Semantic Analysis

Semantic Analysis — Ephesians (Koine Greek → Japanese)

Methodology and Scope

This document analyzes the entire book of Ephesians, chapter 1 through chapter 6, in the original Koine Greek, for the purpose of producing a doctrine-aware Japanese translation requirements package for the Ephesians curriculum. The core passage, Ephesians 2:1-10, receives full verse-by-verse treatment. Every other chapter receives a chapter-level treatment of its load-bearing theological terms using the same field set. Where a term is already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json, that exact Japanese rendering is reused without alteration; this document flags such reuse explicitly and does not propose alternatives. New terms not present in the Romans baseline are analyzed fresh and given a proposed Japanese rendering with risk assessment, feeding 08_core_glossary.md and the forthcoming Phase 1 doctrine and translation-memory extension artifacts.

Field set applied to every load-bearing term:

Original word (Greek, transliteration)
Literal meaning
Semantic range
English variants (as rendered across common English versions)
Contextual theological meaning (in Ephesians)
Destination-language (Japanese) rendering and risk

PART 1 — Core Passage: Ephesians 2:1-10 (Verse-by-Verse)

Ephesians 2:1

“καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν” “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.”

νεκρός (nekros)

Literal meaning: dead, lifeless, a corpse
Semantic range: physical death; metaphorical spiritual deadness/insensibility toward God
English variants: “dead,” “dead in”
Contextual theological meaning: total spiritual incapacity before regeneration — not sickness or weakness needing improvement, but death needing resurrection (anticipates 2:5)
Japanese rendering and risk: 死んでいた (shinde ita). Medium risk. Japanese has no difficulty with literal death vocabulary, but the metaphor of spiritual death prior to any experiential referent is unfamiliar to biblically illiterate readers; must be taught, not assumed. No competing religious concept collision (unlike 復活/救い terms), so this is a clarity/illiteracy risk in the same class as 福音 in the baseline.

παράπτωμα (paraptōma)

Literal meaning: a false step, a fall beside the mark
Semantic range: trespass, transgression, wrongdoing (near-synonym of ἁμαρτία but with a “misstep” nuance)
English variants: “trespasses,” “transgressions”
Contextual theological meaning: specific acts of wrongdoing that constitute the substance of spiritual death
Japanese rendering and risk: 罪過 (tsumitoga) or, more simply, absorbed into 罪 (tsumi, reusing baseline “sin” term) with a modifying gloss “そむきの罪” (transgression-sin) where distinction from ἁμαρτία matters. Medium risk. Distinguishing παράπτωμα from ἁμαρτία in Japanese risks either (a) over-differentiating into two unfamiliar compounds, compounding illiteracy risk, or (b) collapsing both into 罪 and losing Paul’s rhetorical doubling. Recommend collapsing to 罪 (reusing baseline term exactly) with a translator’s note rather than inventing a second unfamiliar compound.

ἁμαρτία (hamartia) — baseline term, reuse exactly

Japanese rendering: 罪 (tsumi) — per translation_memory.json. High risk (per baseline doctrine_risk_registry: Universal Human Accountability). Same shame-vs-guilt risk noted in baseline applies directly here: Ephesians 2:1-3 is describing a universal, guilt-before-God condition, not merely socially shameful or meiwaku-causing conduct.

Ephesians 2:2

“ἐν αἷς ποτὲ περιεπατήσατε κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας” “…in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience.”

περιπατέω (peripateō)

Literal meaning: to walk around, to go about
Semantic range: literal walking; metaphorical for one’s habitual conduct/manner of life (a dominant Pauline ethical metaphor, recurring at 2:10, 4:1, 4:17, 5:2, 5:8, 5:15)
English variants: “walked,” “lived,” “conducted yourselves”
Contextual theological meaning: the entire trajectory of a life, before and after conversion — the structural metaphor Paul uses across Ephesians 2-5 to contrast the old and new manner of life
Japanese rendering and risk: 歩む (ayumu) — new term for this curriculum, not present in the Romans baseline. Low-Medium risk. 歩む is natural, established Japanese for “to walk through/proceed through (life),” used in ordinary secular Japanese for a life journey; this is a genuine cultural bridge, not a collision. Must be used consistently across every occurrence in Ephesians (2:2, 2:10, 4:1, 4:17, 5:2, 5:8, 5:15) to preserve Paul’s structural repetition, which a translator working verse-by-verse might otherwise smooth over with varied vocabulary.

αἰών (aiōn)

Literal meaning: an age, a long period of time
Semantic range: a temporal age; by extension, “the world-system” characteristic of the present age, hostile to God
English variants: “course of this world,” “ways of this world,” “age”
Contextual theological meaning: not a neutral time-period but a moral-spiritual order opposed to God, under Satan’s influence
Japanese rendering and risk: この世 (kono yo, “this world/age”) — Medium risk. この世 in ordinary Japanese usage (especially in Buddhist-inflected idiom) can carry a connotation of “this transient, illusory present existence” contrasted with 来世 (the next life/rebirth) — a reincarnation-adjacent contrast structurally different from Paul’s contrast between the present evil age and the age to come inaugurated by Christ. Requires a clarifying note distinguishing Ephesians’ linear eschatological framework from a cyclical rebirth framework.

ἄρχων (archōn) / ἐξουσία (exousia)

Literal meaning: ruler / authority, jurisdiction
Semantic range: a ruler, prince, chief; delegated or usurped authority/power, personal or impersonal
English variants: “prince,” “ruler,” “power,” “authority”
Contextual theological meaning: Satan, described as currently exercising a real, limited, subordinate authority over “the power of the air” — foundational vocabulary for the Ephesians 6 spiritual-warfare terminology
Japanese rendering and risk: 空中の権威を持つ支配者 (kūchū no ken’i o motsu shihaisha, “the ruler holding authority over the air”) — High risk. This is the first appearance in Ephesians of personal evil spiritual authorities distinct from the Holy Spirit terminology the baseline already protects (聖霊 vs. bare 霊). Japan’s animistic folk-spirit world (see baseline holy_spirit entry: 幽霊, 妖怪) risks either (a) trivializing ἄρχων/ἐξουσία into a folklore spirit-entity, or (b) the opposite error of readers dismissing it as mere metaphor for “systemic evil” with no personal reality. Requires theologian-level framing; ties directly to the Ephesians 6 armor-of-God spiritual warfare terms below.

ἀπείθεια (apeitheia)

Literal meaning: non-persuadability, disobedience
Semantic range: willful disobedience, especially toward God’s revealed will
English variants: “disobedience,” “sons of disobedience”
Contextual theological meaning: the defining characteristic of humanity under Satan’s dominion, prior to grace
Japanese rendering and risk: 不従順 (fujuujun, “non-obedience”) — Medium risk, consistent with baseline’s obedience_of_faith entry; must be distinguished from a social-conformity failure (failing to “read the air,” 空気を読めない) and taught as willful resistance to God’s revealed will specifically.

Ephesians 2:3

“ἐν οἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν, ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν, καὶ ἤμεθα τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί” “…among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

σάρξ (sarx)

Literal meaning: flesh, meat, the physical body
Semantic range: the literal physical body; in Pauline ethical usage, fallen human nature in its self-oriented, sin-prone disposition
English variants: “flesh,” “sinful nature,” “body”
Contextual theological meaning: the corrupted, self-directed disposition that governs unregenerate life — not the body itself, which is not evil, but the nature bent away from God
Japanese rendering and risk: 肉 (niku) — Medium-High risk. 肉 is the ordinary Japanese word for “meat” (butcher’s meat, table food), which is the term’s dominant everyday association. Established Japanese Bible translation retains 肉 for this Pauline concept, so this rendering must be kept, but every occurrence in Ephesians (2:3, 2:11, 5:29, 6:5, 6:12) requires active clarification that “flesh” here names a moral-spiritual disposition, not the physical body or literal meat, especially for a readership with zero prior exposure to Pauline anthropology.

