The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God

by Tom Wright

In The Vision of Ephesians Tom Wright takes you on an exciting journey through one of the most profound texts in the New Testament.


In just a few powerful pages, Ephesians presents a sweeping panorama of the Christian gospel, tracing God's redemptive plan from the creation of the world to the time when God will be 'all in all'. At its core, the book highlights the transformative work of Jesus the Messiah and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.


Wright masterfully unpacks Paul's vision of the church - what it is, what it is for, and what it means to be part of the new humanity that God is creating in Jesus. This breath-taking vision of God's purpose for humanity comes into sharper focus when we remember that Paul was writing from prison, urging his readers to engage in spiritual warfare, standing firm in the victory won on the cross as that victory unfolds across the world.


The Vision of Ephesians is a must-read for anyone seeking to grasp the depth and beauty of one of the New Testament's most captivating letters.

193 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 16, 2025

About the author

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Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding perspective on Paul’s Epistle which I received as a Christmas present but which also serendipitously coincided with a sermon series at my local church which was using Ephesians as theological base to explore the role  of the Church – something which (as the title implies) is at the heart of Wright’s writing here. 
 
Wright’s argument in fact is that the Ephesians is all about the vocation of the church as being a small working model of the new creation – in effect the design of first creation and then the sign of the temple, with now the church as the foretaste of the new creation, as the place where heaven and earth come together – but crucially with an emphasis on the here and now: “The church, already in the present time, is to be the heaven-plus-earth community, the earthly community suffused with the reality of heaven, the heavenly seated people living our their vocation in the difficult and challenging world …….. of course the ultimate future matters … in which God’s new creation will come into being and all his people will be raised from the dead to share in it.  But that is not the theme of Ephesians”.
 
Some favourite passages which capture the overall themes of the book as Wright captures what he sees as the clear and cohesive message of the Epistle:
 

At the end of chapter 1, Paul's great prayer comes together with the picture of the church as the Messiah's body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Then, at the end of chapter 2, he sees the church growing into a holy temple where God himself comes to live by the spirit. The prayer of chapter 3 reaches its climax in knowing the Messiah's love and in God filling his people with all his fullness. The picture of multiple ministries in the church in chapter 4 insists that we must together grow up into the Messiah from whom the whole body receives its growth and mutual relation, building itself up in love. Then, in the rest of chapter 4 and the first half of chapter 5, he has sketched the radical differences between a world of anger, bitterness and darkness and a world of love, forgiveness and light. And now here, he builds up to saying that the marriage command in Genesis 2 points forward to the relation of the Messiah and his people, the church.
 
Think of the larger sweep of Ephesians as a whole. Chapter 1 verse 10 speaks of God's eternal purpose: to draw together in the Messiah all things in heaven and earth. Chapter 2 verses 11-22 see this cosmic plan symbolised by the coming together of Judaean and Gentile into a single new humanity, growing into the spirit-filled temple. At the start of chapter 3, Paul describes that coming together of the two into one as the mystery of the gospel, which, in 3:10, confronts the principalities and powers with God's new creation. Then, in chapter 4, this single new humanity is sustained by God's gift of multiple ministries designed to help it, in love, to grow up in every way into the Head, the Messiah himself (4:15). And now, not as detached pragmatic advice but in a kind of theological crescendo, we have the matching 'mystery: the Messiah's own self-giving love as the radical model for the husband's vocation to serve his bride. So we learn about marriage by thinking of Messiah and church; but we learn even more about Messiah and church by thinking of marriage. Heaven and earth; Gentile and Judaean together; the body building itself up in love; and now female plus male in marriage. The mystery revealed. The Bible in miniature. Tinker with it at your peril.

 

[Walter Harrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, NT Wright uses a lot of words and flowery language, that I like to be sure, but sometimes it’s hard to follow the point he’s making because of it. But overall, I generally really like his take, and this is a good book to understand Ephesians as a comprehensive and coherent whole instead of piecemeal as we might do as we are studying through it. I think I would get much more out of it if I read it a couple of times and slower.