Doctrine Analysis
Doctrine Analysis: Ephesians (English → Persian)
This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 4 for the Ephesians curriculum. It provides the complete doctrine matrix for Ephesians 1–6, chapter by chapter, cross-referenced against analysis/08_core_glossary.md and fully consistent with assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json (same 34 doctrines, same risk tiers, same review routing). The core passage, Ephesians 2:1–10 (Salvation by Grace through Faith), is the theological anchor of the curriculum but not its scope boundary — every chapter of Ephesians is analyzed below, including sections that introduce no new doctrinal or terminological risk, which are explicitly marked “reviewed, no new doctrinal content” rather than silently omitted.
Risk tiers and review routing follow the definitions established in the Romans baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json and carried forward unchanged:
| Tier | Definition | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Mistranslation alters or destroys essential doctrine | Human theologian, every occurrence |
| High | Mistranslation creates significant theological confusion or syncretism risk | Human theologian |
| Medium | Mistranslation reduces clarity but preserves essential meaning | Native speaker review |
| Low | Mistranslation causes minor misunderstanding or imprecision | Automated review |
A. Complete Doctrine Matrix (Ephesians 1–6)
| # | Doctrine | Risk | Supporting Passages (Ephesians) | Translation Risk Summary | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Salvation by Grace through Faith | Critical | 2:1-10; 1:6-7; 2:5; 2:8-9 | 2:8-9 states the exact inverse of the Islamic mizan deeds-weighing doctrine and its independent Zoroastrian Chinvat-Bridge counterpart. اعمال (works) must never re-enter as a ground of acceptance; اعمال نیک (2:10) must be sequenced strictly as fruit, not a paired condition per the Qur’anic “iman wa ‘amal-e saleh” pattern. | Human theologian |
| 2 | Election and Predestination in Christ | Critical | 1:4-5; 1:11; 1:18 | از پیش تعیین کرد must never be replaced by تقدیر/moqaddar-sakht (Islamic qadar-fatalism, impersonal exhaustive determination). Pairing with adoption (1:5) compounds risk of Imamate lineage-succession content being imported onto personal, Christ-centered election. | Human theologian |
| 3 | The Church as the Body of Christ | High | 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 4:15-16; 4:25; 5:23,29-30 | سر (head) collides with Iran’s codified household headship law (qavamiyat) once reused at 5:23; بدن (body) must not collapse into generic “community”; معبد (temple, 2:21) risks passive Shia shrine-veneration absorption unless taught as deliberate temple-replacement. | Human theologian |
| 4 | Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity | Critical | 2:11-22; 3:6; 3:8-9 | Compounds baseline “israel” political sensitivity with citizenship vocabulary (2:12), Karbala blood-martyrdom collision (خون مسیح, 2:13), and Qur’an 4:157 crucifixion-denial (صلیب, 2:16). Corporate “one new man” (2:15) must not flatten into self-help “new me” or Iranian state-political commentary. | Human theologian |
| 5 | The Mystery of Christ Revealed | Critical | 1:9; 3:3-9; 5:32; 6:19 | راز collides with Sufi esoteric-initiate disclosure and Shia باطنی Imam-guarded knowledge. Paul’s sense is the opposite: fully disclosed, equally available to every believer. Contrast must be explicit at every occurrence. | Human theologian |
| 6 | Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God | Critical | 1:21; 2:2; 5:8; 6:10-18 | Zoroastrian dualism (Ahura Mazda vs. Angra Mainyu) predisposes a co-equal-rival-army misreading rather than defeated, subordinate powers under Christ (1:21). Iran’s jihad/Basij rhetoric adds real safety risk if armor imagery is read literally/politically. | Human theologian |
| 7 | Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships | High | 5:21-33; 6:1-4; 6:5-9 | Intersects Iran’s codified qavamiyat family law (Qur’an 4:34). Mutual submission (5:21) must remain structurally prior and controlling; husbands’ headship (5:23,25) must be redefined by self-sacrificial love, not confirmed as unilateral legal authority. | Human theologian |
