[B-Greek] Eph. 1:12 EIS TO EINAI hHMAS ...TOUS PROHLPIKOTAS EN TWiCRISTWi
Harold Holmyard
hholmyard at ont.com
Wed May 17 20:51:28 EDT 2006
Dear Webb,:
>>..."we" in verse 11 is still general spiritual truth for all believers.
>>
>>
>[Webb] Theologically that may be true, but I'm not sure that that is the
>posture out of which Paul (i.e. the author) is speaking. Verses 9 and 10
>talk about God having made known the secret of his will to Paul and his
>colleagues, with a view to the fulfillment of a plan that wraps up all
>history and all creation in Christ. Verse 11 talks about "we" having been
>called out, set apart according to the will of God. Called out by God's will
>for what? Maybe I'm being oversensitive to intertextual coherences here, but
>Paul often talks in the openings of his letters either about having been
>called out as an apostle (i.e. a preacher of the good news), or about being
>an apostle according to the will of God. So when I hear about "we" having
>been brought into the know on the mystery/secret of God and "we" having been
>called out according to the will of God in this opening to Ephesians (vv. 9,
>11), I am somehow finding myself expectant that he's going to talk about the
>preaching of the good news--and sure enough, v. 13 talks about "you" having
>heard and having believed the good news.
>
>Looking at the contemporaneous Colossians 1:25-28, we get hits on OIKONOMIA,
>MUSTERION, GNWRIZW, ELPIS, DOXA, QELHMA, and the idea that God has revealed
>the secret to the saints according to the administration of a plan--the plan
>to give Christ to the Gentiles at the end of history (i.e. now, in the
>author's time frame), through "us" (Col. 1:28).
>
>Although I don't see anything particularly impossible or jarring about the
>reading you favor, I think I'm ready to stick by mine. Mine feels more
>coherent in the context.
>
>
HH: Here's the problem. You seem to make verses 9-10 a sort of starting
point for Paul and his colleagues. But the "us" in verse 9 is the same
as the "us" in verse 8. The "us" in verse 8 is the same as the "we" in
verse 7, the "us" in verse 6, and so forth on backwards. Are you
claiming that everything Paul says in verses 2-12 he says merely about
himself and his colleagues, as opposed to including the Ephesians?
First, Paul does not mention any colleagues, so the readers would have
to understand them to be present. Next, they would have to understand
themselves to be excluded, even though they would be the natural
referents along with Paul for the "us," since the letter is to them.
This would be hard for Christian readers to do, since God is "our
Father" (v. 2). All the spiritual truths of verses 3-12 apply equally to
all Christians, so there would be no reason for readers to exclude
themselves from anything said. They would include themselves in "us" and
"we" in these verses. This is especially true because Paul is presumably
writing to them about things that concern them. He is not writing just
to describe himself and his colleagues for the first twelve verses. Once
readers have included themselves in "us," they cannot conveniently
disassociate themselves from "us" at verse 9 or verse 12. So the dynamic
for a sharp contrast between "us" and "you" does not exist. "You" can be
distinguished from the rest of "us," but that seems all.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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