Ephesians — Chapter 6

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul writes from house arrest in Rome, about AD 60–62, chained to a Roman soldier (Acts 28:16, 30). The first three chapters of Ephesians lay out what God has done in Christ: chosen, redeemed, raised and seated with him, Jew and Gentile made one new people. The last three apply it. Chapter 5 began a "household code" with husbands and wives, all under one heading: "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (5:21). Chapter 6 finishes the household with children and slaves, then steps back to show the whole Christian life as a battle, and closes with a request for prayer and a blessing.

Children and Parents (vv1–4)

• "Children, obey your parents in the Lord" (v1). Children are addressed directly. Paul expects them to be in church when the letter is read aloud, and he treats them as real members of the body, not spectators. Roman household codes spoke about children and slaves. Paul speaks to them.
• "In the Lord." This phrase sets both the motive and the limit. Children obey as part of following Christ, and so no parent's command can override Christ's. The word "obey" (hypakouō) is stronger than the "submit" asked of wives in 5:22. A child is under training, not in a partnership.
• "For this is right" (v1). Paul first appeals to what every culture already recognizes. Then he adds Scripture.
• "Honor your father and mother" (v2). The fifth commandment (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16). Obedience belongs to childhood, but honor lasts for life. Jesus rebuked people who used religion to dodge caring for aging parents (Mark 7:9–13).
• "The first commandment with a promise" (v2). The second commandment mentions God's steadfast love to thousands (Exod 20:6), but that is a description of God, not a promise attached to obeying. The fifth is the first with a promise of its own. Some take "first" to mean "first in importance" for children. Either way, Paul quotes the law to Gentile Christians, so he clearly thinks its moral core still stands.
• "That you may live long in the land" (v3). Paul quotes Deuteronomy 5:16 but drops "that the LORD your God is giving you." The promise was originally tied to Canaan. Paul widens it to "the land" or "the earth" wherever believers live. This is a general pattern of God's blessing, the way Proverbs speaks, not a guarantee that every obedient child lives to ninety.
• "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger" (v4). Roman law gave fathers (patria potestas) near-total power over their children, in theory even life and death. Paul addresses the one with the power and tells him to restrain it. The parallel in Colossians 3:21 gives the reason: "lest they become discouraged." Harshness, mockery, unfair rules and moving goalposts produce angry or crushed children.
• "Bring them up" (v4). The verb (ektrephō) is used in 5:29 of a man who "nourishes" his own body. Raising children is first of all nourishing them.
• "The discipline and instruction of the Lord" (v4). Two words. Paideia is training, including correction, the same word Hebrews 12:5–11 uses for God's fatherly discipline. Nouthesia is admonition by words, putting things into the mind. Both are "of the Lord": he is the model, and he is the goal.
• Commentators: JFB sums up provoking as irritating children "by vexatious commands, unreasonable blame, and uncertain temper," and notes that "fathers" includes mothers, with fathers named as the head of the household. Guzik stresses that the father owns this task himself and cannot hand it off to the mother or the church. He also says honoring parents continues into adulthood even after the duty to obey ends. Henry warns parents to govern by reason and patience, and to aim beyond meeting physical needs to a religious upbringing that teaches children to fear sin and know God.

Bondservants and Masters (vv5–9)

• "Bondservants" (v5). The Greek is douloi, slaves. Historians estimate that perhaps a third of the people in a city like Ephesus were enslaved, and many in the church were slaves. Roman slavery was not race-based the way American slavery was. People became slaves through war, debt, birth or abandonment as infants. Some were doctors and managers, while others worked in mines and died young. Slaves had no legal rights.
• Is Paul approving slavery? No. He addresses believers living inside a system they could not change, and he tells them how to be Christ's people there. Elsewhere he tells a slave who can gain freedom to take it (1 Cor 7:21), lists "enslavers" alongside murderers (1 Tim 1:10), and sends the runaway Onesimus back to Philemon "no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother" (Phlm 16). The principles of this passage, one Master over all and no partiality with God, ate away at slavery from inside. Christians later drew on them to end it. Most Christians today apply these verses by analogy to employees and employers, while keeping in mind that a modern job is freely chosen and slavery was not.
• "With fear and trembling… as you would Christ" (v5). The same phrase describes Paul's own seriousness in 1 Corinthians 2:3 and believers' work in Philippians 2:12. It means earnest care to do right, not cringing terror. The motive is new: the slave's real service is to Christ.
• "Not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers" (v6). Ophthalmodoulia is literally "eye-slavery," working only while being watched. The word appears nowhere before Paul (here and Col 3:22), and he may have coined it. The opposite is "doing the will of God from the heart." Literally, "from the soul."
• "As bondservants of Christ" (v6). Paul calls himself the same thing (Rom 1:1). Slave and apostle stand on level ground.
• "Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord" (v8). An unpaid slave would never get fair wages on earth. Christ keeps the accounts, and he pays "whether he is a bondservant or is free."
• "Masters, do the same to them" (v9). This was startling. No pagan code told masters they owed slaves anything in return. "The same" means the same sincerity, goodwill, and service as to the Lord.
• "Stop your threatening" (v9). Threats, whether of beating, of selling a slave away from family, or of harsher work, were the normal tools of control. Paul takes them away.
• "He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven" (v9). In Greek this is the same word: kyrios, "lord" or "master." Earthly masters have a Master. "There is no partiality with him." Rank on earth means nothing at his judgment seat (Deut 10:17; Rom 2:11).
• Commentators: Henry presses the balance: "Masters are under as strict obligations to discharge their duty to their servants" as servants are to them. JFB reads "fear and trembling" as "an anxious eagerness to do your duty," not servile dread. Guzik applies the passage to work today: a Christian works for Jesus, gives a full day's effort whether watched or not, and as an employer drops threats because he too will give account. Guzik also notes that Greek culture looked down on manual labor while God's kingdom honors it. The Tyndale notes say plainly that Paul was teaching believers how to live within slavery, not promoting it.

