Third, the relationship between Ephesians and Colossians is complex.
However, there is nothing contradictory in the examples suggested. A single author
may have wished to say things somewhat differently to separate audiences, being
aware of their unique situation. Is the Colossian call to ‘allow the word of
Christ to dwell within the reader’ (3.16a) really much different from the
Ephesian exhortation ‘to be filled with the Spirit’ (5.18)? Both phrases are
somewhat difficult to understand on their own. The participles explaining
similar results or (less likely) causes (Col. 3.16b and Eph. 5.19-21) suggest that
these passages may be two ways of saying the same or similar things. Can the
mystery as defined in Colossians as ‘Christ in you’ (1.27) be the individual emphasis
(or the emphasis important to the Gentile perspective) of the same phenomenon
mentioned in Eph. 3.3-6? In the latter, the author is concerned with unity and
has just completed a discussion of a remarkable new situation, namely, that the
Gentiles and Jews are now one in Christ. For the Colossian church, the Jewish
emphasis may not be as necessary, and the author chose to mention a certain aspect
of the event, namely the more personal and directed part of this teaching,
which has made the more racially unifying teaching in Ephesians possible. Also,
it is possible that despite similar contexts, the statements are in fact different.
Additionally, it seems problematic to postulate the existence of a
Pauline school to account for both the similarities and differences. Initially,
this hypothesis seems attractive because it proposes a number of potential
contributors to writings that share certain beliefs but may express them differently.
Also, real differences may be accounted for because members may knowingly or
unknowingly have differences that are expressed in their works. However, there
are at least three problems with this proposal. First, there is no evidence
that such a school existed. To suggest that it did because of letters such as
Ephesians and Colossians, which do not identify the creators as such, is rather
circular reasoning. Second, the development of doctrine in the later
first-century church was minimal. The tendency was to look back at what had
already been given, not to develop it further (see, e.g., 1 John). Third, a
Pauline school does not alleviate the problems we will discuss below concerning
pseudonymity. (Joseph F. Fantin, The Lord of the Entire World: Lord Jesus, a
Challenge to Lord Caesar? [New Testament Monographs 31; Sheffield: Sheffield
Phoenix Press, 2011], 278-79)
