Learn Christ
Ephesians 4:20–21
Excerpt
The first formulation, ‘you did not learn Christ that way’, is without parallel. The phrase ‘to learn a person’ appears nowhere else in the Greek Bible, and to date it has not been traced in any prebiblical Greek document. In Colossians, the same verb is used of the readers having ‘learned’ the ‘grace of God’ from Epaphras, who had given them systematic instruction in the gospel (Col. 1:7).
Here in Ephesians Christ himself is the content of the teaching which the readers learned. Just as he is the subject of the apostolic preaching and teaching (1 Cor. 1:23; 15:12; 2 Cor. 1:19; 4:5; 11:4; Phil. 1:15; cf. Acts 5:42), so he is the one whom the hearers ‘learn’ and ‘receive’.
O’Brien, Peter Thomas. The Letter to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.
O’Brien, Peter Thomas. The Letter to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.
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