¹ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

² sn Which…persecute. The rhetorical question suggests they persecuted them all.

³ tn Grk “And they.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

⁴ sn The Righteous One is a reference to Jesus Christ.

⁵ sn Whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. The harsh critique has OT precedent (1 Kgs 19:10-14; Neh 9:26; 2 Chr 36:16).

⁶ tn Or “fixed.”

⁷ sn The world refers to the whole inhabited earth.

⁸ tn Or “appointed.” BDAG 723 s.v. ὁρίζω 2.b has “of persons appoint, designate, declare: God judges the world ἐν ἀνδρὶ ᾧ ὥρισεν through a man whom he has appointed Ac 17:31.”

sn A man whom he designated. Jesus is put in the position of eschatological judge. As judge of the living and the dead, he possesses divine authority (Acts 10:42).

⁹ tn The participle ἀναστήσας (anasthsa") indicates means here.

¹⁰ tn Or “Be on your guard for” (cf. v. 29). Paul completed his responsibility to the Ephesians with this warning.

¹¹ tn Grk “in which.”

¹² tn Or “guardians.” BDAG 379-80 s.v. ἐπίσκοπος 2 states, “The term was taken over in Christian communities in ref. to one who served as overseer or supervisor, with special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition…Ac 20:28.” This functional term describes the role of the elders (see v. 17). They were to guard and shepherd the congregation.

¹³ tc The reading “of God” (τοῦ θεοῦ, tou qeou) is found in א B 614 1175 1505 al vg sy; other witnesses have “of the Lord” (τοῦ κυρίου, tou kuriou) here (so Ì⁷⁴ A C* D E Ψ 33 1739 al co), while the majority of the later minuscule mss conflate these two into “of the Lord and God” (τοῦ κυρίου καὶ [τοῦ] θεοῦ, tou kuriou kai [tou] qeou). Although the evidence is evenly balanced between the first two readings, τοῦ θεοῦ is decidedly superior on internal grounds. The final prepositional phrase of this verse, διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου (dia tou {aimato" tou idiou), could be rendered “through his own blood” or “through the blood of his own.” In the latter translation, the object that “own” modifies must be supplied (see tn below for discussion). But this would not be entirely clear to scribes; those who supposed that ἰδίου modified αἵματος would be prone to alter “God” to “Lord” to avoid the inference that God had blood. In a similar way, later scribes would be prone to conflate the two titles, thereby affirming the deity (with the construction τοῦ κυρίου καὶ θεοῦ following the Granville Sharp rule and referring to a single person [see ExSyn 272, 276-77, 290]) and substitutionary atonement of Christ. For these reasons, τοῦ θεοῦ best explains the rise of the other readings and should be considered authentic.

¹⁴ tn Or “acquired.”

¹⁵ tn Or “with his own blood”; Grk “with the blood of his own.” The genitive construction could be taken in two ways: (1) as an attributive genitive (second attributive position) meaning “his own blood”; or (2) as a possessive genitive, “with the blood of his own.” In this case the referent is the Son, and the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. See further C. F. DeVine, “The Blood of God,” CBQ 9 (1947): 381-408.

sn That he obtained with the blood of his own Son. This is one of only two explicit statements in Luke-Acts highlighting the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death (the other is in Luke 22:19).

¹⁶ tn Or “serve.”

¹⁷ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

¹⁸ sn That is, the law of Moses. Paul was claiming that he legitimately worshiped the God of Israel. He was arguing that this amounted to a religious dispute rather than a political one, so that the Roman authorities need not concern themselves with it.