TBWM – Ephesians

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Greek expressed in a different way

Ephesians is the book that we’ll use to start reading Paul’s writing. Many of you landing on this page will have come from the Foundations in Johannine Reading Track, or from having translated one of the Johannine epistles in an intermediate Greek course in seminary. Many readers will come here with the idea in their minds that Paul is “advanced” Greek and John is “easy” Greek. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul’s Greek is different from John’s, but it is just “Greek expressed in a different way.”

The New Testament is not graduated into tiers of easy and hard. The New Testament has eight distinct authors, nine if you take the position that Paul did not write Hebrews. The Holy Spirit inspired all of the them to write, and they all wrote in Koine Greek using their own unique voices. There is continuity, not graduation, between the books of the New Testament.

Studying Ephesians does not signal “things are about to get harder.” Rather, it is that different reading instincts become more important. There is no reason to feel intimidated by Ephesians, or any of Paul’s other writings. While John trained recursive attentiveness, Ephesians trains structural attentiveness. Where John often develops ideas through repetition and return, Paul frequently develops them through argument flow, hierarchy, and tightly connected reasoning.

Many readers may actually find some Pauline features more intuitive once they acclimate. For example, some readers thrive in architecture, argument flow, hierarchy, and tightly connected logical movement. Those readers may actually feel more “at home” in Paul than in John’s recursive spiraling style. Reading different Biblical authors requires flexibility, not hierarchical thinking. Reading any Biblical author in the original Greek requires skill, but different kinds of perceptual emphasis.

Why is Ephesians an excellent place to begin learning Pauline reading?

Ephesians is one of the New Testament’s most theologically rich and structurally complex letters. Its long sentences, layered clauses, and tightly connected arguments reward slow, careful reading. In Translate the Bible with Me, we will move through the letter passage by passage, using grammatical diagramming, translation, and discourse analysis to trace how Paul develops his argument across the whole work—not merely verse by verse, but thought by thought.

Ephesians is not merely a theological argument. It is one of the most carefully crafted literary works in the New Testament. Paul’s theology often unfolds through praise, prayer, and exalted language, making Ephesians an ideal place to learn how structure and theology work together.

Ephesians combines theological density, rhetorical beauty, long syntactical arcs, and clear structural movements. Readers are encouraged to reread often, follow argument patiently, and allow understanding to accumulate gradually. In order to begin the transition from John’s voice to Paul’s, the first lesson in the TBWM for Ephesians is a guide to reading Paul. That guide will orient you to some distinct features of Paul’s writing.

Here’s the full side-by-side interlinear with links back to each breakdown and my Field Notes.

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Begin Working Through Ephesians

• Reading Paul Through TBWM

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Reading Paul

See Reading Paul Through TBWM for [introduction to Paul].

See also the TBWM Reading Map for grammatical, syntactical, and discourse concepts surfaced throughout Translate the Bible With Me.

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Pronunciation & Diagramming

As you know, one of the things I recommend is reading the text aloud. That can feel difficult when you’re unsure how to pronounce unfamiliar or frequently repeated words. Using a reconstructed Koine pronunciation system, I’ve put together a short guide focusing on key words and a few sentences from Ephesians—terms you’ll encounter often and that benefit from becoming familiar to the ear as well as the eye. Ephesians Pronunciation Guide →

Sentence diagrams are an invaluable tool for visualizing grammatical relationships. To learn the diagramming method used by TBWM, see the Diagramming Guide.

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