The Whole Armor of God (vv10–20)

• "Finally, be strong in the Lord" (v10). The verb is passive: "be strengthened." The strength is not ours. "The strength of his might" uses the same words as 1:19, describing the power God showed when he raised Christ from the dead. That power is the source.
• "Put on the whole armor of God" (v11). Panoplia is the full kit of a heavy-armed soldier. Paul writes chained to a Roman guard and has the armor in front of him every day. But the deeper source is Isaiah, where God himself puts on "righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head" (Isa 59:17), and the Messiah wears righteousness and faithfulness as a belt (Isa 11:5). It is "the armor of God" in two senses: God supplies it, and it is God's own armor, first worn by him and his Messiah. Jesus used the same word for the "strong man" whose armor is stripped by someone stronger (Luke 11:22).
• "The schemes of the devil" (v11). Methodeia, our "method," means craft or cunning strategy. Paul used it in 4:14 for deceitful teaching. The devil plans. He works through lies and pressure more than open assault.
• "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood" (v12). Palē is wrestling, a hand-to-hand sport in the Greek games, and the word appears only here in the New Testament. The fight is close and personal. "Flesh and blood" means human beings. The people who oppose believers are not the real enemy, which frees Christians to love and pray for them.
• "The rulers… the authorities… the cosmic powers… the spiritual forces of evil" (v12). Paul piles up titles to show an organized, real and powerful opposition. Kosmokratores, "world-rulers," was a title used in pagan religion for gods and the planets. Paul turns it around: these are rulers only "over this present darkness." Ephesus was famous for magic (Acts 19:19). Its believers had good reason to fear the powers, and Paul has already told them Christ is seated "far above all rule and authority and power" (1:21). These are defeated powers (Col 2:15) still fighting a losing war.
• "In the heavenly places" (v12). This is a phrase only Ephesians uses (1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10). It names the unseen realm where believers are already blessed and seated with Christ, and where hostile powers still operate. The battle and the victory are in the same arena.
• "Withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm" (v13). "Stand" or "withstand" appears four times in vv11–14. The command is not to storm hell. It is to hold the ground Christ has already won. "The evil day" may be the whole present age (5:16, "the days are evil"), or the particular times when attacks come hardest. Both are true to experience.
• "The belt of truth" (v14). A soldier's belt gathered his tunic so he could move and held other equipment in place. Truth here means both God's truth believed and personal honesty. A double life makes a soldier trip.
• "The breastplate of righteousness" (v14). Readings differ. Some, especially Reformed readers, see the righteousness God credits to believers in Christ, which answers the accuser. Others see a life of practical right living, which gives the devil no foothold (4:27). The Tyndale notes suggest each implies the other, and Ephesians itself joins them (2:8–10).
• "As shoes… the readiness given by the gospel of peace" (v15). Roman soldiers wore caligae, sturdy sandals with nail-studded soles that gripped the ground. The image is of firm footing and readiness to move. It echoes Isaiah 52:7: "How beautiful… are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace." The irony is deliberate: the soldier's footwear is the gospel of peace. Peace with God (2:14–17) is what lets a believer stand firm.
• "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith" (v16). The shield (thyreos) is from the word for "door." It was the large Roman scutum, about four feet tall, covering the whole body. Soldiers sometimes soaked their leather-covered shields in water before battle so that flaming arrows would fizzle out. Faith, trusting what God has said, puts out the burning lies, accusations and temptations of "the evil one." Older translations say "above all," but the phrase means "in addition to all these," not "most important."
• "Take the helmet of salvation" (v17). The helmet guards the head. 1 Thessalonians 5:8 calls it "the hope of salvation." Assurance that God has saved and will finish saving protects the mind against despair.
• "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (v17). The sword (machaira) was the short sword for close fighting. "Word" here is rhēma, a spoken word or saying, not the more general logos. The point is Scripture used and spoken in the moment. Jesus in the wilderness answered each temptation with a specific verse: "It is written" (Matt 4:1–11). It is "of the Spirit" because the Spirit gives it and makes it cut (Heb 4:12). Some teachers press the rhēma/logos difference hard; the lexicon supports "a word spoken," but Paul uses the two words fairly interchangeably elsewhere, so the distinction should not be overloaded.
• "Praying at all times in the Spirit" (v18). Prayer is not a seventh piece of armor. It is how the whole armor is worn. "All" appears four times in this verse: all times, all prayer, all perseverance, all the saints. "In the Spirit" means prayer prompted and guided by the Spirit (Rom 8:26–27; Jude 20). Pentecostal readers often include praying in tongues here. Most others read it more broadly. "Keep alert" recalls Jesus in Gethsemane: "Watch and pray" (Mark 14:38).
• "For all the saints" (v18). No soldier fights alone. The armor is plural in its address, given to a church, and believers cover each other's flanks in prayer.
• "And also for me" (v19). The great apostle asks for help. He does not ask for release from prison but for words and boldness, to make known "the mystery of the gospel," the secret now revealed that Gentiles are fellow heirs in Christ (3:6).
• "An ambassador in chains" (v20). Ambassadors were supposed to be untouchable under ancient custom. Paul represents the King of kings and wears a chain. The word halysis is singular, which fits a prisoner chained by the wrist to one guard (Acts 28:20). The paradox is the point: the message is not chained (2 Tim 2:9).
• Commentators: All three read the armor as God's provision and stress standing rather than attacking. Henry calls the belt sincerity ("I know no religion without sincerity"), makes the breastplate Christ's righteousness both credited and lived out, and says of the shield, "Faith is all in all to us in an hour of temptation." On the sword: "Scripture-arguments are the most powerful arguments to repel temptation with." JFB notes there is no armor for the back, so the soldier must never turn and run, and calls the evil day "the day of Satan's special assaults." It adds that human opponents are only "Satan's mere tools." Guzik makes the same point as the Tyndale notes, that most of the armor is defensive, and urges reverence for Scripture and practice with it, as with any sword. He suggests Paul's chain may picture an ornament, since the Greek word could mean a gold chain. The lexicon gives halysis only as "chain, bond," so that idea is a homiletic touch, not something the word itself says.

