Semantic Analysis: Ephesians (Full Book) — Pashto Destination Language

Method and Inheritance Note

This analysis extends the existing Romans Language Package for Pashto. Every term already recorded in the baseline translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json is reused exactly as recorded (rendering, transliteration, risk tier) wherever it recurs in Ephesians; only the Ephesians-specific occurrence and any new contextual nuance is noted here. New terms not present in the Romans baseline are analyzed fully and given a proposed Pashto rendering, risk tier, and grounded reason, for promotion into the shared glossary in analysis/08_core_glossary.md.

Risk tiers follow the baseline’s doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions: Critical (destroys essential doctrine, human theologian review every occurrence), High (significant confusion/syncretism risk, human theologian review), Medium (reduces clarity, native speaker review), Low (minor imprecision, automated review).

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PART 1 — CORE PASSAGE: Ephesians 2:1–10 (Verse-by-Verse)

Ephesians 2:1

Greek: καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν

• νεκρός (nekros) — “dead”

  • Literal meaning: physically lifeless; corpse-state.
  • Semantic range: literal death; figurative moral/spiritual deadness, inability to respond.
  • English variants: dead, lifeless.
  • Contextual theological meaning: total spiritual incapacity before God prior to regeneration — not sickness or weakness but death. Sets up the “made alive” (συνεζωοποίησεν) of v.5.
  • Pashto rendering: مړه (mrra) — Low-Medium risk; the everyday word for literal death, needs the figurative-spiritual sense made explicit in surrounding teaching so it is not read as merely rhetorical exaggeration.

• παράπτωμα (paraptōma) — “trespass, false step”

  • Literal meaning: a fall beside, a slip.
  • Semantic range: a specific wrongdoing/transgression, distinct from ἁμαρτία’s broader “missing the mark.”
  • English variants: trespasses, transgressions, offenses.
  • Contextual theological meaning: concrete acts of wrongdoing that together with ἁμαρτίαι (sin as a condition) constitute the totality of the unregenerate state.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): تېروتنه (terwatna, pl. تېروتنې) — Medium risk. Note: Islamic jurisprudence draws its own distinction between خطا (khata, unintentional fault) and گناه (gunah, willful sin); تېروتنه should not be read as merely “innocent mistake” (خطا) but as culpable wrongdoing, paired with ګناه (gunah — already TM) to preserve Paul’s double emphasis.

• ἁμαρτία (hamartia) — “sin” — reuse baseline: ګناه (gunah), High risk (see baseline notes on honor-shame vs. guilt-before-God framing).

Ephesians 2:2

Greek: ἐν αἷς ποτε περιεπατήσατε κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας

• περιπατέω (peripateō) — “to walk”

  • Literal meaning: to walk about, go on foot.
  • Semantic range: literal walking; figurative for lifestyle/conduct — the central ethical metaphor of Ephesians (2:2, 10; 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15).
  • English variants: walked, lived, conducted themselves.
  • Contextual theological meaning: the whole pattern of daily life, either under sin’s dominion (2:2) or in the newness Christ creates (2:10; doctrine 9, “Walking in Newness of Life”).
  • Pashto rendering (new term): چلند کول (chalánd kawul, “to conduct oneself”) or ګرځېدل (guzedal, “to go about/walk”). Recommend چلند کول as the primary rendering for the ethical sense, reserving a literal walking verb for literal contexts. Medium risk — must be rendered consistently across every occurrence (2:2, 2:10, 4:1, 4:17, 5:2, 5:8, 5:15) so the reader recognizes the recurring “walk” motif structuring the whole letter.

• ὁ ἄρχων τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος — “the ruler of the authority/domain of the air” (i.e., Satan)

  • Literal meaning: the ruling one of the power/jurisdiction of the air.
  • Semantic range: a title for the devil as head of a hierarchy of hostile spiritual powers (see ch. 6 principalities and powers).
  • English variants: prince of the power of the air, ruler of the kingdom of the air.
  • Contextual theological meaning: names the personal, malevolent spiritual authority believers were formerly enslaved to — foundational to the Spiritual Warfare doctrine developed fully in ch. 6.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): د هوا واکمن (da hawa wakman, “ruler of the air”) — High risk. Must be clearly identified in context as شیطان (Shaytan), a term Pashtun Muslim readers already hold, so the reference is not mistaken for a jinn-lord or lesser spirit within the wider Islamic unseen-world taxonomy; Ephesians presents one singular defeated enemy (ch. 1:20-21; 6:11-12), not a populated hierarchy of morally ambiguous jinn.

• υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας (huioi tēs apeitheias) — “sons of disobedience”

  • Literal meaning: sons/children characterized by disobedience.
  • Semantic range: a Semitic idiom describing a defining, characteristic quality (compare “children of God,” “children of light”).
  • English variants: sons of disobedience, disobedient people.
  • Contextual theological meaning: describes the whole unregenerate condition as one of settled rebellion against God, not isolated bad acts.
  • Pashto rendering: د سرغړونې زامن (da sarghwarune zaaman) — Low-Medium risk. The “sons/children of X” idiom is already familiar to Pashto Bible readers from established usage (e.g., بني اسرائیل / “زامن د اسرائیل”); render literally rather than paraphrasing, per the baseline’s idiom-handling rule that doctrinally loaded idioms preserve meaning over naturalness.