ἐπιθυμία (epithymia)

Literal meaning: a strong desire, a craving
Semantic range: desire generally (neutral in secular Greek); in Pauline usage, disordered/sinful desire
English variants: “passions,” “desires,” “lusts”
Contextual theological meaning: the disordered cravings native to the flesh, driving sinful conduct
Japanese rendering and risk: 欲望 (yokubou, “desire/craving”) — Low-Medium risk. Standard vocabulary; some risk of reduction to merely appetitive/bodily desire (food, sex, material want) rather than the fuller Pauline sense including disordered desires of the mind (see διάνοια below), addressed by keeping the phrase’s scope intact in translation (“肉と心の望むこと”).

ὀργή (orgē)

Literal meaning: settled anger, wrath
Semantic range: righteous judicial anger (of God); human anger/temper
English variants: “wrath,” “anger”
Contextual theological meaning: God’s settled, just judicial response to sin — the condition every person is born into (“by nature children of wrath”), resolved only in Christ (2:4-5)
Japanese rendering and risk: 怒り (ikari) — High risk. 怒り is ordinary Japanese for anger/temper, an emotional state; the risk is that God’s ὀργή reads as capricious divine temper rather than settled judicial righteousness, or alternatively gets processed through an impersonal karma-consequence framework (“bad things happen because of what you did”) rather than personal accountability to a holy God who is angered by sin and who reconciles sinners to himself in Christ. This term intersects directly with the baseline’s Critical-risk “sin” and High-risk “Universal Human Accountability” doctrine entries and should inherit theologian-level review routing.

διάνοια (dianoia)

Literal meaning: the mind, understanding, way of thinking
Semantic range: the faculty of thought/intention
English variants: “mind,” “thoughts”
Contextual theological meaning: the flesh’s corruption extends to the mind’s intentions, not merely bodily appetite
Japanese rendering and risk: 心 (kokoro) — Low risk, standard, though 心 in Japanese carries a broader “heart/mind/spirit” range than the narrower Greek “thought/intention”; acceptable given context makes the sense clear.

Ephesians 2:4

“ὁ δὲ θεὸς πλούσιος ὢν ἐν ἐλέει, διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ ἣν ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς” “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…”

ἔλεος (eleos)

Literal meaning: mercy, compassion shown to the suffering/guilty
Semantic range: pity, mercy, compassionate forbearance especially toward those deserving judgment
English variants: “mercy,” “compassion”
Contextual theological meaning: God’s compassionate disposition toward those under his own just wrath (v. 3) — distinct from but closely paired with grace (χάρις, v. 5, 8)
Japanese rendering and risk: 憐れみ (awaremi) — Medium risk. Standard theological vocabulary, no competing false concept, but requires distinguishing from grace (恵み) in careful doctrinal teaching: mercy withholds deserved punishment; grace additionally bestows undeserved favor. Both terms occur in immediate proximity (2:4-5) and must be kept visibly distinct in translation.

ἀγάπη (agapē)

Literal meaning: love (self-giving, not appetitive)
Semantic range: God’s self-giving love; selfless love between persons
English variants: “love”
Contextual theological meaning: the ground of God’s saving initiative — not a response to human merit but an expression of God’s own character
Japanese rendering and risk: 愛 (ai) — Low-Medium risk. 愛 is standard but broad in Japanese (romantic love, familial affection, and Christian ἀγάπη all use this single character); the specific unmerited, initiating quality of God’s ἀγάπη toward “children of wrath” (v. 3) must be actively taught to avoid collapse into a generic warm-feeling sense.

Ephesians 2:5

“καὶ ὄντας ἡμᾶς νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ — χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι” “…even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved…”

συζωοποιέω (syzōopoieō)

Literal meaning: to make alive together with
Semantic range: a rare compound coined for resurrection-union language; found also in Colossians 2:13
English variants: “made us alive together with,” “brought to life with”
Contextual theological meaning: the reversal of 2:1’s death — not mere improvement but a resurrection-quality act of God, accomplished in union with Christ’s own resurrection
Japanese rendering and risk: キリストとともに生かしてくださいました (Kirisuto to tomo ni ikashite kudasaimashita) — High risk. This must be rendered as a decisive, completed divine act of resurrection-life, reusing the baseline’s 復活 conceptual field (though the verb itself is not 復活 but 生かす, “to make alive”). Given the baseline’s warning that 復活 is deflated by pop-culture “comeback” usage, care must be taken that the parallel “made alive” language here is not read as a mere revival/recovery metaphor either, but as the same order of miracle as Christ’s own resurrection.

χάρις (charis) — baseline term, reuse exactly

Japanese rendering: 恵み (megumi) — per translation_memory.json. Critical risk, inherited directly from the baseline. Ephesians 2:5, 2:7, and especially 2:8 are the doctrinal center of “Salvation by Grace through Faith” for this curriculum and require the baseline’s full on-giri (恩・義理 reciprocal-obligation) clarification: grace here explicitly rescues “children of wrath” (v. 3) who have contributed nothing, and creates no repayment debt.

σῴζω (sōzō) — baseline term, reuse exactly

Japanese rendering: 救われた (sukuwareta), from 救い (sukui) per translation_memory.json. Critical risk, inherited from baseline. Note the perfect-tense-equivalent construction “χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι” (grace + perfect passive “have been and remain saved”) requires a Japanese rendering that preserves the completed-yet-abiding nature of salvation, e.g. 恵みによって救われているのです, not a rendering that suggests an ongoing, uncertain process. This connects to the baseline’s Assurance of Salvation doctrine risk (High).

Ephesians 2:6

“καὶ συνήγειρεν καὶ συνεκάθισεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ” “…and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

συνεγείρω (synegeirō) / συγκαθίζω (synkathizō)

Literal meaning: to raise together with / to seat together with
Semantic range: union-with-Christ compound verbs, paralleling 2:5’s συζωοποιέω
English variants: “raised up with,” “seated with”
Contextual theological meaning: believers are not merely forgiven but positionally united with the risen and enthroned Christ — an already-accomplished spiritual reality, not a future hope only
Japanese rendering and risk: ともに復活させ、ともに座らせてくださいました — reusing baseline 復活 for the resurrection-union sense. High risk. Requires careful tense/aspect handling in Japanese (which does not mark tense identically to Greek) to preserve that this is already true of believers now, not merely a future promise — directly relevant to the Assurance of Salvation and Christian Identity in Christ doctrines.

ἐπουράνιος (epouranios)

Literal meaning: heavenly, above the sky
Semantic range: pertaining to the heavenly realm, the spiritual sphere where Christ now reigns
English variants: “heavenly places,” “heavenly realms”
Contextual theological meaning: a key Ephesians motif (1:3, 1:20, 2:6, 3:10, 6:12) naming the spiritual realm of both divine blessing and spiritual conflict
Japanese rendering and risk: 天上 (tenjou) or 天にいるところ — Medium risk. Must be distinguished from a generic afterlife-paradise concept (極楽, gokuraku, the Pure Land Buddhist paradise already flagged with caution in the baseline salvation entry) — ἐπουράνιος in Ephesians is a present spiritual sphere of Christ’s reign and spiritual conflict (6:12), not a destination reached after death.

Ephesians 2:7

“ἵνα ἐνδείξηται ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσιν τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις τὸ ὑπερβάλλον πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ ἐν χρηστότητι ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ” “…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

πλοῦτος (ploutos)

Literal meaning: wealth, riches
Semantic range: material wealth; metaphorical abundance (a favorite Ephesians word: 1:7, 1:18, 2:7, 3:8, 3:16)
English variants: “riches,” “wealth”
Contextual theological meaning: the lavish, inexhaustible abundance of God’s grace, displayed as an eternal exhibit (“in the coming ages”)
Japanese rendering and risk: 富 (tomi) — Low risk. Standard vocabulary; no significant collision, though it should be paired consistently with 恵み (grace) so that Ephesians’ recurring “riches” motif remains visible across chapters (1:7, 1:18, 2:7, 3:8, 3:16) rather than being varied stylistically by different translators.

