Ephesians 3:1

Paul's Relationship to the Divine Mystery

3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus ¹  for the sake of you Gentiles –

Ephesians 3:3

3:3 that ²  by revelation the divine secret ³  was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly. ⁴ 

Ephesians 5:32

5:32 This mystery is great – but I am actually ⁵  speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

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¹ tc Several early and important witnesses, chiefly of the Western text (א* D* F G [365]), lack ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou, “Jesus”) here, while most Alexandrian and Byzantine mss (Ì⁴⁶ א¹ A B [C] D¹ Ψ 33 1739 [1881] Ï lat sy bo) have the word. However, because of the Western text’s proclivities to add or delete to the text, seemingly at whim, serious doubts should be attached to the shorter reading. It is strengthened, however, by א’s support. Nevertheless, since both א and D were corrected with the addition of ᾿Ιησοῦ, their testimony might be questioned. Further, in uncial script the nomina sacra here could have led to missing a word by way of homoioteleuton (cMuiMu). At the same time, in light of the rarity of scribal omission of nomina sacra (see TCGNT 582, n. 1), a decision for inclusion of the word here must be tentative. NA²⁷ rightly places ᾿Ιησοῦ in brackets.

² tn Or “namely, that is.”

³ tn Or “mystery.”

⁴ tn Or “as I wrote above briefly.”

sn As I wrote briefly may refer to the author’s brief discussion of the divine secret in 1:9.

⁵ tn The term “actually” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied in the English translation to bring out the heightened sense of the statement.