Ephesians 2:3

Greek: ἐν οἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν, ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν, καὶ ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί

• σάρξ (sarx) — “flesh”

  • Literal meaning: physical body tissue.
  • Semantic range: literal body; the whole fallen human nature inclined against God (Pauline technical sense, distinct from mere physicality).
  • English variants: flesh, sinful nature, human nature.
  • Contextual theological meaning: here names the corrupted desires and thoughts that direct the unregenerate life; already load-bearing in Romans (incarnation/humanity-of-Christ doctrine) but here used in its ethical-Pauline sense.
  • Pashto rendering (new term, ethical sense): نفس (nafs) — High risk. نفس is itself a major Islamic theological category (the lower self/ego to be disciplined, e.g. “nafs-e-ammara”); this is a genuine point of contact but risks reducing Paul’s total-depravity claim to Islamic nafs-discipline ethics (a matter of self-control achievable by will and piety), whereas Ephesians presents the flesh’s desires as evidence of death (v.1) requiring God’s unilateral resurrecting action, not self-mastery.

• τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς (tekna physei orgēs) — “children by nature of wrath”

  • Literal meaning: children by nature belonging to wrath.
  • Semantic range: an inherent, birth-condition liability to God’s judgment, not merely acquired through individual acts.
  • English variants: by nature children of wrath, deserving wrath.
  • Contextual theological meaning: teaches inherited/original sinfulness — every person’s natural condition apart from Christ is under God’s just wrath, feeding directly into the Universal Human Accountability and Salvation by Grace doctrines.
  • ὀργή (orgē) rendering (new term): غضب (ghazab) — High risk. غضب is a shared Quranic term (Allah’s wrath against the disobedient, e.g. Surah al-Fatiha’s “not of those who have earned Your anger”) — a genuine bridge for the concept of divine moral anger, but must be taught as personal, righteous, and answerable in Christ’s atoning death (Romans 3:25’s نجات framework, already Critical), not as an impersonal cosmic ledger.

Ephesians 2:4

Greek: ὁ δὲ θεὸς πλούσιος ὢν ἐν ἐλέει, διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ ἣν ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς

• ἔλεος (eleos) — “mercy”

  • Literal meaning: compassion shown to one in distress.
  • Semantic range: pity, compassion, mercy withheld-punishment.
  • English variants: mercy, compassion.
  • Contextual theological meaning: God’s rich mercy is the ground of the reversal from wrath (v.3) to life (v.5) — the pivot word “But God” (ὁ δὲ θεός) begins the gospel turn.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): رحم (raham) — Low-Medium risk. Shared Islamic divine attribute (al-Rahman, al-Rahim); a genuine linguistic and devotional asset, provided it is anchored to the specific historical act of raising believers with Christ, not left as a general divine disposition.

• ἀγάπη (agapē) — “love” — reuse general Pashto مینه (mina) for God’s love toward humanity here; Medium risk, standard vocabulary, but must be distinguished at 5:25 (Christ’s self-giving love for the church) from mere affection — cross-reference the household-codes section below.

Ephesians 2:5

Greek: καὶ ὄντας ἡμᾶς νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ — χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι —

• συζωοποιέω (syzōopoieō) — “to make alive together with”

  • Literal meaning: to co-vivify, jointly bring to life.
  • Semantic range: unique to Paul (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13); resurrection-life given jointly with Christ’s own resurrection.
  • English variants: made us alive together with Christ, raised to life with Christ.
  • Contextual theological meaning: ties personal salvation directly to Christ’s own resurrection (already Critical doctrine in the Romans baseline — بیا راژوندي کیدل); this is not merely forgiveness but a literal transfer from death to life, paralleling Christ’s own history.
  • Pashto rendering (new term, compound needed): د مسیح سره یوځای بیا راژوندي کول (“to be made alive together with Christ”) — Critical. Must retain the resurrection term بیا راژوندي کیدل exactly per baseline (do not substitute a generic “revive/renew” verb), so the doctrinal link to Christ’s own bodily resurrection — already the single most Quran-contested doctrine in the pipeline (crucifixion denial, Q4:157) — is not weakened at the very moment it is applied personally to the believer.

• χάρις (charis) — σέσωσμένοι (perfect passive, “having been saved”)

  • Reuse baseline exactly: فضل (fazal, Grace — High) and نجات (nejat, Salvation — Critical).
  • Contextual note: this parenthetical clause is the letter’s thesis compressed, anticipating v.8. The perfect passive σέσωσμένοι (“you have been and remain saved”) must be rendered with a completed, settled-state verb form in Pashto, not an ongoing-process or future-hope form, since this is where the Assurance of Salvation doctrine (already High/Critical in the Romans baseline) is most directly at stake against the mainstream Islamic reluctance to claim present certainty of final salvation.

Ephesians 2:6

Greek: καὶ συνήγειρεν καὶ συνεκάθισεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ

• συνεγείρω (synegeirō) — “to raise up together with” — same resurrection-family word as v.5; reuse بیا راژوندي کیدل compound. Critical, same reasoning as above.

• συγκαθίζω (synkathizō) — “to seat together with”

  • Literal meaning: to cause to sit down together with.
  • Semantic range: unique NT usage here; enthronement imagery — sharing Christ’s own exalted, ruling position (cf. 1:20-21).
  • English variants: seated us with him, made us sit with him.
  • Contextual theological meaning: believers are given a share in Christ’s present heavenly authority over the very powers named in 1:21 and 6:12 — directly feeds the Spiritual Warfare doctrine (believers already positionally triumphant, not merely defensive).
  • Pashto rendering (new term): سره کیناستل (sara kenastal, “to be seated together”) — High risk. In a strongly hierarchical, patron-client honor culture, being seated together with the supreme ruler (a κύριος/خداوند) is an extraordinary, status-elevating claim; this must be taught explicitly as gift, not achievement, echoing the fazal/melmastia reciprocity-risk already flagged in the baseline Grace entry.

• ἐπουράνια (epourania) — “heavenly places” (new term): آسماني ځایونه (asmani dzayuna) — Medium risk. Must be taught as the unseen spiritual realm of authority and conflict (1:3, 1:20, 2:6, 3:10, 6:12), not merely “paradise” or literal sky/afterlife destination.

