Ephesians 6:19

Note

Having finished with the armor, Paul asks his readers to pray for all the saints, and last of all for himself. What he asks is not release from his chain but words when he opens his mouth, so that he may make the mystery of the gospel known with boldness.

The prayer of verse 18 runs on into this one, and the next verse gives its setting: the gospel is the message "for which I am an ambassador in chains" (Ephesians 6:20). An ambassador speaks in his king's name. This one is chained, and still he asks to be bold rather than free: "Pray that I may proclaim it fearlessly, as I should" (Ephesians 6:20). Tychicus, who carries the letter, will tell them the rest (6:21).

Here euangelion is a genitive after mustērion, "mystery." The mystery of the gospel is the mystery that the gospel is, the purpose chapter 3 spelled out: "that through the gospel the Gentiles are fellow heirs" (Ephesians 3:6). Paul wants gnōrisai, "to make it known," an aorist infinitive. A mystery in this sense is not kept hidden; it has been revealed so that it may be told. The word for boldness, parrēsia, first meant the freedom to say everything, plainly and without fear. And Paul asks that logos, a word, "may be given" him, a passive: even the words must come from God.

The versions place the weight differently. The KJV reads, "that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel," so that the boldness belongs to the opening of the mouth; the BSB attaches it to the telling, "boldly make known." The Greek, en parrēsia, sits between the two and can be read with either. The LSV keeps the older sense of the word: "that to me may be given a word in the opening of my mouth, in freedom, to make known the secret of the good news." Its "secret" is a fair word for mustērion, so long as one remembers that this secret is meant to be shared.

Matthew Henry writes: "The gospel was a mystery till made known by Divine revelation; and it is the work of Christ's ministers to declare it. The best and most eminent ministers need the prayers of believers" Matthew Henry. Wesley reads the opening of the mouth as "Removing every inward and every outward hinderance" Wesley.

If Paul wrote the letter as a prisoner in Rome, the end of Acts shows how this prayer was answered. For two full years in his rented house Paul welcomed all who came, and "Boldly and freely he proclaimed the kingdom of God" (Acts 28:31); Luke's word there is parrēsia, the very boldness Paul asked for. Tradition holds that he died a martyr in Rome Eusebius, Church History 2.25. The ambassador in chains spoke as an ambassador to the end.

What the preacher of the gospel asked for was not praise but prayer, and the boldness he prayed for was not nerve but a word to be given him.