Keen Bible readers will observe a footnote at the start of Ephesians 1. It tells us that the words Ephesians or Ephesus are not present in the earliest manuscripts. This means we cannot say for certain that the letter was specifically intended for that church.
The consensus is that this letter was originally intended as a circular letter going to several churches. This would also explain the lack of specific greetings or church focused critique and instruction. If a circular, then it is still likely that Ephesus would have been one of the intended destinations explaining how the letter became linked to there. Indeed, it would have been one of the significant destinations given the regional importance of the city.
So to what extent does it matter? The key issue is that some scholars and preachers have leaned heavily into the context at Ephesus to try and better understand the argument and application Paul is making. Arnold most notably emphasized the spiritual context, the cult of Diana and fear of spirits leading to an emphasis on Spiritual Warfare. This kind of approach is not just the case with Ephesians, there has been much contemporary emphasis on approaching Paul’s letters and other Biblical books by focusing on the social, economic and political context.
My view is that it doesn’t matter too much. First, whilst some specifics would apply only to Ephesus, i.e. The Diana cult, in truth the spiritual atmosphere where the true divine was unknown and impersonal , separated from earthly matter by a hierarchy of demigods applied across much of the known world.
More importantly, I think we can make too big a deal out of looking for hidden clues. Paul tended to be quite good at openly telling us why he was writing. In Ephesians, we have the reference to being seated with Christ in exalted heavenly places, we have the point that God displays the church to the powers looking on as a kind of trophy and we have the specific instructions about armour for warfare.
So, it is obvious without having to do any further searching outside of Scripture to see that Ephesians has spiritual warfare as one of its themes. Not only that, if we focus away from. The text, we might miss other things Paul tells us. To be sure spiritual warfare is there but so are other themes , particularly the importance of true unity in Christ.
This does not mean there is no place for studying and understanding cultural and historical context. This can help to sharpen our understanding of how Paul applied God’s Word to contexts in order to better apply to our own. However cultural context should not control our interpretation of God’s Word.