Ephesians 2:7

Greek: ἵνα ἐνδείξηται ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσιν τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις τὸ ὑπερβάλλον πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ ἐν χρηστότητι ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ

• ὑπερβάλλον πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος (hyperballon ploutos tēs charitos) — “the surpassing riches of his grace”

  • Literal meaning: wealth/riches that go beyond, exceed.
  • Semantic range: superabundance, overflow.
  • English variants: immeasurable riches, exceeding riches, surpassing greatness.
  • Contextual theological meaning: grace’s magnitude is displayed publicly, across all future ages, as the reason for salvation — reinforces that grace, not the recipient’s worth, is the point of the whole demonstration.
  • Pashto rendering: د هغه فضل ډېره شتمني (“the great wealth of his grace”) — Medium risk, descriptive rather than technical; ensure فضل (grace) is retained exactly, not paraphrased into a generic “kindness.”

• χρηστότης (chrēstotēs) — “kindness” — مهربانۍ (mehrabani) — Low risk, standard vocabulary.

Ephesians 2:8

Greek: τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι διὰ πίστεως· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον

• This is the letter’s — and arguably the curriculum’s — central salvation formula. All three head terms reuse the Romans baseline exactly:

  • χάρις → فضل (fazal) — Critical in this verse’s context (not merely High): this is the verse against which every other grace-statement in the curriculum will be measured for consistency, per the baseline’s cross-document consistency rule for thesis verses (Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, 10:9-10). Ephesians 2:8 should be added to that same “verbatim consistency across documents” list.
  • πίστις → ایمان (iman) — High, reused.
  • σέσωσμένοι → نجات موندلی/شوی (perfect, settled-state salvation) — Critical, reused; see v.5 note on tense.

• δῶρον (dōron) — “gift”

  • Literal meaning: a thing given, a present.
  • Semantic range: gift, offering (also used of temple offerings elsewhere in the NT, not in this sense here).
  • English variants: gift, present.
  • Contextual theological meaning: salvation is explicitly named a gift of God, not a human production — the verse’s second half (καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, “and this is not from yourselves”) makes the point doubly explicit.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): ډالۍ (dalai, “gift/present”) — High risk. This is the verse where the baseline’s melmastia hospitality-reciprocity risk (flagged under Grace) reaches maximum stakes: in Pashtunwali, receiving a ډالۍ from a powerful patron customarily obligates a return gift or service to preserve honor-balance. The translation must make unmistakably explicit — through surrounding teaching notes, not the single word alone — that this ډالۍ creates no repayment obligation whatsoever; God is not owed a counter-gift for it.

Ephesians 2:9

Greek: οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται

• ἔργα (erga) — “works” (here: works of the law/human effort as a basis of salvation)

  • Literal meaning: deeds, actions, labor.
  • Semantic range: neutral for any deed; in Paul’s soteriological argument (cf. Romans 3:20, 27-28; 4:2-6; 9:11-12; 11:6), specifically human effort as a claimed basis for right standing with God.
  • English variants: works, deeds, good works (contextually negative here, positive in v.10).
  • Contextual theological meaning: v.9 categorically excludes human effort/merit as any part of the ground of salvation — the direct target of both Islamic deeds-weighing theology (mizan) and Pashtunwali’s own honor-earned-through-deeds code.
  • Pashto rendering (new term, negative sense): کارونه (karoona, “works/deeds”) — Critical. This is the single most theologically load-bearing “works” occurrence in the curriculum’s core passage: it must be rendered so the exclusion (“not from works”) is unambiguous and cannot be softened into “not from works alone” or similarly qualified — a common mistranslation pressure given the surrounding Islamic and Pashtunwali frameworks in which some place for meritorious deeds is nearly always assumed.

• καυχάομαι (kauchaomai) — “to boast”

  • Literal meaning: to boast, take pride, glory in.
  • Semantic range: legitimate boasting in God (elsewhere in Paul) vs. illegitimate self-boasting (here).
  • English variants: boast, brag, take pride.
  • Contextual theological meaning: grace excludes works specifically so that no ground for self-congratulation before God remains — directly confronts the honor-shame culture’s default logic that personal accomplishment is the very source of honor.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): فخر کول (fakhr kawul, “to boast/take pride”) — High risk. In an honor-shame culture where personal and tribal honor (nang) is customarily earned and displayed through deeds, “no one may boast” is a direct, culturally unsettling claim, not a mild moral aside; teaching notes should make this collision explicit rather than let the verse pass as generic humility advice.

Ephesians 2:10

Greek: αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς, οἷς προητοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπατήσωμεν

• ποίημα (poiēma) — “workmanship, thing made”

  • Literal meaning: a thing made, a work (root of English “poem”).
  • Semantic range: any crafted product; here, God’s own artful creative work in remaking the believer.
  • English variants: workmanship, handiwork, masterpiece.
  • Contextual theological meaning: believers are God’s own artistic product, “created in Christ Jesus” — a second, ethical new-creation, that reframes v.9’s excluded works as v.10’s included fruit.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): د خدای جوړونه (da Khudai jorona, “God’s making/handiwork”) — Medium-High risk. Must not be flattened to a bare word for “creature” (مخلوق, a common Islamic theological term for any created being, human or otherwise); ποίημα here specifically names the purposeful, skilled re-creation of the individual believer in Christ, a distinct and additional act beyond original creation.

• ἔργα ἀγαθά (erga agatha) — “good works” (positive sense, contrast with v.9)

  • Contextual theological meaning: good works are the God-prepared fruit and pathway of the saved life, never its cause — the hinge on which the entire Salvation by Grace through Faith doctrine turns.
  • Pashto rendering: ښه کارونه (kha karoona, “good works/good deeds”) — Critical. Same root word as v.9’s excluded کارونه, but now positively framed; the translation and any accompanying teaching MUST make the v.9/v.10 sequence unmistakable — works are excluded as grounds (v.9) and included as fruit, prepared in advance by God (v.10) — because ښه کارونه/امل صالح-type language is also the technical vocabulary of Islamic soteriology (deeds weighed on the scales, mizan), where good deeds function as partial grounds for salvation. Collapsing this verse’s sequence risks either denying the place of good works altogether or smuggling back in a works-based salvation the passage explicitly rejects.

