This Epistle expressly claims to be the production of the Apostle Paul (; ); and this claim the writer in the latter of these passages follows up by speaking of himself in language such as that Apostle is accustomed to use in describing his own position as an ambassador of Christ (;; ). The justice of this claim seems to have been universally admitted by the early Christians, and it is expressly sanctioned by several of the fathers of the second and third centuries.
The question to whom was this Epistle addressed has received different answers. Grotius, reviving the opinion of the ancient heretic Marcion, maintains that the party addressed in this Epistle was the church at Laodicea, and that we have in this the Epistle to that church which is commonly supposed to have been lost; while others contend that this was addressed to no church in particular, but was a sort of circular letter, intended for the use of several churches, of which Ephesus may have been the first or center.
Without entering into a minute consideration of these theories, which our limits will not permit, we may remark that both are unsupported by satisfactory evidence, and that we fully concur in the common opinion that the party to whom this Epistle was sent was the church at Ephesus.
The Epistle is so much the utterance of a mind overflowing with thought and feeling that it does not present any precisely marked divisions under which its different parts may be ranked. After the usual apostolic salutation Paul breaks forth into an expression of thanksgiving to God and Christ for the scheme of redemption (), from which he passes to speak of the privileges actually enjoyed by himself and those to whom he was writing, through Christ (). He then reminds the Ephesians of their former condition when they were without Christ and of the great change which, through divine grace, they had experienced (). An allusion to himself as enjoying by divine revelation the knowledge of the mystery of Christ leads the Apostle to enlarge upon the dignity of his office and the blessed results that were destined to flow from the exercise of it to others (). On this he grounds an exhortation to his brethren not to faint on account of his sufferings for the Gospel, and affectionately invokes on their behalf the divine blessing, concluding this, which may be called the more doctrinal part of his Epistle, with a doxology to God (). What follows is chiefly hortatory, and is directed partly to the inculcation of general consistency, stedfastness in the faith, and propriety of deportment (; ), and partly to the enforcement of relative duties (; ). The Epistle concludes with an animated exhortation to fortitude, watchfulness and prayer followed by a reference to Tychicus as the bearer of the Epistle, and by the usual apostolic benediction (). This Epistle was written during the earlier part of the Apostle's imprisonment at Rome, at the same time with that to the Colossians [COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE].
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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