from Rome to Ephesus (Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey)
Audience
Christians in Ephesus, composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers
Situation
Paul writes from prison addressing a church he had previously ministered to for three years. He is teaching about the spiritual transformation of believers and the unity of Jews and Gentiles in Christ.
Key Background
Ephesus was a major cosmopolitan port city and center of pagan worship (Temple of Artemis). The Jewish-Gentile divide was a significant cultural barrier in the ancient world; Jews viewed Gentiles as ritually unclean and separated from God's covenant. In the Jerusalem temple, a literal dividing wall barred Gentiles from the inner courts under penalty of death, symbolizing the separation Paul declares Christ has abolished.
There was a time when you were — and I mean completely lifeless — because of the ways you'd and the you lived in.
That was just the way everyone lived back then. You followed the patterns of this influenced by the of the of the — the that's still actively working in everyone who refuses to listen to God.
And honestly, we were all right there with them. Every one of us lived to satisfy the cravings of our doing whatever our bodies and minds wanted. Left to ourselves, we were heading for the same outcome as everyone else — facing just to all of it.
But God — who is incredibly in because of how he us —
even when we were still dead because of our failures, he us with The One. (You've been entirely by his
He us up with The One and us with in the — all of this in connection with The One, Jesus.
He did this so that in the to he could keep showing the of his undeserved kindness toward us through what he's done in The One, Jesus.
Here's the thing — it's by his undeserved kindness that you've been rescued, through And none of this came from you; it's God's
It's not based on anything you've so nobody can for it.
We are what has us — created in The One, Jesus, to do the planned out for us long ago, so that we'd actually live them out.
So remember this: you who are by birth — called "the uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the (which is just something done to the body by human hands) —
remember that back then you were separated from The excluded from the of strangers to the that living in the world without any hope and without God.
But now, in The One, Jesus — you who used to be so have been brought close through the of The One.
Because he himself is our He took the two groups and made them one, and he tore down the that stood between them — the that divided them —
by setting aside, in his own body, the entire of and His purpose was to create out of the two groups, making peace in himself,
and to bring both groups together into fully their with God through the — killing the hostility through it.
He came and the peace to you who were away and peace to those who were near.
Because through him, both groups now have to the by
So then, you're no longer and Instead, you're with and members of own
You've been built on the laid by the and with The One, Jesus himself, as the that holds it all together.
In him the whole structure is and into a for the Lord.
And in him, you too are being into a where by