| 8 | Gifts for Building Up the Church | High | 4:7-16 | 4:13 doubly collides with Sufi al-insan al-kamil (πλήρωμα→کمال; τέλειος ἀνήρ deliberately rendered بلوغ کامل, not انسان کامل); ἐπίγνωσις risks assimilation to Sufi ma’refat mystical-ascent epistemology unless marked corporate and gift-mediated. | Human theologian |
| 9 | Walking in Newness of Life | High | 2:10; 4:1; 4:17-24; 5:1-2; 5:8; 5:15-18 | Individual “old man/new man” (4:22-24) risks flattening into Islamic tawbah moral-resolve reform; “imitators of God” (5:1) must never use تقلید (Shia marja’-following technical term). | Human theologian |
| 10 | Deity of Christ | Critical | 1:20-23; 4:13 | Christ’s exaltation “far above all” power (1:20-21) and his role as source of the church’s “fullness” (1:23) is the paradigm case of shirk from a Persian Shia tawhid standpoint; must never be softened to an honored human figure. | Human theologian |
| 11 | Sonship of Christ | Critical | 4:13 | پسر خدا must be used unaltered per the documented Hezare No controversy. Ephesians’ only explicit occurrence lands inside the single most theologically dense verse of the book (paired with fullness/perfect-man vocabulary). | Human theologian |
| 12 | Lordship of Christ | Critical | 1:2-3; 4:1,5; 5:20; 6:5-9 | خداوند must retain exclusive, supreme force throughout. 6:5-9 reuses the same Greek root for a human slave-master, requiring deliberate lexical distinction (ارباب) so Christ’s unique Lordship is never diluted. | Human theologian |
| 13 | Grace | High | 1:6-7; 2:5,7-8; 3:2,7-8; 4:7; 6:24 | Feyz’s Persian philosophical loading (automatic ontological emanation) must be corrected toward a freely willed, personal gift; pervasive pairing with mercy (رحمت, 2:4) independently risks reading as general Islamic divine clemency apart from Christ’s specific atoning work. | Human theologian |
| 14 | Faith | High | 1:1,15; 2:8; 3:12,17; 4:5,13; 6:16,23 | Persian Shia iman includes belief in the Imamate as a core article; must be anchored as personal trust in Christ specifically. 2:8 requires faith as the means of salvation, never its meritorious ground. | Human theologian |
| 15 | Adoption into God’s Family | Critical | 1:5; 2:19; 1:11,14,18 | Iranian civil law’s weaker سرپرستی (custodianship), reflecting Qur’an 33:4-5 shared across Sunni and Shia fiqh, remains the operative real-world default. Pairing with predestination and concrete میراث (inheritance) intensifies collision beyond Romans 8’s treatment. | Human theologian |
| 16 | Sanctification | High | 1:4; 2:21; 4:24; 5:26 | The Spirit’s ongoing holiness-work, pictured in 5:26 as cleansing “with the washing of water by the word,” must not be read as ritual ablution (ghusl/wudu) or Sufi نفس self-mortification. | Human theologian |
| 17 | Sainthood (Called to be Holy) | Medium | 1:1,15,18; 2:19; 3:8,18; 4:12; 5:3; 6:18 | Corporate sense for all believers throughout Ephesians, not an ascetic or shrine-venerated elite class. | Native speaker review |
| 18 | Resurrection of Christ | Critical | 1:20; 2:6 | Shares the Qur’an’s crucifixion-denial (4:157) problem; 2:6’s believer-incorporation language (“raised us up together with him”) must retain already-accomplished force, not subordinate to the Mahdi-centered Shia eschatological framework. | Human theologian |
| 19 | Apostleship | High | 1:1; 2:20; 3:5; 4:11 | 2:20’s claim that apostles and prophets form the church’s literal “foundation” intensifies the Imamate-succession collision by asserting a unique, closed foundational authority. | Human theologian |
| 20 | Inspiration of Scripture | High | 2:20; 3:5; 6:17 | کلام خدا (6:17) directly risks equivalence with the Qur’an’s formal title کلامالله and its verbatim-dictation (wahy) model; must be qualified at every occurrence as referring to Christian Scripture only. | Human theologian |
| 21 | Universal Human Accountability | High | 2:1-3 | Ephesians’ densest statement of this doctrine: total spiritual deadness (مرده), inherited guilt (“by nature children of wrath,” به طبیعت فرزندان خشم), and sin-prone نفس together confront Islamic fitrah and Zoroastrian Chinvat-Bridge deeds-weighing. | Human theologian |
