The letter that Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus
(The book in the Holy Bible called Ephesians)
About this letter
Paul wrote this letter about 2,000 years ago, about 30 years after Jesus went back to heaven, and it is now part of the Holy Bible.
God sent Paul to lots of countries and lots of towns to tell people about Jesus. One of those towns was Ephesus (see Acts 18:19—20:1). It was a big town in the country that is now called Turkey. About 200 years later the enemies of Ephesus broke it down, and today there are just stones and rubbish at that place in Turkey.
At the time when Paul wrote this letter, the people called the Romans were the bosses over lots of nations. The Roman bosses didn’t like Paul telling people about Jesus, so they grabbed him and put him in jail. Paul wrote this letter while he was in that jail, in Rome.
In this letter, Paul wrote about how God planned great things for us Christians. He wrote about how Jesus joins all of us together into his family, no matter what nation we belong to, so that we can be strong for God and live the way he wants us to live.
Paul wrote this letter a long time ago, but it still has good messages for us today. So we have to take notice today of those messages that Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus.
1
1 I am Paul, and this letter is from me. God got me to be one of Jesus Christ’s special workers. I’m sending this letter to all God’s people there at Ephesus, all you people that follow Jesus Christ properly.* Acts 18:19-21; 19:1 2 I’m asking God our father, and Jesus Christ our leader, to be good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourselves.
God gives us a lot
3 God is the father of our leader Jesus Christ. God joined us to Jesus, and he gave us every good thing that our spirits need. So we have to thank him a lot.
4 A long time ago, before God made the world, he picked us to be his people, and he joined us to Jesus Christ, so that now God can say we are good, like we never did anything wrong. He loved us, 5 so he got Jesus to bring us into his family, and now we can be God’s own kids. God did that because it is what he really wanted to do. 6 So we thank him a lot for that. God loves his son, Jesus, very much, and after we are joined to his son, God is really good to us too. 7 You know, we were prisoners of the devil, the boss over the bad spirits. But Jesus died for us, and his blood came out for us. Jesus paid for us with his own blood, and he set us free from the devil. So now God will not punish us for all the bad things we did. Yes, God is very good to us.* Colossians 1:14 8 He does all that for us, and he also makes us wise and helps us to think properly. 9 God planned it all a long time ago, and nobody knew about it. But now he let us know about it. He told us that he is using Jesus to do the things he planned, things that make him happy. 10 And at the right time he will finish doing the things he planned. He will bring everything together, the things in heaven, and the things on the earth. God will bring them all together, and Jesus Christ will be the leader and boss over everything.
11 God always does everything that he plans. And a long time ago, he picked us, and planned to join us to Jesus Christ and make us his people. 12 At first he picked the Jewish people. They were the first to trust Jesus Christ, and to wait for him to save them. God wanted the Jews to be the first people to praise him, and to say that he is really great. 13 Now it is your turn. You people that are not Jews, you heard that good news that God saves you, and you believed in Jesus Christ. And God gave you his Holy Spirit, just like he promised. His spirit in you is like his sign on you, to show everyone that you belong to him. 14 And now God promises us that one day we will be properly free from doing wrong things. He gives us the Holy Spirit now. It is the first good thing that he gives us, and it shows us that he will give us other good things, for sure. So we really thank God, and we say that he is really great.
Jesus is the leader of the church
15 Some people told me about you, that you keep on trusting our leader Jesus, and they also told me that you love God’s people. They told me those things, 16 so now I never stop thanking God for you, and I always remember to pray for you. 17 I pray to our very great father, the God of our leader Jesus Christ. I pray that his spirit will help you to think properly and show you more about God, so that you will know him better. 18 God promised very great things to his people, and now he has them ready for you. I pray that he will show them to you clearly, like he will switch on a light in your minds, so you can know and be sure about these good things. 19 I pray that you will know that God is stronger and more powerful than anyone, and that he will use his power to do good things for all of us that trust him.
God is very powerful. 20 You see, people killed Jesus Christ, but God used his power to make him alive again, and to take him up into heaven. That shows that God is really powerful. Then God put Jesus in the most important place in heaven. He is sitting right next to God, on his right-hand side.* Psalm 110:1 21 Jesus is now the biggest boss. He is bigger than all the other bosses everywhere, and he is bigger than all the spirits everywhere. He is the big boss over everyone in this world now, and he’s the big boss over everyone in the world that will come later. Not one of them is stronger than Jesus. Only Jesus has God’s power. 22 God made Jesus the boss over everyone. It’s like everything is under Jesus’s feet. And God made Jesus the leader of his people. Those people are his church.* Psalm 8:6 23 Jesus lives in God’s people, like we are his body, and Jesus is our head. He comes into his people and fills them up. He is the boss over everything, everywhere.* Colossians 1:18