Ephesians: Top and tail

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places… Ephesians 1:3

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places…

Ephesians 6:12

David Jackman is a Bible scholar from Great Britain. Recently I heard him describe a simple technique for reading any book of the Bible. He dubbed the reading technique 'top and tail.”

He meant read the beginning and the end of the book so that we get the author's framework and minimize imposing our own biases.

Let's try an example, the book of Ephesians. Read Ephesians 1:1-14. Then read Ephesians 6:10-24. Look for common words, phrases, or themes.

Now compare your two readings. In Ephesians 1:3 there is the phrase, 'heavenly places.” We find that phrase, 'heavenly places” in Ephesians 6:12 also.

Ephesians 1:3 says to 'praise God because he has blessed us in the heavenly places (or realms) with every spiritual blessing.”

Ephesians 6:12 describes our battle as a spiritual one in the 'heavenly places.”

Now let's see if that phrase comes up throughout Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. Indeed, it does.

Leading up to Ephesians 1:20 Paul prays that the believers in Ephesus would know God's power available to them. In 1:20 Paul says that, 'God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.”

Next in Ephesians 2:6 Paul is describing the new life a believer has in union with Christ. Namely, 'God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

The fourth occurrence of heavenly places is Ephesians 3:10. Paul is saying that this new community of Jewish and Gentile believers is not only a testimony to everyone on earth, but also, '… so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

This technique of 'top and tail” is a simple tip that can be used for any book of the Bible.

If you keep on reading Ephesians, you will see the repetition of the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus Christ the son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father calls, Jesus Christ redeems, and the Spirit seals.

Another repeated phrase in Ephesians is 'for the praise of God's glory.”

Hence, we can summarize that Paul is communicating the wonderful spiritual blessings of the union believers have with Christ who is far above all authorities on heaven or earth to the praise of God's glorious grace.

This urges us to sing praises to God, and grow in our walk with God as he empowers us over all forces that might oppose us.