6 February 2024
8 mins.
During the 1st Century, religious Jews considered themselves “clean,” because of their national heritage and their traditional rules and rituals. Religious Jews considered all non-Jews (known as Gentiles) ceremonially “unclean.” In his Letter to the Ephesians, like in some of his other letters, Paul argued that both Jews and Gentiles were unclean before God and the only thing that could cleanse both was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.