• περιπατέω (peripateō) reused from v.2 — چلند کول; note the deliberate inversion: the believer’s former “walk” (v.2, in trespasses and sin, under Satan’s rule) is replaced by a new, God-prepared “walk” (v.10, in good works) — the structural key to Doctrine 9, Walking in Newness of Life, and this pairing should be flagged for consistent, matching translation across both verses.

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PART 2 — CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

Chapter 1 (Ephesians 1:1-23)

• εὐλογία / εὐλογέω (eulogia/eulogeō) — “blessing/to bless” (1:3)

  • Literal meaning: to speak well of; a spoken benefit.
  • Semantic range: praise directed to God; benefit bestowed by God.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): برکت (barakat) — Medium risk. برکت is a major, positively-loaded Islamic concept (divine favor/increase, e.g. on food, elders, saints’ tombs); a genuine bridge, but must be anchored here to the specific spiritual, Christ-centered blessings enumerated in 1:3-14 (election, adoption, redemption), not folk-barakat (charm/talisman-adjacent good fortune from holy objects or persons).

• προορίζω (proorizō) — “to predetermine, foreordain” (1:5, 1:11)

  • Literal meaning: to mark out/decide beforehand.
  • Semantic range: God’s sovereign decision made before time regarding the destiny of individuals, specifically their adoption “in Christ.”
  • English variants: predestined, foreordained, predetermined.
  • Contextual theological meaning: grounds Election and Predestination in Christ specifically — the choice is “in him” (ἐν αὐτῷ, 1:4), Christ-centered, not an abstract impersonal decree.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): مخکې ټاکل شوی (makhke takal shaway, “determined/appointed beforehand”) — Critical. Predestination collides directly with the Islamic doctrine of qadar (one of the six pillars of iman, already flagged under the baseline’s ایمان entry), in which God’s decree covers all events fatalistically and is often popularly received with resignation rather than assurance. Ephesians 1 teaches a specific, Christ-centered, redemptive predestination unto adoption and praise, not blanket cosmic fatalism; this distinction must be taught explicitly at every occurrence, paired with the baseline’s existing غوره کول (election) entry.

• ἀπολύτρωσις (apolytrōsis) — “redemption” (1:7, 1:14)

  • Literal meaning: a releasing achieved by payment of a ransom price.
  • Semantic range: buying back a slave or captive; NT: deliverance from sin’s bondage through Christ’s blood.
  • English variants: redemption, ransom.
  • Contextual theological meaning: redemption is priced (“through his blood,” 1:7) — grounds Salvation by Grace in a specific costly transaction, not a mere legal waiver.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): خلاصون (khlasoon, “deliverance/ransom-release”) — High risk. Avoid فدیه (fidya), the Islamic legal term for a substitute payment discharging a specific missed religious obligation (e.g., missed fasting), since it would reduce Christ’s redemption to a minor compensatory transaction rather than the total, costly liberation from sin’s slavery that Ephesians describes.

• σφραγίζω (sphragizō) — “to seal” (1:13)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): مهر کول (muhr kawul, “to seal/stamp”) — Medium risk. Everyday word for an official seal/stamp of ownership and authenticity; the Holy Spirit as God’s seal on the believer should be taught as a mark of secure ownership and promised inheritance, reinforcing Assurance of Salvation.

• κληρονομία / ἀρραβών (klēronomia/arrabōn) — “inheritance” / “down payment, guarantee” (1:11, 1:14)

  • Pashto rendering (new terms): میراث (miras, “inheritance”) and ضمانت (zamanat, “guarantee/pledge”) — High risk for میراث specifically. Pashtun inheritance customs are governed by rigid patrilineal (qawm/khel) succession rules already flagged as Critical under the baseline’s Adoption entry; every use of میراث for the believer’s spiritual inheritance must be explicitly disentangled from bloodline-based inheritance claims, reinforcing that this inheritance comes through adoption in Christ (زوی نیول), not tribal descent.

• μυστήριον (mystērion) — “mystery” (1:9)

  • Literal meaning: a secret, especially one known only to initiates.
  • Semantic range: in the NT, God’s redemptive plan, previously hidden, now disclosed in Christ to all who believe (contrast with Greco-Roman mystery cults’ secrecy reserved for an initiated elite).
  • English variants: mystery, secret, hidden truth now revealed.
  • Contextual theological meaning: the letter’s central revelatory theme (Doctrine 5), climaxing in 3:1-13 — God’s eternal plan to unite Jews and Gentiles in Christ, once concealed, now openly proclaimed to everyone.
  • Pashto rendering (new term): راز (raz) — High risk. راز is deeply embedded in the region’s Sufi poetic and devotional tradition (Rahman Baba, Khushal Khan Khattak) as an esoteric divine secret accessible only through mystical experience or a spiritual guide (pir), often understood as progressively unveiled to a spiritual elite. Ephesians’ μυστήριον is the opposite structure: a plan now fully and publicly disclosed in the gospel to all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike, requiring no mystical elite tier of access. This contrast must be taught explicitly wherever راز is used.

• δύναμις (dynamis) — “power” (1:19, 21) — reuse baseline د خدای قدرت (da Khudai qodrat) — Medium, reused; here specifically Christ’s resurrection power now at work in believers, tying directly to the Assurance of Salvation and Spiritual Warfare doctrines (1:20-21 names the very powers confronted again in 6:12).

