The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
August 3, 2003
Vol. 6 no. 30

Everything But...
           The Letter written to the Ephesians has never been left alone. Lots of people have read it and found it one of the best, but for most of this century quite a few scholars have debated vigorously whether Ephesians was actually written by Paul or by one of his later students and disciples. Evangelicals proclaimed Paul as the original author; liberals tended to opt for someone else. The debate continues, though I believe the balance is slowly shifting towards Paul having really written it.
           Paul writes as a prisoner and we know he is being literal. Arrested for preaching the Christian message in Jerusalem, he invoked his right as a Roman citizen to be tried legally in Rome. And with pen in hand, that’s where Paul was sitting – in a Roman prison. Philippians and Colossians are also dubbed Captivity Letters. Others have followed suit from their prison cells – Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Buchenwald, Martin Luther King, Jr., in Birmingham City Jail, Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Their words rang of freedom even if their bodies were not.
           Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian who opposed Hitler, did not preach very often in local churches, although he was a very dynamic speaker. The joke was that if you wanted to hear Barth preach you had to go to prison. For years he would preach weekly to the inmates in the Basel City Jail. Deliverance to the Captives was the title of one collection of his sermons. His message was direct – we on the outside are just as much prisoners to sin as those confined behind prison walls. The offer of the Gospel to liberate and deliver you is also offered to those of us who only think we are free.