In last decade of the fourth century the golden-mouthed Chrysostom of Constantinople states in the preamble to his homilies on Ephesians that this letter is full of Paul’s sublime thoughts and doctrines which he scarcely utters elsewhere but plainly declares here. John Calvin considered Ephesians as his favorite letter and he preached a series of forty-eight sermons on the book from May 1558 to March 1559. Days before his death on November 24, 1572, John Knox’s wife read to him daily Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the great poet and philosopher, wrote (May 25, 1830) regarding Ephesians: “It is one of the divinest compositions of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity;—first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity and then those precepts common to it with natural religion.” In 1903 J. Armitage Robinson considered Ephesians as “the crown of St Paul’s writings” and in 1929 C. H. Dodd reckoned that Ephesians’ “thought is the crown of Paulinism.” Nearly four decades later F. F. Bruce considered it the “quintessence of Paulinism” because it “in large measure sums up the leading themes of the Pauline epistles, and at the same time the central motive of Paul’s ministry as apostle to the Gentiles.”7 In 1974 Markus Barth begins his commentary by saying “Ephesians is among the greatest letters under the name of the apostle Paul.” Raymond E. Brown stated in 1997: “Among the Pauline writings only Rom can match Eph as a candidate for exercising the most influence on Christian thought and spirituality.” In 1999 Peter T. O’Brien claims, “The Letter to the Ephesians is one of the most significant documents ever written.”
- Harold W. Hoehner
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autor:: Harold W. Hoehner libro:: Ephesians - An Exegetical Commentary Abrir en logos