• ἀρχή, ἐξουσία, δύναμις, κυριότης (archē, exousia, dynamis, kyriotēs) — “rule, authority, power, dominion” (1:21)

  • Pashto rendering (new term, collective): واکمنۍ او ځواکونه (wakmani aw dzwakoona, “rulerships and powers”) — High risk; first appearance of the spiritual-powers vocabulary developed fully in ch. 6 (see below). Must be introduced here as powers Christ has already been exalted above and subjected under his feet (1:22), establishing believers’ secure position before ch. 6’s call to resist them.

• ἐκκλησία / σῶμα (ekklēsia/sōma) — “church / body” (1:22-23) — reuse baseline کلیسا (Critical) for church; new standalone term for “body of Christ”:

  • Pashto rendering (new term): د مسیح بدن (da Masih badan, “the body of Christ”) — High risk. Introduces the Church as the Body of Christ doctrine (Doctrine 3), developed further in chs. 2, 4, and 5. Must be taught as a living, functioning organic unity under Christ’s headship, not a mere organizational or social metaphor, and — given the church’s frequently secret, dispersed, non-building existence in Pashto-speaking regions per the baseline’s کلیسا note — as a unity that does not depend on visible institutional form.

• πλήρωμα (plērōma) — “fullness” (1:23)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): بشپړتیا (bashpartia, “fullness/completeness”) — High risk. Ephesians 1:23 calls the church “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” — a striking claim requiring care against two opposite distortions: (1) reducing it to a bare metaphor for “large size/completeness,” losing the mystical union in view; (2) conflating it with Sufi wahdat al-wujud (“unity of being”) monism, in which the divine essence pantheistically fills and equals all existing things. Ephesians’ πλήρωμα is Christ’s personal, relational filling of his own body (the church), not an impersonal ontological absorption of all creation into deity.

Chapter 2 (Ephesians 2:1-22)

(2:1-10: see Part 1 above, full verse-by-verse treatment.)

2:11-22 — remaining load-bearing terms:

• περιτομή / ἀκροβυστία (peritomē/akrobystia) — “circumcision / uncircumcision” (2:11)

  • Pashto rendering: سنت (sunnat, “circumcision”) — Medium risk. سنت is itself an established Islamic practice term (also carrying the broader sense of “Muhammad’s tradition/practice”); context must make clear this refers specifically to the Abrahamic covenant sign distinguishing ethnic Jew from Gentile in Paul’s argument, not Islamic sunnah generally.

• πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (politeia tou Israēl) — “commonwealth/citizenship of Israel” (2:12)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): د اسرائیل ټولنه (da Esra’il tolana, “the community/society of Israel”) — High risk. Avoid رendering with قوم (qawm), the term for tribal/ethnic-lineage community central to Pashtun identity (per the baseline’s Adoption entry note on rigid patrilineal qawm/khel descent); using qawm here would reinforce, rather than challenge, an ethnic-lineage reading of covenant belonging exactly where Paul is dismantling ethnic exclusivity as the basis of access to God.

• ξένοι / πάροικοι (xenoi/paroikoi) — “strangers / aliens” (2:12, 2:19)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): پردي (pardi, “outsiders/foreigners”) — Low-Medium risk, standard vocabulary; note the deliberate reversal at 2:19, where former پردي become fellow citizens and household members.

• τὰ διαθῆκαι τῆς ἐπαγγελίας (diathēkai tēs epangelias) — “covenants of promise” (2:12) — reuse baseline تړون (tarun, Covenant, High); note plural here (the various OT covenants), all now fulfilled and opened to Gentiles in Christ.

• αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ (haima tou Christou) — “blood of Christ” (2:13) — standard د مسیح وینه (da Masih wina); Critical by association with atonement doctrine already established in the baseline (nanawatai bridge for substitutionary atonement, per Romans 3:24-25 notes) — this bridge should be reused explicitly here as the basis for Jew-Gentile reconciliation, not only individual forgiveness.

• τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ (to mesotoichon tou phragmou) — “the dividing wall of partition” (2:14)

  • Pashto rendering: د بېلتون دیوال (da beltoon diwal, “wall of separation”) — Medium risk; a vivid, concrete image (likely alluding to the Jerusalem temple’s Court of the Gentiles barrier) that should be kept concrete rather than abstracted away, since it visually anchors the Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrine.

• καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (kainos anthrōpos) — “one new man/humanity” (2:15)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): نوی انسان (nawi insan, “new man/new humanity”) — High risk. This must be taught as a genuinely new, third category of humanity created in Christ (neither continuing Jew nor continuing Gentile identity, but a new corporate reality), not merely a political alliance or coalition of two pre-existing tribal/ethnic groups — a distinction with real force in a region where communal identity is otherwise overwhelmingly defined by qawm/khel and religious-confessional lines.

• ἀποκαταλλάσσω / καταλλαγή (apokatallassō/katallagē) — “to reconcile / reconciliation” (2:16)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): پخلاینه (pakhlaina, “reconciliation, peacemaking”) — Medium risk, genuinely positive cultural bridge: پخلاینه is the native word for formally ending a feud between hostile parties (paired conceptually with the baseline’s سوله/sola peace-negotiation resonance). The one calibration needed: biblical reconciliation is achieved unilaterally by Christ’s cross, not negotiated bilaterally through mutual concession as in customary jirga-mediated پخلاینه — this distinction should be taught explicitly, echoing the covenant entry’s unilateral-vs-negotiated caution.

• προσαγωγή (prosagōgē) — “access” (2:18) and παρρησία (parrēsia) — “boldness, freedom of speech” (cf. 3:12)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): لاسرسی (laasrasi, “access”) — High risk. In a hierarchical patron-client honor culture, ordinary persons do not have unmediated bold access to a powerful patriarch or khan; direct لاسرسی to God the Father through the Spirit (2:18) is a striking, deliberately countercultural claim — comparable in force to the baseline’s ابا (Abba) intimacy note — and should be taught as such rather than assumed self-evident.

