Comparing Ephesians And Colossian's

The general genre of Ephesians is a letter, but it is not a letter in the same form as most of Paul's other letters. There is no evidence in Ephesians that Paul wrote it to respond to a particular situation; it is not an "occasional" epistle. In this, it is similar to

Romans. Both epistles are more like public speeches than private conversations (Constable, 19).

It shares a deep theological relationship with Colossians. Fee states that “while Colossians clear message is the Supremacy of Christ” (Fee, 361), Metzger states that Ephesians is about “God’s eternal purpose of the creation and completion of the universal Church through Christ” (Metzger, 235). These two letters when put together from a doctrinal perspective, Colossian’s message that Christ is the Head of the Church and Ephesian’s message is that we are the body of Christ, this forms the heart and soul of Pauline theology.

The first is an extended benediction or eulogia (1:1-14) and prayer (1:15-23), constituting the framework for a celebration of God’s accomplishments in Christ for His eternal purposes (Bruce, 241). In typical Pauline letters, there is an introduction and then a thanksgiving and prayer section. After that, Paul goes on to deal with the issues that he wants to address. Ephesians has a slightly different pattern. There is an interruption of that flow, an insertion of a berakhah, which is Hebrew word for blessing, is added (1:3-14). One would find this type of blessing in the Psalms such as Ps66:20 and Ps 41:13 (Gray). This obvious Hebrew strophe, a poetic set of stanzas, led one commentator to refer to this section as a New Testament