χρηστότης (chrēstotēs)

Literal meaning: kindness, goodness, benevolence
Semantic range: moral goodness expressed in kind action toward others
English variants: “kindness,” “goodness”
Contextual theological meaning: the practical, benevolent quality of God’s grace toward undeserving recipients
Japanese rendering and risk: 慈しみ (itsukushimi) or 優しさ (yasashisa) — Low-Medium risk. Standard vocabulary; minor risk of reducing to generic interpersonal kindness/gentleness without reference to its specifically undeserved, grace-flavored character described in this verse.

Ephesians 2:8

“τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι διὰ τῆς πίστεως· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον” “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…”

This verse is the doctrinal thesis of the core passage and one of the most theologically load-bearing verses in the entire curriculum.

πίστις (pistis) — baseline term, reuse exactly

Japanese rendering: 信仰 (shinkou) — per translation_memory.json. High risk, inherited from baseline. Must be rendered here as the channel through which grace-salvation is received (“through faith”), not as a meritorious work that earns salvation — the immediately following clause (v. 8b-9) exists precisely to forestall that misreading, and Japanese phrasing must keep faith and works visibly distinct (信仰による — “by/through faith” — not 信仰の実行によって, “by the performance of faith,” which would blur the line).

δῶρον (dōron)

Literal meaning: a gift, a present
Semantic range: a freely given gift, without reference to merit or exchange
English variants: “gift”
Contextual theological meaning: salvation itself (and, per the grammar, the whole grace-faith complex) is characterized as an unearned gift from God — the verse’s climactic term, directly reinforcing χάρις
Japanese rendering and risk: 賜物 (tamamono) or 贈り物 (okurimono) — Critical risk. The baseline already reserves 賜物 for “spiritual gifts” (χαρίσματα) as a Medium-risk term; using the identical word here for δῶρον risks conflating “the gift of salvation” with “spiritual gifts for ministry” (a distinct Ephesians 4 concept). Recommendation: use 贈り物 (okurimono, “a gift/present,” the everyday word for a given gift) for δῶρον in 2:8, reserving 賜物 exclusively for the spiritual-gifts sense in Ephesians 4:7-11, and record this distinction in the glossary and translation memory to prevent inconsistent substitution across Phase 2 translators. This is a new doctrinal disambiguation not present in the Romans baseline and must be flagged for theologian review before being locked into translation memory.

Ephesians 2:9

“οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται” “…not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

ἔργον (ergon)

Literal meaning: work, deed, labor
Semantic range: any deed, action, or accomplishment; in Pauline soteriology, human effort offered as a basis for meriting standing before God
English variants: “works,” “deeds,” “works of the law”
Contextual theological meaning: explicitly excluded as any part of the ground of salvation, in direct contrast to grace received through faith
Japanese rendering and risk: 行い (okonai) — Critical risk. This is one of the single highest-stakes terms in Ephesians for a Japanese readership. Japan’s dominant religious frameworks are structured around merit accumulation: 功徳 (kudoku, Buddhist merit accumulated through good deeds, already forbidden in the baseline’s “grace” entry) and, more broadly, the on-giri reciprocal-obligation system in which favors received create a debt requiring repayment through right action. A reader’s default cultural instinct may be to hear “not by works” as a strange or even suspicious claim (how can standing before the divine be secured with no meritorious deeds at all?) rather than as good news. This verse requires the single most explicit teaching intervention in the curriculum’s core passage and must be flagged for mandatory theologian review, cross-referenced with the baseline’s Critical “Grace” doctrine entry.

καυχάομαι (kauchaomai)

Literal meaning: to boast, to glory in
Semantic range: to take pride in, to exult over (either sinfully in self, or rightly in God)
English variants: “boast,” “take pride”
Contextual theological meaning: salvation by grace through faith, apart from works, eliminates any ground for self-congratulation before God — a direct corollary of v. 8-9’s works-exclusion
Japanese rendering and risk: 自慢する / 誇る (jiman suru / hokoru) — Medium risk. Standard vocabulary; the deeper risk is not the word itself but ensuring the reader grasps why boasting would even be possible under a works-based system (merit accumulation logic) and why it is categorically excluded under grace — again reinforcing the v. 8-9 unit’s need for explicit doctrinal scaffolding.

Ephesians 2:10

“αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς, οἷς προητοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπατήσωμεν” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

ποίημα (poiēma)

Literal meaning: a thing made, a work (of craftsmanship or art); root of English “poem”
Semantic range: a crafted product, an artistic creation
English variants: “workmanship,” “handiwork,” “masterpiece”
Contextual theological meaning: believers themselves are God’s own crafted creation — not self-made, and not the authors of their own good works, but the artistic result of God’s saving work described in vv. 4-9
Japanese rendering and risk: 作品 (sakuhin, “a [crafted/artistic] work”) — Medium risk. 作品 is the natural, warm Japanese word for a work of art, literature, or craftsmanship, and functions as a genuine positive cultural bridge (it dignifies the believer as the deliberate, valued product of a master craftsman, resonant with Japan’s strong cultural respect for craftsmanship, 職人技, shokunin-waza). The risk is a dilution in the opposite direction from ἔργον/works in v. 9: 作品 could be heard as merely an aesthetic object rather than a morally purposed new creation, and must be anchored to the following clause (“created… for good works”) so the craftsmanship metaphor is not detached from its ethical purpose.

κτίζω (ktizō)

Literal meaning: to create, to found
Semantic range: divine creative activity (used in the LXX/NT of God’s creation of the cosmos); by extension, God’s re-creative work in salvation
English variants: “created,” “made”
Contextual theological meaning: the “new creation” reality of salvation — believers are not improved but newly created, echoing Genesis creation language and anticipating Ephesians 4:24’s “new self, created (κτισθέντα) in righteousness”
Japanese rendering and risk: 造られた (tsukurareta), from 造る/創造 (tsukuru/souzou, the standard Genesis-creation verb) — Medium risk, primarily a biblical-illiteracy risk (readers must be taught the connection to Genesis creation) rather than a false-concept collision.

ἔργα ἀγαθά (erga agatha)

Literal meaning: good works, good deeds
Semantic range: morally good, God-honoring actions
English variants: “good works,” “good deeds”
Contextual theological meaning: the fruit and purpose of salvation, explicitly placed after and dependent on grace (contrast with ἔργον in v. 9, which names the false basis salvation excludes) — the same underlying word (ἔργον/ἔργα) is used in both a rejected sense (v. 9) and an affirmed sense (v. 10), which is Paul’s deliberate rhetorical point
Japanese rendering and risk: 良い行い (yoi okonai) — High risk. Because Japanese would naturally render both v. 9’s ἔργων and v. 10’s ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς using the same root word 行い, translators must add clear contextual anchoring so readers do not conclude Paul is contradicting himself. The doctrinal point — good works are the fruit of salvation, prepared beforehand by God, never its basis — must be actively taught alongside the translation, since the lexical overlap in Japanese (as in English) makes the distinction invisible without explanation. This is a direct extension of the baseline’s Critical “Grace” doctrine risk and should be flagged for theologian review whenever v. 9-10 are treated together.