• οἰκεῖοι τοῦ θεοῦ (oikeioi tou theou) — “members of the household of God” (2:19)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): د خدای کورنۍ (da Khudai koranai, “household/family of God”) — High risk; directly extends the baseline’s Critical-tier Adoption doctrine (زوی نیول) into corporate, ecclesial terms — full family membership and belonging without blood descent, again against the rigid patrilineal qawm/khel default.

• ἀκρογωνιαῖος (akrogōniaios) — “cornerstone” (2:20) and ναός (naos) — “temple” (2:21)

  • Pashto rendering (new terms): د کونج ډبره (da kunj dabara, “cornerstone”) — Medium risk; معبد (ma’bad, “temple/sanctuary”) — High risk. معبد risks being heard as referring to a physical building (inviting comparison/collision with جومات, mosque), whereas Ephesians 2:21-22 describes the church itself — the living community of believers — as God’s temple, “being built together” spiritually; this must be taught with the same dispersed, often secret, non-building community in view as the baseline’s کلیسا entry already requires.

Chapter 3 (Ephesians 3:1-21)

• μυστήριον (mystērion) — “mystery” (3:3, 3:4, 3:9) — reuse راز from ch.1; risk notes intensify here since 3:1-13 is the letter’s fullest exposition of Doctrine 5 (The Mystery of Christ Revealed): specifically, that Gentiles are “fellow heirs” (συγκληρονόμα, sun-klēronoma — reuse میراث root) and “members of the same body” (σύσσωμα, reuse د مسیح بدن) and “partakers of the promise” with Israel. Every occurrence in this chapter should carry an explicit note distinguishing this fully-disclosed, universally-proclaimed mystery from the elite, progressively-unveiled راز of the region’s Sufi tradition.

• οἰκονομία (oikonomia) — “stewardship, administration” (3:2, 3:9)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): مدیریت/انتظام (intizam, “administration/management”) — Low-Medium risk; Paul’s specific stewardship of revealing this mystery to the Gentiles, tied to his apostleship (رسول, reused, High per baseline).

• πολυποίκιλος σοφία (polypoikilos sophia) — “manifold wisdom” (3:10) — descriptive; Low risk, standard vocabulary for God’s wisdom (حکمت, hikmat — itself a shared, positively-loaded Islamic theological term, low collision risk here).

• παρρησία / πεποίθησις (parrēsia/pepoithēsis) — “boldness / confidence” (3:12) — reuse لاسرسی/زړورتوب note from 2:18; same High-risk caution regarding patron-client access norms.

• γονυπετέω / πατριά (3:14-15, “family, fatherhood”) — the wordplay “Father (πατήρ), from whom every family (πατριά) in heaven and on earth is named” (3:14-15) reuses baseline پلار (Critical, tawhid-anthropomorphism risk plus stern-patriarchal-authority risk); this passage’s naming logic (God as the source of all human fatherhood/family) can be used positively to soften the stern-authority default, provided the warmth is drawn out explicitly per the baseline’s Romans 8/12 tone guidance, extended here to Ephesians 3 and household-code passages in ch. 5-6.

Chapter 4 (Ephesians 4:1-32)

• ἑνότης τοῦ πνεύματος (henotēs tou pneumatos) — “unity of the Spirit” (4:3) and the sevenfold “one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father” (4:4-6)

  • Pashto rendering: یووالی (yaywali, “unity/oneness”) — High risk. This passage is a direct, deliberately emphatic sevenfold repetition of “one” (εἷς/ἕν) applied to Christian identity — a passage that must be handled carefully given tawhid’s own emphatic “one God” (توحید, tawhid) rhetorical pattern; Ephesians’ “unity” is the unity of a diverse body of many members (Jew/Gentile, many gifts) around one Lord, not tawhid’s numerical singularity of the divine essence itself. The two “onenesses” operate in different categories and should not be allowed to blur together.

• βάπτισμα (baptisma) — “baptism” (4:5)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): پمانده/تعمید — recommend تعمید (ta’mid), the established Christian technical term (avoiding غسل, ghusl, the Islamic ritual washing term, which would collapse baptism into an act of ritual purification performed by the individual rather than a once-for-all identification with Christ’s death and resurrection). Risk: High.

• δωρεά / χάρισμα / δόμα (dorea/charisma/doma) — “gift” (4:7-8, 4:11) — reuse baseline روحاني ورکړې (spiritual gifts, Medium); ch. 4 supplies the specific list of gift-offices:

  • ἀπόστολος (apostolos) — reuse رسول (High, per baseline).
  • προφήτης (prophētēs) — reuse پیغمبر (Low, per baseline registry; but note High doctrine-risk framing already required by baseline’s Prophet entry regarding finality-of-prophethood).
  • εὐαγγελιστής (euangelistēs) — “evangelist” (new term): د انجیل ویناوال (da Injil wainawaal, “proclaimer of the gospel”) or transliterated انجیلیست — recommend the descriptive form to keep انجیل (already Critical/High per baseline) visibly embedded in the title. Risk: High, given the severe safety risk already flagged for evangelism/mission in the Romans baseline (open gospel proclamation is life-threatening in much of the Pashto-speaking world); this office-title must be handled with the same security awareness.
  • ποιμήν (poimēn) — “pastor/shepherd” (new term): شپون (shpoon, “shepherd”) — Medium risk; a well-established regional pastoral-agrarian image, positively resonant (Pashtun society retains a strong shepherding/herding culture), but must retain the specific sense of spiritual oversight of the church, not merely a title of general community leadership.
  • διδάσκαλος (didaskalos) — “teacher” — reuse general ښوونکی (khowanki); Low risk.

