If we assume that the book of the Acts of the Apostles gives a correct report, this means that Paul ministered very intensively in Ephesus for 2 years and 3 months and experienced a mighty action of God there. After that he made another trip to Greece and from there he traveled on to Jerusalem without much of a stay. On the way he had the elders of the church in Ephesus come to Miletus to say goodbye to them (Acts 20:16 – 38). Paul assumed that he would never see the church in Ephesus again during his lifetime. Before his arrival in Jerusalem, Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. In Jerusalem Paul was then imprisoned. This was followed by 2 years imprisonment in Caesarea, the journey as a prisoner to Rome and in Rome again 2 years imprisonment, but under mild conditions. During the time of imprisonment Paul probably wrote the letter to the Ephesians.
The letter to the Ephesians was written only a few years after the letter to the Romans. This short time span makes it seem unlikely that any major theological development took place between the two letters. But how then can we explain the differences between the Letter to the Romans and the Letter to the Ephesians? The Epistle to the Romans was written to a church that had existed for a long time at that time and was probably very mature and stable. Jewish Christians played an important role there. According to tradition, the apostle Peter was bishop there for a time. The knowledge of central statements of the Old Testament could be assumed there. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans to this congregation in order to introduce himself to them and brings some central aspects of his preaching to them. In the Christian West, which was characterized by Christian preaching for over a millennium, where the omnipotence of God and the knowledge of God’s judgment could be assumed as known, God could then use the Letter to the Romans to change people permanently, who could then in turn start a great spiritual movement, such as Martin Luther and John Wesley.
The letter to the Ephesians, on the other hand, was written to Christians who came out of the world of spirits and demons associated with ancient religiosity and who then grew into a strong Christian church under the ministry of Paul. The letter to the Ephesians was a legacy from Paul to this church that he expected to never see again, in which he subsequently writes to this church once again everything they need to move forward as individual Christians and as a whole church in life with Jesus Christ. This means that not the Epistle to the Romans, but the Epistle to the Ephesians must be regarded as Paul’s central teaching letter.
In addition, in the meantime, not only among the Gentiles, but unfortunately also in the formerly Christian Occident, the Jewish-Christian roots are hardly alive anymore and instead a strong occult and demonic influence can be observed. This means that today on the mission field and in Europe and the USA, we are much closer to the Gentile-Christian recipients of the Letter to the Ephesians than to the Jewish-Christian recipients of the Letter to the Romans.
The subsections of the section The Bible seen by a historian are: miracles, The divine nature of Jesus Christ is not an invention of the early church, being shaken by God, For the authors of the NT it was no longer possible to lie. the inner unity of the writers of the New Testament , The gospels present an accurate picture of Jesus Christ. , the letter to the Ephesians.
The part history has the section The Bible seen by a historian
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