προετοιμάζω (proetoimazō)

Literal meaning: to prepare beforehand
Semantic range: advance preparation, planning ahead of time
English variants: “prepared beforehand,” “planned in advance”
Contextual theological meaning: God’s sovereign, prior planning of the believer’s good works — connecting this verse forward to Ephesians 1’s predestination language
Japanese rendering and risk: あらかじめ備えてくださった (arakajime sonaete kudasatta) — Medium risk, consistency risk: this verb shares the あらかじめ (“beforehand”) root with the Ephesians 1 predestination vocabulary (προορίζω) and should be rendered with visibly related Japanese phrasing to preserve Paul’s thematic link between election (ch. 1) and the good-works purpose of salvation (ch. 2).

PART 2 — Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis of the Whole Book

Chapter 1 — Election, Predestination, Redemption, and the Mystery of God’s Will

προορίζω (proorizō)

Literal meaning: to determine/decide beforehand
Semantic range: to predestine, foreordain
English variants: “predestined,” “foreordained,” “determined beforehand”
Contextual theological meaning: God’s sovereign, gracious decision, made before creation, to adopt believers as sons in Christ (1:5) and to give the church its inheritance (1:11) — the doctrinal foundation of the curriculum’s “Election and Predestination in Christ” doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: あらかじめ定める (arakajime sadameru, verb) / 予定 (yotei, noun) — Critical risk (new term for this curriculum, not in Romans baseline, though 選び “election” is). 予定 in ordinary Japanese means a scheduled plan or appointment (“today’s schedule/plan”), an entirely mundane, low-stakes secular word — the opposite dilution risk to 摂理 (providence) in the baseline, which is unfamiliar formal vocabulary. Here the risk is that a weighty, eternal, sovereign divine decree gets heard through the register of a calendar appointment. The verb form あらかじめ定める (used in established Japanese Bible translation) is preferred over the bare noun 予定 for doctrinal statements, since it retains more of the “determined/fixed” force and avoids the calendar association. Must be paired with 選び (election, baseline term) in teaching to show these are companion doctrines. Requires theologian review, cross-referenced with the baseline’s High-risk “Effectual Calling” and “Election” entries.

ἀπολύτρωσις (apolytrōsis)

Literal meaning: a buying back, a ransoming
Semantic range: redemption through payment of a price; release from bondage or debt
English variants: “redemption”
Contextual theological meaning: believers’ deliverance from sin’s bondage, secured “through his blood” (1:7) at the cost of Christ’s own life
Japanese rendering and risk: 贖い (aganai) — High risk (new term). 贖い is the established Japanese theological term for redemption/atonement-by-payment and carries no direct Buddhist-merit collision, but it is formal, low-frequency vocabulary for secular readers (a biblical-illiteracy risk) and must be actively taught with its “ransom/price paid” structure intact — do not let it collapse into a vague sense of rescue detached from the cost imagery Paul specifies (“through his blood”).

μυστήριον (mystērion)

Literal meaning: a secret, a hidden thing now disclosed
Semantic range: in NT usage, a previously hidden purpose of God now revealed in the gospel — never a permanently secret or esoteric truth reserved for an elite
English variants: “mystery,” “secret”
Contextual theological meaning: God’s plan, hidden across the ages, to unite all things in Christ and to unite Jew and Gentile as one body — central to the curriculum’s “Mystery of Christ Revealed” doctrine (recurs 1:9, 3:3-9, 5:32, 6:19)
Japanese rendering and risk: 奥義 (ougi) — High risk (new term). 奥義 is the established Japanese Bible-translation rendering, but the same word is widely used in Japanese martial arts, video games, and popular fiction for a “secret ultimate technique” transmitted only to an inner circle of initiates — a connotation reinforced by esoteric Buddhism’s own technical term 密教 (mikkyō, “secret teaching”). This is precisely the opposite of Paul’s point: the μυστήριον is a secret God has now thrown open to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike (3:6). Teaching materials must explicitly invert the expected connotation — this is a formerly hidden thing now made public, not an ongoing secret for insiders. Requires theologian review at every occurrence.

σφραγίζω (sphragizō) / σφραγίς (sphragis)

Literal meaning: to seal, mark with a seal / a seal, a stamp of authentication
Semantic range: an official mark of ownership, authenticity, or security (on a document, container, or letter)
English variants: “sealed,” “the seal of the Holy Spirit,” “guarantee”
Contextual theological meaning: the Holy Spirit given to believers at conversion as God’s mark of ownership and down-payment guarantee of future inheritance (1:13-14, cf. 4:30)
Japanese rendering and risk: 証印を押された (shouin o osareta, “stamped with a seal of certification”) — Low-Medium risk, positive cultural bridge. Japan’s personal-seal culture (印鑑/実印, inkan/jitsuin, the registered personal stamp used to authenticate contracts, banking, and legal documents in place of a signature) makes the sealing metaphor unusually vivid and well-understood for Japanese readers — a genuine bridge, not a collision. Care should be taken only to keep 聖霊 (baseline term) explicit as the agent of sealing, so the metaphor’s referent (the Spirit himself, not merely an abstract “guarantee”) is not lost.

κληρονομία (klēronomia)

Literal meaning: an inheritance, an allotted portion
Semantic range: a family estate passed to an heir; by extension, God’s allotted portion for his people, or their allotted portion in God
English variants: “inheritance,” “portion”
Contextual theological meaning: the future, certain possession guaranteed to believers as God’s adopted children (1:11, 1:14, 1:18) — closely tied to the baseline’s Adoption doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 相続 (souzoku, noun) / 御国を受け継ぐこと — Medium risk, positive cultural bridge, consistent with the baseline’s Adoption entry. 相続 is highly salient modern vocabulary in Japan (inheritance tax and family/business succession are prominent social topics), and pairs naturally with the baseline’s note on 養子縁組 (adult-heir adoption) as a helpful bridge for full inheritance rights. The risk is ensuring readers do not import purely secular expectations (a divisible estate, inheritance-tax planning, family conflict over shares) onto a spiritual inheritance that is guaranteed, undivided, and held in common by all believers.

σοφία (sophia)

Literal meaning: wisdom
Semantic range: skill, insight, practical wisdom; in Pauline usage, God’s revealed wisdom in the gospel, contrasted with worldly wisdom (cf. also 3:10’s “manifold wisdom of God” displayed through the church)
English variants: “wisdom,” “insight”
Contextual theological meaning: the wisdom by which God reveals his mystery and by which believers understand it (1:8, 1:17)
Japanese rendering and risk: 知恵 (chie) — Medium risk. Standard vocabulary; risk of collapsing into generic worldly common sense or proverbial life-wisdom (Japan has a rich secular 知恵 tradition, e.g. proverbs, elder wisdom) rather than the specific, revealed wisdom of God’s redemptive plan in Christ.

πλήρωμα (plērōma)

Literal meaning: that which fills, fullness, completeness
Semantic range: the full complement of something; in 1:23, that which fills Christ, or that with which Christ fills all things
English variants: “fullness,” “the fullness of him who fills all in all”
Contextual theological meaning: the church described as Christ’s own fullness — a uniquely exalted, mysterious description of the church’s relationship to Christ, central to the curriculum’s Church-as-Body-of-Christ doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 満ち満ちておられる方の満ちておられるもの (michi-michite oraru kata no michite oraru mono) — High risk, biblical-illiteracy class rather than false-concept collision. This is dense, abstract, doubly-nested theological language even in Greek and English; Japanese compounding of the same root (満ちる, michiru, “to be full”) twice in one clause risks being unreadable to a general audience without significant paraphrase-support in surrounding teaching material. Requires theologian and native-speaker collaborative review to find a rendering that is both accurate and comprehensible.

ἀποκάλυψις (apokalypsis)

Literal meaning: an uncovering, unveiling
Semantic range: disclosure of what was hidden; revelation
English variants: “revelation,” “unveiling”
Contextual theological meaning: the “spirit of wisdom and revelation” (1:17) by which believers come to know God — related to but distinct from μυστήριον (the content revealed) and σοφία (the wisdom to understand it)
Japanese rendering and risk: 啓示 (keiji) — Medium risk, established formal theological vocabulary; biblical-illiteracy risk (unfamiliar word) rather than false-concept collision; consistent register with 預言/預言者 (baseline).

ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) — baseline term, reuse exactly

Japanese rendering: 教会 (kyoukai) — per translation_memory.json. Medium risk, inherited from baseline; Ephesians intensifies this doctrine considerably (the church as Christ’s body, 1:22-23) beyond Romans’ usage, so the baseline’s “not a building” clarification must be reinforced with the additional body-of-Christ organic-union sense unique to Ephesians (see ch. 4-5 below).

Chapter 2 (continued, 2:11-22) — Gentiles, Reconciliation, and the New Humanity

(Verses 1-10 treated fully in Part 1 above; this section covers 2:11-22.)

τὰ ἔθνη (ta ethnē) / περιτομή, ἀκροβυστία (peritomē, akrobystia) — “Gentiles” is a baseline term; “circumcision/uncircumcision” are new

Japanese rendering for Gentiles: 異邦人 (ihoujin) — per translation_memory.json, reused exactly. Medium risk, inherited from baseline.
割礼 (katsurei, circumcision) / 無割礼 (mukatsurei, uncircumcision) — new terms, Medium risk. These name the specific historical Jew/Gentile boundary marker Paul says Christ has abolished; the terms themselves carry little cultural-collision risk in Japan (no competing religious circumcision practice to confuse with), but require background teaching since the concept is entirely unfamiliar to a biblically illiterate Japanese readership — a pure illiteracy risk requiring OT/Jewish-background explanation before the doctrinal point (abolition of this boundary) can land.

τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ (to mesotoichon tou phragmou)

Literal meaning: the middle wall of the partition/fence
Semantic range: a physical dividing wall/barrier (likely alluding to the temple’s actual barrier separating the Court of the Gentiles from Israelite space)
English variants: “the dividing wall,” “the wall of hostility”
Contextual theological meaning: the Jew/Gentile barrier, decisively torn down by Christ’s cross (2:14) — the central image for the curriculum’s “Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity” doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 隔ての壁 (hedate no kabe, “the wall of separation”) — High risk. The metaphor itself translates cleanly, but Japan’s own deeply embedded insider/outsider social framework (内・外, uchi-soto), already flagged as High risk in the baseline for “gentiles” and “universal_scope_of_gospel,” makes this passage doubly significant: readers may readily grasp the image of a dividing wall while unconsciously retaining their own uchi-soto instincts when applying the doctrine relationally. Teaching must make explicit that Christ’s demolition of this wall is total and to be lived out, not merely admired as a historical/theological fact. Requires theologian review, directly extending the baseline’s High-risk “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” and “Universal Scope of the Gospel” doctrines.

καταλλάσσω, ἀποκαταλλάσσω (katallassō, apokatallassō) / εἰρήνη (eirēnē)

Literal meaning: to reconcile, to change from hostility to friendship / peace
Semantic range: restoration of relationship after estrangement or hostility
English variants: “reconcile,” “reconciliation,” “peace”
Contextual theological meaning: Christ’s cross simultaneously reconciles believing Jews and Gentiles to each other and both together to God (2:14-16), creating “one new man” (2:15)
Japanese rendering and risk: 和解 (wakai, reconciliation) — Medium-High risk. 和解 shares its first kanji, 和 (wa, “harmony”), with Japan’s foundational cultural value of social harmony — a genuine bridge in one sense (readers intuitively grasp 和解 as ending hostility and restoring right relationship), but a dilution risk in another: Paul’s reconciliation is an objective, once-for-all, cross-accomplished legal and spiritual reality, not an ongoing achievement of social harmony maintained through mutual accommodation and conflict-avoidance (the more typical operative meaning of wa in Japanese social life). Teaching must anchor 和解 to the finished, cross-accomplished sense. εἰρήνη here reuses the baseline term 平安/平和 — note Ephesians uses εἰρήνη in both the baseline’s individual “peace with God” sense (already covered) and a corporate, Jew-Gentile-unity sense unique to this passage; the corporate sense should be flagged as an extension of the baseline’s Medium-risk “Peace with God” doctrine.

καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (kainos anthrōpos) / εἷς ἄνθρωπος (heis anthrōpos)

Literal meaning: new man / one man
Semantic range: a newly created corporate humanity, formed from what were previously two separate and hostile groups
English variants: “one new man,” “one new humanity,” “one body”
Contextual theological meaning: the church itself as a genuinely new humanity in Christ, neither Jew nor Gentile but a third, unified reality — the doctrinal climax of the “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” curriculum theme
Japanese rendering and risk: 一つの新しい人 (hitotsu no atarashii hito) — High risk. The corporate sense (one unified new humanity, not one individual’s personal transformation) must be made explicit, since 新しい人 alone, read individualistically, risks collapsing into a generic secular self-help “new me” framing (popular in Japanese self-improvement culture) rather than Paul’s corporate new-creation ecclesiology. This term reappears individually in 4:24 (see below) with a related but distinct emphasis; both occurrences must be handled consistently and distinguished in teaching.

ἀκρογωνιαῖος (akrogōniaios) / οἰκοδομή, ναός (oikodomē, naos)

Literal meaning: cornerstone (the foundation-setting corner stone) / building, temple
Semantic range: the stone that establishes the entire structure’s alignment; a building; specifically, a sanctuary/temple
English variants: “cornerstone,” “chief cornerstone,” “building,” “holy temple”
Contextual theological meaning: Christ as the church’s foundation-defining cornerstone, with the apostles and prophets as the foundation, and the whole structure growing into “a holy temple in the Lord” (2:20-21) — God’s true dwelling place, in contrast to any localized physical shrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 要石 (kaname-ishi, cornerstone) / 神殿 (shinden, temple) — High risk for 神殿. This directly extends the baseline’s Medium-risk “church” entry, which already forbids 寺 (Buddhist temple) and 神社 (Shinto shrine); 神殿 is the correct, established alternative (used elsewhere in Japanese Bible translation for the OT/Herodian temple) but requires explicit contrast teaching, since Japan’s religious landscape is saturated with physical shrine/temple buildings as the default referent for sacred space, whereas Paul’s temple is the corporate body of believers, with no physical building in view at all.

οἰκεῖοι τοῦ θεοῦ (oikeioi tou theou)

Literal meaning: members of God’s household, God’s own people
Semantic range: household members, family insiders (contrasted with ξένοι/πάροικοι, strangers/foreigners, in 2:19)
English variants: “members of the household of God,” “God’s household”
Contextual theological meaning: Gentile believers, formerly “strangers and aliens,” are now full household-family members of God, alongside believing Jews — reinforcing the Adoption doctrine already flagged in the baseline with the family-inheritance bridge (養子縁組)
Japanese rendering and risk: 神の家族 (Kami no kazoku, “God’s family”) — Medium risk, positive extension of the baseline’s Adoption entry; pairs well with the baseline’s note that Japan’s warm, relationally strong father/family teaching needs active building (given the “absent salaryman father” trope) — this verse’s “household/family” language is a good place to do that relational-warmth work.

Chapter 3 — Stewardship of the Mystery and Access to God

οἰκονομία (oikonomia)

Literal meaning: household management, administration
Semantic range: the management of a household or estate; by extension, an assigned task, office, or administrative charge
English variants: “stewardship,” “administration,” “commission”
Contextual theological meaning: Paul’s divinely-given assignment to administer/disclose the mystery of Christ to the Gentiles (3:2, 3:9)
Japanese rendering and risk: 務め (tsutome, “task/office/duty”) — Medium risk. Modern Japanese has drifted the etymologically related term 経済 (keizai, “economy”) far from οἰκονομία’s household-management root, so 経済 must never be used. 務め avoids that trap but is generic; teaching should clarify this is a specific God-given administrative charge (comparable to a steward entrusted with a master’s estate), not a generic job or duty.