  This office-list constitutes Doctrine 8 (Gifts for Building Up the Church): all named gifts exist “for building up the body of Christ” (4:12, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος), reusing the د مسیح بدن term from ch.1 — the gift-list and the body-metaphor must be taught together, not as separate topics.

• τέλειος ἀνήρ (teleios anēr) — “mature/complete man” (4:13)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): بشپړ انسان (bashpar insan, “complete/mature person”) — Medium risk. Per the baseline’s gender-language handling rule (follow established Pashto Bible convention, avoid gender innovation), render with the generic انسان rather than a strictly male-marked noun, since the referent is the corporate church’s collective maturity, “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (reusing بشپړتیا/pleroma from 1:23), not individual male maturity.

• παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος / καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (palaios anthrōpos/kainos anthrōpos) — “old self/man” and “new self/man” (4:22-24)

  • Pashto rendering (new terms): زوړ انسان (zor insan, “old man/self”) and نوی انسان (nawi insan, “new man/self” — reuse from 2:15, now applied individually rather than corporately). Risk: High. Note the deliberate two-register use of the same “new man” phrase: corporate (2:15, Jew+Gentile united) and individual-ethical (4:24, put on the new self); both must be recognizably the same term in Pashto so readers can connect Doctrine 4 (Unity) and Doctrine 9 (Walking in Newness of Life) as two expressions of one new-creation reality.

• λυπέω τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον (lypeō to Pneuma to Hagion) — “grieve the Holy Spirit” (4:30)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): د روح القدس خفه کول (da Rooh-ul-Qudus khafa kawul, “to grieve/sadden the Holy Spirit”) — High risk; directly reinforces the baseline’s Critical-tier روح القدس entry (the created-being-vs-divine-Person distinction from Islamic Jibril-identification). That the Spirit can be grieved is itself decisive evidence of his personal, relational nature and should be taught explicitly as such — a created angelic messenger (the mainstream tafsir identification) is not described elsewhere as capable of being grieved by human sin in this personal way.

Chapter 5 (Ephesians 5:1-33)

• μιμηταὶ τοῦ θεοῦ (mimētai tou theou) — “imitators of God” (5:1)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): د خدای پیروي کوونکي (da Khudai peyrawi kawunki, “followers/imitators of God”) — Medium risk; must be distinguished from the tawhid-sensitive idea of “becoming like God” in essence — this is ethical imitation (specifically of God’s self-giving love, v.2), not ontological participation in the divine nature.

• φωτεινός / σκότος (phōs/skotos) — “light / darkness” (5:8) — Pashto رڼا/تیاره (rana/tyara) — Low-Medium risk, standard universal metaphor; reinforced by 4:18’s “darkened understanding,” feeding Doctrine 9.

• πληροῦσθε ἐν Πνεύματι (plērousthe en Pneumati) — “be filled with the Spirit” (5:18, contrasted with drunkenness)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): له روح القدس نه ډک کیدل (la Rooh-ul-Qudus na dak kedal) — Medium-High risk. Must be distinguished from ecstatic trance states associated with some regional Sufi devotional practice (e.g., dhikr-induced ecstasy); Spirit-fullness in Ephesians 5 issues immediately in sober, communal, verbal, musical worship and ordinary relational submission (5:19-21), not loss of self-control or altered consciousness.

• ὑποτάσσω / ὑποταγή (hypotassō/hypotagē) — “submit / submission” (5:21, 5:22, 5:24)

  • Literal meaning: to arrange under, place in proper order beneath.
  • Semantic range: military/social ordering language; voluntary yielding of one’s own will to another within a relationship of trust.
  • English variants: submit, be subject to, yield to.
  • Contextual theological meaning: mutual submission (5:21) frames the specific wifely submission that follows (5:22-24) as one expression of a broader Christ-centered relational pattern, not an isolated hierarchy rule; grounds Doctrine 7 (Household Codes).
  • Pashto rendering (new term): غاړه ایښودل (ghara ekhodal, literally “to place/lay down the neck,” a vivid native Pashto idiom of submission) — Critical. This word sits at an acute intersection of risks: (1) اسلام (Islam) itself is definitionally “submission” (to God alone), so applying submission-vocabulary within a human marriage relationship risks a category confusion with submission owed exclusively to God; (2) Pashtunwali’s own honor code (nang) and tribal-elder authority structures already carry strong submission/loyalty expectations that could be imported wholesale rather than reframed; (3) 5:21’s “submit to one another” (mutual) must not be lost beneath 5:22’s wife-specific instruction, or the passage collapses into unilateral hierarchy. Teaching must make explicit that this is a Christ-modeled, self-giving pattern (5:25, husbands love as Christ loved and gave himself), categorically distinct from submission owed to God alone and from tribal-authority submission.

• κεφαλή (kephalē) — “head” (5:23, cf. 1:22, 4:15)

  • Pashto rendering: سر (sar, “head”) — High risk. In Pashtun patriarchal family culture, “head” already defaults to stern, controlling authority (compare the baseline’s پلار/father entry note); Ephesians 5:23-25 redefines headship as Christ’s own self-sacrificial, loving headship (“gave himself up for her”), and this redefinition must be taught explicitly alongside the term, not left to the word’s cultural default.

• μία σάρξ (mia sarx) — “one flesh” (5:31, quoting Genesis 2:24)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): یوه غوښه (yawa ghwakha, “one flesh”) — Medium risk; retain the concrete Genesis idiom rather than abstracting to “one union,” since Paul explicitly ties it to the μυστήριον (mystery, raz) of Christ and the church in the next verse (5:32) — the marriage bond pictures the Christ-church bond, extending Doctrine 5 into the household-codes material.