| 22 | Christian Identity in Christ | High | 2:6,10; 2:15; 4:22-24; 5:30 | Identity located in union with Christ, both corporate (2:15) and individual (4:22-24), distinct from national/ethnic/religious identity markers carrying high personal-social cost to depart from in Iran. The two “new man” senses must not be conflated. | Human theologian |
| 23 | Reconciliation and Direct Access to God | Critical | 2:13-18; 3:12 | آشتی دادن must be unilateral, cross-secured restoration, not negotiated truce (مصالحه); دسترسی must assert direct, Spirit-enabled access without human/Imam intermediary. | Human theologian |
| 24 | Prayer and Intercession | Critical | 6:18-20; 1:16-18; 3:14-19 | شفاعت remains unusually central and popularly practiced in Twelver Shia devotion (Muharram, shrine pilgrimage); “ambassador in chains” (6:20) and direct-access doctrine (2:18) together must exclude, not supplement, this framework. | Human theologian |
| 25 | Spiritual Gifts | Medium | 4:7-11 | Must retain the “spiritual” qualifier throughout the office-gift list of 4:11 so gifts are not read as ordinary talent or personal achievement. | Native speaker review |
| 26 | Kingdom Mission | Medium | 5:5 | God’s and Christ’s shared spiritual reign, distinct from Iran’s explicitly religious-political governing structure (Velayat-e Faqih). | Native speaker review |
| 27 | Providence | Medium | 1:11; 3:9,11 | God’s personal, purposive governance applied to the unfolding of the mystery; keep distinct from folk qadar-style fatalism, especially given direct pairing with predestined vocabulary in 1:11. | Native speaker review |
| 28 | The Fullness of Christ in the Church | Critical | 1:23; 3:19; 4:13 | کمال is the exact technical term of Sufi al-insan al-kamil, individually-attained mystical perfection. Christ’s completeness, corporately indwelling the church, must never appear achieved by mystical progress; heaviest qualification required at the doubled collision in 4:13. | Human theologian |
| 29 | Putting Off the Old Self, Putting On the New | High | 4:17-24 | Risks flattening into Islamic tawbah (“turning over a new leaf”) self-improvement, rather than decisive identity-change grounded in union with Christ’s death and resurrection; deliberately avoids کمال/انسان کامل vocabulary. | Human theologian |
| 30 | Walking as Children of Light, Not Darkness | Critical | 5:8-14 | Zoroastrian cosmic dualism (Ahura Mazda vs. Angra Mainyu) is the single most significant indigenous-substrate collision risk for this doctrine. Darkness must be a defeated, subordinate condition already transferred out of, not a co-eternal rival power; connect explicitly to 6:12. | Human theologian |
| 31 | Baptism as Union with Christ | High | 4:5 | Iranian ritual-purification culture (ghusl/wudu, Zoroastrian purity rites) may predispose a self-performed-purification misreading rather than a sign of union with Christ’s accomplished death and resurrection. | Human theologian |
| 32 | Redemption and Atonement through Christ’s Blood and Sacrifice | Critical | 1:7; 2:13,16; 5:2 | Simultaneously collides with the Karbala/Hussein martyrdom-ransom pattern (redemption, blood), Qur’an’s crucifixion-denial (cross), and the Eid-e Qorban ritual-sacrifice calendar (sacrifice). Must be taught as a unique, historical, once-for-all, judicially sufficient act. | Human theologian |
| 33 | Thanksgiving | Low | 1:16; 5:4,20 | Shukr is also a major Islamic virtue; broadly compatible, low risk. | Automated review |
| 34 | Mutual Edification and Unity of the Spirit | Low | 4:1-3; 4:12; 4:29; 5:9 | Building one another up in Spirit-wrought unity; low independent risk beyond the caution (flagged separately at Medium under related doctrines) that اتحاد not be read as pan-Islamic Ummah political solidarity. | Automated review |
B. Chapter-by-Chapter Doctrinal Coverage
Ephesians 1 — Election, Adoption, and the Exalted Christ
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1-2 (Salutation) | Apostleship (High); Lordship of Christ (Critical) | Standard epistolary greeting; رسول and خداوند/مسیح عیسی established from the book’s opening word — reviewed, no new doctrinal content beyond baseline term reuse. |
