Ephesians Questions

For my final month in San Diego, my Bible Study Group is going to be going through the epistles of St. John (1 John, 2 John, 3 John). However, this last week we reviewed our study of Ephesians. Here are the review questions the group came up with:

68. When was Ephesians written?
This letter is one of the “captivity epistles” and therefore was probably written during Paul’s Roman captivity in the early 60s.

69. What is significant about the destination of this epistle?
Mention of Ephesus in verse 1 is not found in the earliest manuscripts. It is therefore possible that this was a circular letter written to a number of congregations, one of which was Ephesus.

70. What was Paul’s relationship with Ephesian Church?
Christianity was present in Ephesus prior to Paul’s arrival. Paul used Ephesus as his base of operations for several years.

71. What does Paul write about in Ephesians?
Paul devotes most of the document to putting forth a vision of God’s redemptive work, brought about through Christ and manifested in the Church.

The Ephesians were mostly newly baptized Pagans and, because of this, some have referred to Ephesians as mystagogical catechesis.

Paul spends quite some time talking about “mystery”. This relates to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross which draws man, both Jew and Gentile, back into relationship with God. This relationship is communicated through the Church, which has Christ as her head.

1-16 | 17-27 | 27-42 | 43-52 | 53-57 | 58-67 | 68-71 | 72-81
All Questions

When West meets East

PopeChotkiThis is one of the many reasons I love Pope Francis. A while ago, back when the Pope was visiting Rio de Janiero, the public saw the pope wearing something around his right wrist.

This series of beads is known as “chotki” or “komboskini”. It is a prayer rope, much like a rosary, whose invention is typically attributed to St. Pachomius in the fourth century and is still used today by eastern Christians, both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic.

One prays by the chotki by reciting “The Jesus Prayer” on each bead/knot:

“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”

Although typically 100 beads, they can vary. There are also sometimes additional beads with invocations of Mary (“The Theotokos“).

One of the first things I noted reading Pope Francis’ bio upon being a elected Pope was that he had strong connections to Eastern Christianity. It’s great to see him exposing the West to more of what the East has to offer 🙂

1 311 312 313 314 315 587