Ephesians 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Who is Paul referring to: ‘we all’? There are two answers generally given and both are probably true. One is he is referring to himself and his fellow preachers. We all were in this same position. And again, as he and certain other of his co-workers were Jews, he may be referring to the Jews, the apparently privileged people who were God’s people. Ah yes, but the reality, he says, is that we all were in this same position whether Jews or Gentiles. We too had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh. We generally understand the words ‘our conversation’ to mean our behaviour, but the Greek means something along the lines – we all had our life among, or our living among. We lived as they lived, ‘in times past in the lusts of our flesh,’ our fallen human nature. ‘Fulfilling the desires of the flesh,’ the fallen nature, ‘and of the mind.’ Just in case anyone should think that they are not responsible for these urges that come from our base internal nature, he adds that we planned it too. We planned to sin, and we planned to live away from God – ‘fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind’; it is a wilful thing.‘And were by nature’ – and then he uses another of these great terms such as the term, children of disobedience, which he used in the previous verse. Now it is, ‘the children of wrath, even as others.’ There is a predictability about this. The children of wrath, the children destined for the indignation of God. That is what it means. Children for whom it was inevitable they would be utterly displeasing to God and under his indignation. The children of wrath, destined for it. It is true of us, even as it was of others, the non-preachers, and the non-Jews.