| 1:3-6 | Election and Predestination in Christ (Critical); Grace (High); Adoption into God’s Family (Critical) | The chapter’s densest doctrinal cluster: برگزید (chose), از پیش تعیین کرد (predestined), and فرزندخواندگی occur within three verses — mandatory theologian review as a single unit, not segment-by-segment. |
| 1:7-8 | Redemption and Atonement (Critical); Grace (High) | رهایی (به بهای فدیه) first occurrence; pair with خون-adjacent atonement framing established at 2:13. |
| 1:9-10 | The Mystery of Christ Revealed (Critical); Providence (Medium) | First occurrence of راز; must assert full disclosure against Sufi/Shia esoteric-knowledge defaults. |
| 1:11 | Election and Predestination (Critical); Providence (Medium); Adoption/Inheritance (Critical) | از پیش تعیین کرد reused; میراث (inheritance) first occurrence, concretely loaded by Iranian fiqh fractional-inheritance law. |
| 1:12-14 | Grace (High); Sealed/earnest (Assurance, supports Adoption Critical tier) | مهر شدن / ضمانت (sealing, earnest of the Spirit) supports assurance against mizan-uncertainty default; flag for native speaker review within the Critical adoption unit. |
| 1:15-16 | Sainthood (Medium); Faith (High); Thanksgiving (Low) | Standard prayer-report opening; low incremental risk beyond established terms. |
| 1:17-19 | Prayer and Intercession (Critical); Faith (High); Providence/inheritance (Medium/Critical) | Paul’s intercessory prayer itself — reinforces the exclusivity of Christian intercession later developed at 6:18-20. |
| 1:20-23 | Resurrection of Christ (Critical); Deity of Christ (Critical); Church as Body of Christ (High); The Fullness of Christ in the Church (Critical); Spiritual Warfare (principalities and powers, Critical) | The chapter’s Christological climax: قیامت, “far above all” principality/power language, and کمال (fullness) converge — requires the same mandatory combined theologian review as 4:13. |
Chapter 1 summary: Every section carries doctrinal weight; no portion of Ephesians 1 is exempt from theologian-level review given the density of Critical-tier doctrine (election, adoption, mystery, redemption, resurrection, deity, fullness) packed into a single chapter.
Ephesians 2 — Dead in Sin, Alive by Grace, United in Christ
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2:1-3 | Universal Human Accountability (High) | Densest statement of this doctrine in the curriculum (مرده; به طبیعت فرزندان خشم; نفس); anchors the core passage’s opening movement. |
| 2:4-7 | Salvation by Grace through Faith (Critical); Grace (High); Resurrection of Christ / believer-incorporation (Critical); Christian Identity in Christ (High) | رحمت (mercy) and فیض (grace) paired; 2:6 “raised…together with him” reuses قیامت in incorporative sense. |
| 2:8-9 | Salvation by Grace through Faith (Critical) | The core passage’s theological center: فیض…از طریق ایمان…نه از اعمال — direct inversion of the mizan framework; absolute enforcement of established renderings required. |
| 2:10 | Salvation by Grace through Faith (Critical); Walking in Newness of Life (High); Christian Identity in Christ (High) | ساختهٴ دست خدا (workmanship) and اعمال نیک (good works) must be visibly distinguished from 2:9’s اعمال; fruit, not ground. |
| 2:11-13 | Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity (Critical); Redemption and Atonement (Critical) | ختنه (circumcision), تابعیت/ملیت اسرائیل (commonwealth of Israel), and خون مسیح (blood of Christ) converge; commonwealth vocabulary compounds baseline Israel political sensitivity. |
| 2:14-18 | Reconciliation and Direct Access to God (Critical); Unity of Jews and Gentiles (Critical); Redemption and Atonement / cross (Critical) | دیوار جداکننده (dividing wall), آشتی دادن (reconcile), صلیب (cross), and دسترسی (access) all occur together — the single densest reconciliation passage in the book. |
| 2:19-22 | Church as the Body of Christ (High); Adoption into God’s Family (Critical, household of God); Sainthood (Medium) | اهل خانهٴ خدا (household of God) and معبد (temple) introduce the church-as-dwelling-of-God theme, reinforcing rather than replacing the adoption caution. |
Chapter 2 summary: Contains the core passage (2:1-10) and the book’s second major doctrinal climax (2:11-22, unity/reconciliation). No sub-section is doctrinally inert; the entire chapter requires theologian-level review.