παρρησία (parrēsia) / προσαγωγή (prosagōgē)

Literal meaning: boldness of speech, freedom to speak openly / a bringing-near, access
Semantic range: confident, unhindered speech (originally a political/civic term for free speech in the assembly); the act of gaining approach/audience to a person of higher rank
English variants: “boldness,” “confidence,” “access”
Contextual theological meaning: believers’ direct, confident access to God the Father through Christ, without need of a ritual intermediary (3:12; cf. 2:18)
Japanese rendering and risk: 確信 (kakushin, boldness/confidence) and 近づくこと (chikazuku koto, access/approach) — Medium-High risk. This directly parallels the baseline’s Medium-risk “Prayer and Intercession” doctrine note: Japan’s dominant religious practice patterns (Shinto shrine visits, omairi; Buddhist temple rites) typically involve approaching the sacred through ritual, priestly mediation, purification, or formulaic petition (お祓い, おみくじ). Ephesians 3:12’s direct, confident, unmediated access — grounded entirely in Christ’s finished work, requiring no ritual preparation — is a significant positive contrast that should be taught explicitly rather than left implicit.

ἀνεξιχνίαστος πλοῦτος (anexichniastos ploutos)

Literal meaning: untraceable/unsearchable riches
Semantic range: riches too vast to be fully traced out or measured
English variants: “unsearchable riches,” “boundless riches”
Contextual theological meaning: the immeasurable riches of Christ that Paul is commissioned to preach to the Gentiles (3:8) — reinforcing the πλοῦτος motif from 1:7, 1:18, 2:7
Japanese rendering and risk: 測り知れない富 (hakari-shirenai tomi) — Low risk, descriptive, no significant collision; maintain consistency with 富 (tomi) used elsewhere for πλοῦτος.

Chapter 4 — Unity, Gifts, and the New Self

ἑνότης (henotēs)

Literal meaning: oneness, unity
Semantic range: unity, singleness (used only twice in the NT, both in Ephesians 4:3, 4:13)
English variants: “unity”
Contextual theological meaning: the Spirit-given, already-existing unity believers are commanded to “keep” (4:3) and the doctrinal maturity-unity they are to grow toward (4:13) — central to both the “Church as Body of Christ” and “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” doctrines
Japanese rendering and risk: 一致 (itchi) — High risk. 一致 is standard secular Japanese for agreement, consensus, or unanimity (used in business, politics, and everyday negotiation) and risks being processed through Japan’s wa harmony-and-conformity culture — a socially-achieved consensus or absence-of-conflict — rather than a Spirit-given spiritual reality transcending and overriding the very insider/outsider (uchi-soto) categories that produce Japan’s harmony culture in the first place. Directly extends the baseline’s High-risk “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” doctrine; requires theologian review.

βάπτισμα (baptisma)

Literal meaning: baptism, immersion
Semantic range: the rite of Christian baptism; in 4:5, named as one of the seven unifying realities of the church
English variants: “baptism”
Contextual theological meaning: one baptism, marking definitive union with Christ and with the one body — not a repeatable purification rite
Japanese rendering and risk: バプテスマ (transliteration) — Medium risk (new term, established in wider Japanese Christian usage though not in the Romans baseline, which does not treat this term). Must be distinguished from Shinto/Buddhist ritual water purification practices (禊, misogi; 水垢離, mizugori) which are repeatable acts performed for ongoing ritual cleansing — baptism in Ephesians 4:5 is a singular, once-for-all identification with Christ, not a repeatable purification.

ἀπόστολος, προφήτης, εὐαγγελιστής, ποιμήν, διδάσκαλος (apostolos, prophētēs, euangelistēs, poimēn, didaskalos)

Apostle and prophet are baseline terms, reused exactly: 使徒 (shito), 預言者 (yogensha, with the established 預/予 kanji-homophone caution retained).
εὐαγγελιστής (evangelist) — new term: 伝道者 (dendousha, “one who proclaims/evangelizes”) — Low-Medium risk, transparent compound built on established 伝道 (dendou, evangelism-adjacent vocabulary); low collision risk.
ποιμήν (pastor/shepherd) — new term: 牧師 (bokushi, the standard modern Japanese term for an ordained Protestant pastor) — Low risk, well-established churchgoing vocabulary, though the underlying shepherd metaphor (ποιμήν literally = shepherd) should occasionally be surfaced in teaching, since 牧師 as a title has lost the vivid pastoral-care imagery of the Greek.
διδάσκαλος (teacher) — new term: 教師 (kyoushi) — Low risk, standard.
Contextual theological meaning together: Christ’s gifts to equip the church for growth toward unity and maturity (4:11-13) — foundational to the “Gifts for Building Up the Church” doctrine, extending the baseline’s Medium-risk “Spiritual Gifts” entry (賜物) into specific offices.

τέλειος ἀνήρ (teleios anēr)

Literal meaning: a perfect/complete/mature man
Semantic range: full maturity, completeness of growth (not sinless perfection)
English variants: “mature manhood,” “perfect man,” “full maturity”
Contextual theological meaning: the goal of the church’s growth under its Christ-given ministries — corporate maturity measured by “the fullness of Christ” (4:13)
Japanese rendering and risk: 成熟した人 (seijuku shita hito, “a mature/matured person”) — Medium risk. Recommend 成熟 (maturity, organic growth) over 完全 (kanzen, perfection/completion), since 完全 risks resonance with attainment-based spiritual perfection concepts (e.g., popular understanding of Buddhist enlightenment as reaching a completed, flawless state) — 成熟 better preserves the sense of ongoing, organic, communal growth Paul intends.

παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος / καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (palaios anthrōpos / kainos anthrōpos, 4:22, 24)

Literal meaning: old man/self / new man/self
Semantic range: the former, corrupted way of life/identity in Adam; the new, righteous identity created in Christ
English variants: “old self,” “old man,” “new self,” “new man”
Contextual theological meaning: an individual-ethical counterpart to 2:15’s corporate “one new man” — here applied to personal moral renewal, “put off… put on” (4:22, 24), grounding the curriculum’s “Walking in Newness of Life” doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 古い人 (furui hito) / 新しい人 (atarashii hito) — Medium-High risk. As at 2:15, 新しい人 must be actively distinguished from Japan’s secular self-help “new me” framing and from any adjacent notion of rebirth/reincarnation (生まれ変わり, umarekawari, a common Japanese idiom for a fresh start that literally means “to be reborn” and carries Buddhist rebirth connotations in its literal sense even in secular use) — Paul’s “new self” is a definitive, Spirit-wrought re-creation in Christ’s righteousness and holiness (4:24), not a self-directed fresh start or a rebirth within an ongoing cycle.

ἀνανεόω τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοός (ananeoō tō pneumati tou noos)

Literal meaning: to be renewed in the spirit of the mind
Semantic range: an ongoing, deep renewal of one’s basic disposition/outlook
English variants: “renewed in the spirit of your minds,” “renewed in your thinking”
Contextual theological meaning: the internal, Spirit-enabled transformation underlying the old-self/new-self exchange (4:23)
Japanese rendering and risk: 心の霊において新たにされる (kokoro no rei ni oite aratani sareru) — Medium-High risk. Must be distinguished from (a) generic Japanese self-improvement/mindset-change culture (自己啓発, jiko keihatsu, a large popular self-help genre) and (b) meditative mind-clearing practices associated with Zen Buddhism (座禅, zazen) — this renewal is a Spirit-given re-orientation of the whole person toward God’s righteousness, not a self-achieved mental discipline or meditative state.