Chapter 6 (Ephesians 6:1-24)

• ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεῦσιν / ἐν Κυρίῳ (hypakouete tois goneusin / en Kyriō) — “obey your parents … in the Lord” (6:1) — reuse اطاعت کول root from baseline’s د ایمان اطاعت compound (obedience of faith); note the qualifying phrase “in the Lord” grounds children’s obedience in Christ’s authority, not blanket tribal-elder obedience — a distinction worth making explicit given the baseline’s existing note on Pashtunwali’s competing elder-authority code.

• δοῦλοι / κύριοι (douloi/kyrioi) — “bondservants/slaves” and “masters” (6:5-9)

  • δοῦλος rendering (new term): غلام (ghulam, “slave/bondservant”) — Medium risk; requires a brief historical-context note distinguishing the Greco-Roman household-slavery setting from regional or trans-Atlantic chattel-slavery associations, and clarifying Paul’s simultaneous radical claim (6:9) that masters and slaves share one Master in heaven who shows no favoritism.
  • κύριος (in the human “master” sense) rendering: مالک (malik, “owner/master”) — Critical, cross-referenced with the baseline’s Lord entry. The baseline explicitly rejects مالک as too transactional for God’s/Christ’s supreme Lordship (خداوند is reserved for that). Precisely for that reason, مالک is the correct and necessary term here: خداوند must never be used for a human slave-master in 6:5-9, even though the Greek uses the same word (κύριος) for both. Using خداوند here would either wrongly divinize the human master or dilute the exclusive divine title reserved for Christ; using مالک preserves the baseline’s own exclusivity rule while accurately rendering the human-master sense.

• πανοπλία τοῦ θεοῦ (panoplia tou theou) — “the whole armor of God” (6:11, 6:13)

  • Literal meaning: full/complete armor, a soldier’s entire equipment.
  • Semantic range: literal military equipment; here, a sustained figurative description of spiritual resources for resisting evil.
  • English variants: armor of God, full armor, spiritual armor.
  • Contextual theological meaning: grounds Doctrine 6 (Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God) — believers are called to stand firm (στῆναι) against spiritual, not human or political, opposition (6:12).
  • Pashto rendering (new term): د خدای وسله (da Khudai wasla, “the armor/weapons of God”) — Critical. This is among the most safety-sensitive terms in the entire Ephesians curriculum: وسله (weapons/arms) carries extremely heavy, immediate cultural and political resonance in a region defined by decades of armed conflict, tribal feuding (badal), and — under Taliban rule — an explicit ideology of literal armed jihad framed in religious terms. Teaching on the “armor of God” must repeatedly and explicitly clarify that this is entirely non-violent, defensive, spiritual imagery (truth, righteousness, gospel, faith, salvation, the Spirit’s word, prayer — 6:14-18), directed against “the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers… the spiritual forces of evil” (6:12), never a religious warrant for literal armed struggle. Given the severe real-world danger of this collision, this term requires the same theologian-review-every-occurrence standard the baseline already applies to Mission and Evangelism.

• ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, κοσμοκράτορες τοῦ σκότους, πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας (6:12) — “rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil”

  • Pashto rendering (new term, collective): روحاني واکمنۍ او ځواکونه (rohani wakmani aw dzwakoona, “spiritual rulerships and powers”) — High risk. Widespread regional belief in jinn and the unseen spirit-world (already a live category in folk and formal Islamic belief) can function as either an asset (an already-populated category of real spiritual beings) or a liability (folk exorcism/talisman practices, or reduction of Christ’s total cosmic authority, already asserted in 1:21, to one more actor among many spirits to be negotiated with rather than the sole, already-victorious Lord over them).

• ζώνη ἀληθείας, θώραξ δικαιοσύνης, ἑτοιμασία τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς εἰρήνης, θυρεὸς τῆς πίστεως, περικεφαλαία τοῦ σωτηρίου, μάχαιρα τοῦ Πνεύματος (6:14-17) — the six armor pieces

  • Belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness (reuse صداقت), gospel of peace as footwear (reuse انجیل + سوله), shield of faith (reuse ایمان), helmet of salvation (reuse نجات), sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.
  • ῥῆμα θεοῦ (rhēma theou) — “word of God” (new term): د خدای کلام (da Khudai kalam, “the word/speech of God”) — Medium-High risk; کلام is also the precise technical term for the Quran as God’s own uncreated speech (Kalam Allah) in Islamic theology — a genuine point of contact (God speaks authoritatively) but requiring care that it not imply the Bible must match the Quran’s own specific doctrine of literal verbatim heavenly dictation and eternal uncreated status, a different claim from biblical inspiration (already flagged High in the baseline’s Inspiration of Scripture doctrine).
  • Every piece reuses an already-established Critical/High baseline term (truth-adjacent, صداقت, انجیل, سوله, ایمان, نجات); no new independent risk beyond ensuring consistent reuse.

• προσευχή / δέησις (proseuchē/deēsis) — “prayer / petition” (6:18) — reuse general prayer vocabulary; connects to baseline’s منځګړیتوب (Intercession, Medium) note on nanawatai mediation, extended here to “praying at all times in the Spirit… for all the saints.”

• πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει (presbeuō en halysei) — “an ambassador in chains” (6:20)

  • Pashto rendering (new term): زندانی سفیر (zindani safir, “imprisoned ambassador”) — Medium-High risk; Paul’s self-description as an ambassador for the gospel who is nevertheless in chains resonates directly with the acute, real imprisonment/persecution risk already flagged Critical for Mission and Evangelism in the baseline — this is a passage where the text’s own historical setting (imprisonment for gospel proclamation) mirrors the contemporary Pashto-speaking house-church’s own danger, and should be taught pastorally with that resonance in view, not merely as ancient historical color.

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Summary of New Terms Requiring Promotion to Shared Glossary

See analysis/08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated term table (Romans-baseline reused terms + all new Ephesians terms identified above), ready for Phase 2 translation-memory integration.