Final Greetings (vv21–24)

• Tychicus (v21). A believer from the province of Asia (Acts 20:4) who traveled with Paul and carried his letters. He takes Colossians too (Col 4:7–8), almost word for word the same commendation, and probably Philemon, with Onesimus traveling beside him. Paul later sends him to Ephesus again (2 Tim 4:12) and possibly to Crete (Titus 3:12). Paul calls him "beloved brother and faithful minister," a servant who could be trusted with the mail and with the news.
• "That he may encourage your hearts" (v22). Paul's letters were not only teaching. They came with a friend who would sit with the church and tell them how their imprisoned apostle was doing.
• "Peace… love with faith… grace" (vv23–24). The letter opened with "grace and peace" (1:2) and closes with them, bookending the whole letter. "Love with faith" joins the two marks Paul praised in them at the start (1:15).
• "Love incorruptible" (v24). The word is aphtharsia, "incorruptibility" or "immortality," the word Paul uses of the resurrection body (1 Cor 15:42). Older translations say "in sincerity," which the classical range of the word allows. The ESV's "incorruptible" catches the main sense: a love for Christ that does not decay, a love that will outlast death.
• Commentators: JFB reads "in sincerity" as literally "in incorruption," "an immortal, constant love," and adds the generous line: "Where the Lord Jesus has a true believer, there I have a brother." Guzik notes Tychicus's appearances across Acts and the letters and reads the closing words as a summary of the letter's themes. Henry's chapter outline frames these verses as Paul taking leave by asking the Ephesians' prayers and praying for them in return.

Pointing to Christ

Every relationship in this chapter is set under one Lord: children obey "in the Lord," slaves serve "as to Christ," masters answer to the Master in heaven. The armor Paul describes is first of all Christ's own. In Isaiah, God and his Messiah wear the belt, breastplate and helmet, and Jesus is the stronger man who strips the strong man of his armor (Luke 11:22). He stood in the wilderness with the sword of the word, stood firm in Gethsemane through watchful prayer, and disarmed the powers at the cross (Col 2:15). Believers do not fight to win that victory. They put on what he has already worn, and stand.

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik provides detailed analysis of the household code, spiritual warfare, each piece of armor, and the role of prayer in spiritual battle.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org The armour described in this chapter, piece by piece.
• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Ephesians -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

• Raising Children in the Lord (v.4) — Fathers are told not to provoke their children to anger but to raise them in the Lord's training and instruction. Are you shaping your children more by frustration or by intentional, Christ-centered discipleship?
• Working as unto Christ (vv.5-7) — Paul instructs believers to do their work as service to Christ, not merely to please people. How would your effort and attitude at work change if you saw Christ as your true employer?
• Knowing the Real Enemy (v.12) — Paul reminds believers that the real battle is against spiritual powers, not against the people in front of them. When you're in conflict, do you actually see the spiritual battle behind it, or just the person you're frustrated with?
• Putting On the Whole Armor (vv.14-17) — God provides complete spiritual armor — truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and the Spirit's word — for the fight believers face. Which piece of that armor are you most likely to leave off, and what would it look like to put it on today?
• Praying Always (v.18) — Prayer is what sustains the armor in active use, not a separate, occasional discipline. Is prayer a steady rhythm in your life, or only something you reach for in emergencies?