Chapter 5 — Walking in Light, the Spirit’s Fullness, and Household Codes

φῶς (phōs) / σκότος (skotos)

Literal meaning: light / darkness
Semantic range: literal light/darkness; moral-spiritual metaphor for righteousness/truth vs. sin/ignorance
English variants: “light,” “darkness,” “children of light”
Contextual theological meaning: believers’ new moral identity as “light in the Lord” (5:8), contrasted with their former darkness — grounding ethical exhortation in identity, not mere rule-keeping
Japanese rendering and risk: 光 (hikari) / 闇 (yami) — Medium risk. Standard vocabulary with a genuine collision risk: Buddhist enlightenment imagery (悟り, satori) is frequently figured as light dispelling the darkness of ignorance (無明, mumyō, a core Buddhist term for the fundamental ignorance that causes suffering) — a self-attained illumination through practice/insight. Ephesians’ light/darkness contrast must be taught as a relational-moral identity conferred by union with Christ (5:8: “you are light,” a status, not “you have attained light” through insight), to avoid syncretistic collapse into an enlightenment-attainment framework.

πληρόω πνεύματι (plēroō pneumati, 5:18)

Literal meaning: be filled by/with the Spirit
Semantic range: an ongoing (present imperative) state of Spirit-saturation, contrasted with drunkenness in the same verse
English variants: “be filled with the Spirit”
Contextual theological meaning: the command underlying the entire household-code and worship section that follows — Spirit-empowered, not self-effort-driven, Christian living
Japanese rendering and risk: 御霊に満たされ (mitama ni mitasare), reusing baseline 聖霊/御霊 — High risk. Must be sharply distinguished from Japanese folk-religious spirit-possession phenomena (かみがかり, kamigakari, a trance state of being possessed/ridden by a kami in Shinto folk practice) and from the wider pop-culture spirit-possession genre pervasive in Japanese fiction and anime — Spirit-filling in Ephesians is the Spirit’s sanctifying, self-controlled empowerment of the believer’s own will and character (contrasted explicitly with the loss of self-control in drunkenness), not a trance-state loss of self or displacement by an external entity. Requires theologian review.

ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō)

Literal meaning: to arrange under, to subordinate
Semantic range: voluntary or structural submission/ordering within a relationship; can denote either coerced subjection or willing, love-motivated deference depending on context
English variants: “submit,” “be subject to”
Contextual theological meaning: mutual submission among believers generally (5:21) and, specifically, wives to husbands (5:22-24) as part of a household code framed by Christ’s own self-sacrificial headship (5:25-30) — this is the most culturally sensitive term-cluster in the curriculum’s “Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships” doctrine
Japanese rendering and risk: 従う (shitagau) / 服従する (fukujuu suru) — Critical risk. Japan’s historic 家制度 (ie system) — the pre-1947 civil-code family structure that legally subordinated wives and children to an authoritative male household head (家長, kachou), formally abolished in the postwar 1947 Civil Code reform but still culturally influential in traditional gender-role expectations — creates significant risk that ὑποτάσσω is heard as reinforcing an authoritarian, one-directional hierarchy rather than Paul’s actual framing, which (a) opens with mutual submission among all believers (5:21) and (b) grounds husbands’ role not in authority but in Christ-like, self-sacrificial love that gives itself up for the other (5:25). This term-cluster must never be taught in isolation from 5:21 and 5:25 and requires mandatory theologian review, directly extending the baseline’s High-risk “Obedience of Faith” doctrine note on Japan’s hierarchical-obedience culture (senpai-kohai, corporate hierarchy, Bushido loyalty).

κεφαλή (kephalē)

Literal meaning: head (the body part); by extension, source, authority, preeminence
Semantic range: literal head; metaphorical head of a body (authority/source), as used of Christ and the church, and of husband and wife
English variants: “head”
Contextual theological meaning: Christ’s headship over the church (5:23) is the explicit model for husbandly headship — a headship Paul immediately defines as self-sacrificial love (5:25), not top-down command authority
Japanese rendering and risk: 頭 (kashira/atama) — High risk. Japanese corporate and social hierarchy vocabulary (社長, kaichou/shachou, company president; 頭 as “boss/chief” in various hierarchical contexts) risks importing a top-down command-authority model onto κεφαλή, precisely the model Paul redefines by pointing to Christ’s self-giving love as the pattern. Must always be taught in tandem with 5:25’s self-sacrificial redefinition, never presented as bare authority-headship alone.

μία σάρξ (mia sarx, 5:31, citing Genesis 2:24)

Literal meaning: one flesh
Semantic range: the total, covenantal union of husband and wife
English variants: “one flesh”
Contextual theological meaning: marriage’s covenantal (not merely physical/sexual) union, used by Paul as a further picture of Christ and the church
Japanese rendering and risk: 一体となる (ittai to naru, “become one body/unity”) — Medium risk, standard usage; minor risk of narrowing to a merely physical/sexual reading without the fuller covenantal-union sense; low doctrinal stakes relative to the ὑποτάσσω/κεφαλή cluster above.

μυστήριον (5:32) — reuse ch. 1 analysis of 奥義; here applied specifically to marriage as a picture (“this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church”) of the Christ-church relationship. Same High-risk profile as ch. 1.

Chapter 6 — Household Codes Continued, the Armor of God, and Spiritual Warfare

τιμάω (timaō) / ὑπακούω (hypakouō) — children and parents, 6:1-3

Literal meaning: to honor, value / to obey, listen and comply
Semantic range: honor as respect/valuation; obedience as compliance with instruction
English variants: “honor,” “obey”
Contextual theological meaning: children’s obedience is qualified “in the Lord” (6:1) — gospel-motivated, not generic filial duty
Japanese rendering and risk: 敬う (uyamau, honor) / 従う (shitagau, obey, reusing ch. 5 vocabulary) — Medium risk, cultural bridge with a caveat. Confucian-influenced filial piety (孝, kou) is deeply embedded in Japanese family ethics generally, making honoring parents intuitively resonant and requiring little cultural translation. The risk is the opposite of collision: readers may readily supply generic filial-duty motivation and miss Paul’s specific qualifier “in the Lord” — that this obedience flows from Christian identity and gospel motivation, not generic social/familial duty alone. Teaching must make the “in the Lord” qualifier explicit.

δοῦλος (doulos) / κύριος (kyrios) — bondservants and masters, 6:5-9

Literal meaning: slave, bondservant / lord, master
Semantic range: δοῦλος: one legally owned and bound in service (the ordinary word for a household or agricultural slave in the Greco-Roman world); κύριος here in its everyday “master” sense, distinct from its theological “Lord” sense
English variants: “slaves,” “bondservants,” “servants” / “masters”
Contextual theological meaning: an ethic for an existing social institution (slavery) reframed by shared accountability to Christ as the true Master (6:9) — historically specific, not a timeless endorsement of the institution itself
Japanese rendering and risk: 奴隷 (dorei, slave) / 主人 (shujin, master, in its literal employer/owner sense here — note this is a distinct usage from the baseline’s forbidden “husband/master of the house” sense of 主人 for God) — Medium risk, primarily historical-distance rather than doctrinal-collision. Japan has no cultural memory of Greco-Roman-style chattel slavery as a lived social institution, so the historical specificity of this passage (a first-century social reality, not a timeless divine institution) requires active explanation rather than assumed background knowledge. Teaching should also address the passage’s function as an ethic-within-an-existing-structure rather than an endorsement, to avoid the passage being misread as sanctioning slavery as such. 主人 must be clearly contextualized as “employer/owner” here, kept distinct from its baseline-forbidden use for God.

πάλη (palē) / πανοπλία τοῦ θεοῦ (panoplia tou theou) — the armor of God, 6:10-17

Literal meaning: πάλη: a wrestling match, hand-to-hand struggle; πανοπλία: full/complete armor, all the weapons and equipment of a soldier
Semantic range: πάλη describes close-quarters combat (distinct from a set-piece battle); πανοπλία is the complete equipping of a Roman soldier
English variants: “struggle,” “wrestle,” “full armor of God,” “whole armor of God”
Contextual theological meaning: the entire section grounds the curriculum’s “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God” doctrine: the conflict is explicitly “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (6:12) — real, personal, spiritual (not merely social or psychological) opposition, requiring God’s own provided equipment, not human effort
Japanese rendering and risk: 格闘 (kakutou, “wrestling/hand-to-hand struggle”) for πάλη; 神の武具 (kami no bugu, “God’s armor/equipment”) for πανοπλία — High risk, two distinct sub-risks. (1) Samurai armor imagery (甲冑, katchuu) offers a strong, vivid cultural bridge for the armor metaphor — Japan has a rich cultural vocabulary and visual imagination for warrior’s full battle equipment — but this bridge carries a real risk of over-literalizing into romanticized historical/samurai combat imagery rather than unseen spiritual conflict, and a secondary risk of stirring unwanted association with Japan’s 20th-century militarist period given the historical sensitivity the baseline already flags around martial/national-glory language (cf. baseline’s 神の国/神国日本 caution). (2) The naming of real personal evil spiritual powers (ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, κοσμοκράτορες, πνευματικά τῆς πονηρίας — see below) intersects directly with Japan’s vivid, culturally mainstream animistic spirit-world, requiring careful theologian-level framing to avoid both trivializing syncretism (treating these as folklore yōkai/yūrei) and occult fascination (treating spiritual warfare as a genre of exorcism practice, 祓い, or divination). Requires mandatory theologian review for the whole unit, 6:10-17.

ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, κοσμοκράτορες τοῦ σκότους, τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας (archai, exousiai, kosmokratores tou skotous, ta pneumatika tēs ponērias, 6:12)

Literal meaning: rulers, authorities, world-rulers of darkness, spiritual [forces] of wickedness
Semantic range: a stacked description of a hierarchy of real, personal, malevolent spiritual beings under Satan’s dominion (echoing 2:2’s ἄρχων/ἐξουσία)
English variants: “rulers,” “authorities,” “cosmic powers over this present darkness,” “spiritual forces of evil”
Contextual theological meaning: names the true, unseen opponent of the Christian life, requiring supernatural rather than merely social or psychological resources
Japanese rendering and risk: 支配者たち、権威、この暗闇を支配する者たち、天にいる悪の霊ども (shihaisha-tachi, ken’i, kono kurayami o shihai suru mono-tachi, ten ni iru aku no rei-domo) — High risk, same profile as 2:2’s ἄρχων/ἐξουσία above but intensified: this list must be taught as naming real personal evil beings under Christ’s ultimate authority (cf. Ephesians 1:20-21, where Christ is already exalted far above every ἀρχή and ἐξουσία), not as impersonal “systemic evil” (a demythologizing move some modern readers may be tempted toward) nor assimilated into Japan’s folk-spirit taxonomy (妖怪, 幽霊, 悪霊) without qualification. Requires theologian review at every occurrence.

θυρεός τῆς πίστεως (thyreos tēs pisteōs) / μάχαιρα τοῦ πνεύματος (machaira tou pneumatos) / εὐαγγέλιον τῆς εἰρήνης (euangelion tēs eirēnēs) — individual armor pieces, 6:14-17

Literal meaning: shield of faith (a large rectangular Roman shield, θυρεός, not the small round πέλτη) / sword of the Spirit / gospel of peace
Semantic range: specific pieces of Roman military equipment, each mapped to a spiritual reality
English variants: “shield of faith,” “sword of the Spirit,” “gospel of peace,” “belt of truth,” “breastplate of righteousness,” “helmet of salvation,” “shoes of the gospel of peace”
Contextual theological meaning: each piece names an existing baseline-protected doctrine (faith 信仰, truth 真理, righteousness 義, salvation 救い, the Spirit 聖霊, the gospel 福音, peace 平安) reused in combination — this passage functions as a review/integration point for nearly every Critical/High-risk term already established
Japanese rendering and risk: 盾 (tate, shield), 剣 (ken, sword), 帯/腰の帯 (obi, belt), 胸当て (munate, breastplate), 兜 (kabuto, helmet), 履物 (haki-mono, footwear/shoes) for the equipment nouns; every doctrinal noun attached to each piece of armor (信仰, 真理, 義, 救い, 聖霊, 福音, 平安) reuses the baseline term exactly. Medium risk for the equipment nouns themselves (低リスク cultural resonance: 兜/kabuto is the specific word for a samurai helmet and 帯/obi carries kimono-sash cultural resonance in ordinary Japanese — pleasant, vivid associations, not doctrinal collisions, though translators should be aware these words carry a distinctly Japanese-historical flavor that a purely neutral “Roman soldier” rendering would not). The doctrinal risk is carried entirely by the reused baseline nouns, not the armor vocabulary itself — this passage’s translation stakes are inherited wholesale from the baseline’s existing Critical/High-risk entries for faith, righteousness, salvation, the Spirit, the gospel, and peace, all now in immediate proximity within a single unit.

προσευχή, δέησις, ἀγρυπνέω (proseuchē, deēsis, agrypneō) — prayer, 6:18

Reuses baseline “intercession” (とりなし) conventions and the baseline’s Medium-risk “Prayer and Intercession” doctrine note distinguishing direct, Spirit-enabled prayer from Shinto/Buddhist ritual petition (お参り, おみくじ). Medium risk, no new material beyond the baseline entry.

πρεσβεύω (presbeuō, 6:20)

Literal meaning: to act as an ambassador, elder-statesman envoy
Semantic range: an official diplomatic representative acting on behalf of another
English variants: “ambassador”
Contextual theological meaning: Paul describing his imprisoned apostolic ministry as that of “an ambassador in chains” for the gospel
Japanese rendering and risk: 大使 (taishi, ambassador) — Low risk. Modern Japanese has an entirely clear, familiar diplomatic-office term with no religious-collision risk; the poignant “in chains” juxtaposition (an ambassador who is also a prisoner) translates cleanly and requires no special doctrinal caution beyond normal narrative clarity.

Summary of Full-Book Coverage

Chapter	Coverage status
1	Full load-bearing term treatment: predestination, election (baseline reuse), redemption, mystery, sealing, inheritance, wisdom, fullness, revelation, church (baseline reuse)
2:1-10	Core passage — full verse-by-verse treatment (Part 1)
2:11-22	Full load-bearing term treatment: Gentiles (baseline reuse), circumcision/uncircumcision, dividing wall, reconciliation/peace, one new humanity, cornerstone/temple, household of God
3	Full load-bearing term treatment: stewardship, access/boldness, unsearchable riches, mystery (reuse of ch. 1 analysis)
4	Full load-bearing term treatment: unity, baptism, apostle/prophet (baseline reuse) plus evangelist/pastor/teacher, mature manhood, old self/new self, renewal of mind
5	Full load-bearing term treatment: light/darkness, filled with the Spirit, submission, headship, one flesh, mystery (marriage) (reuse of ch. 1 analysis)
6	Full load-bearing term treatment: honor/obedience (children-parents), slaves/masters, armor of God, spiritual warfare/rulers-authorities, individual armor pieces (reusing baseline doctrinal nouns), prayer (baseline reuse), ambassador

No chapter in Ephesians is without new or baseline-reused load-bearing theological vocabulary; the whole book has been reviewed chapter by chapter as required.

This document feeds analysis/08_core_glossary.md and is intended for use alongside the baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json in subsequent Phase 1 steps (doctrine risk registry extension, translation memory extension, and AI translation requirements update for the Ephesians curriculum).

Library content is free and openly licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — share and adapt it for non-commercial use, with attribution to tri-bible.ai.