Ephesians 3 — The Mystery, Paul’s Ministry, and the Prayer for Power
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3:1-6 | The Mystery of Christ Revealed (Critical); Unity of Jews and Gentiles (Critical) | راز defined explicitly as Gentile fellow-heirship “in Christ” — the passage’s own definition must anchor all other occurrences of راز in the book. |
| 3:7-9 | Grace (High); Apostleship (High); Providence/dispensation (Medium); The Mystery (Critical) | حکمت گوناگون خدا (manifold wisdom) first occurs at 3:10 but is introduced conceptually here; grace as the ground of Paul’s ministry. |
| 3:10-11 | The Mystery (Critical); Spiritual Warfare (principalities and powers, Critical); Providence (Medium) | فرمانرواییها و قدرتها reused from 1:21 in a revelatory rather than triumphal sense — the church itself displays God’s wisdom to these powers. |
| 3:12 | Reconciliation and Direct Access to God (Critical); Faith (High) | دسترسی reused; reinforces 2:18’s direct-access doctrine ahead of the household and warfare sections. |
| 3:13-15 | Adoption/Father (Critical, cross-reference) | پدر (Father) as the ground of Paul’s kneeling prayer; standard baseline term, no new risk. |
| 3:16-19 | Prayer and Intercession (Critical); The Fullness of Christ in the Church (Critical) | انسان درونی (inner man, deliberately not انسان باطنی) and کمال (fullness) converge in Paul’s prayer — second major کمال occurrence requiring the same qualification standard as 1:23 and 4:13. |
| 3:20-21 | Power of God (Medium, baseline); Glory (Medium, baseline) | Closing doxology; established baseline terms, low incremental risk. |
Chapter 3 summary: The chapter’s own explicit definition of “mystery” (3:3-6) is the single most important doctrinal anchor for controlling every other راز occurrence in Ephesians; flagged for priority theologian review as the controlling passage for that doctrine.
Ephesians 4 — One Body, Gifts, and the New Walk
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 4:1-3 | Divine Calling (High, baseline); Mutual Edification and Unity of the Spirit (Low) | دعوت reused from baseline; اتحاد روح introduced — low independent risk but flagged so اتحاد is not read as pan-Islamic Ummah solidarity. |
| 4:4-6 | Church as Body of Christ (High); Faith (High) | “One body, one Spirit…one faith, one baptism” — compact creedal-style unity statement; reinforces rather than introduces new risk. |
| 4:7-11 | Grace (High); Spiritual Gifts (Medium); Apostleship / Inspiration of Scripture (High) | عطایای روحانی and the fourfold office list (apostle/prophet/evangelist/pastor-teacher); “descended” (4:9) deliberately avoids نزول (Qur’anic revelation-descent term). |
| 4:12-13 | Gifts for Building Up the Church (High); The Fullness of Christ in the Church (Critical); Sonship of Christ (Critical); Deity of Christ (Critical) | The single most theologically dense verse in the curriculum: کمال, بلوغ کامل (deliberately not انسان کامل), معرفت کامل, and پسر خدا converge — mandatory combined theologian review regardless of otherwise-mechanical translation quality scoring. |
| 4:14-16 | Church as Body of Christ (High); Christian Identity in Christ (High) | سر (head) and بدن (body) reused in growth-and-maturity sense, distinct from the household-codes sense reused later at 5:23. |
| 4:17-24 | Putting Off the Old Self / New Self (High); Walking in Newness of Life (High); Universal Human Accountability (High, نفس) | انسان کهنه / انسان نو (individual sense) must be kept distinct from 2:15’s corporate “one new man”; guards against Islamic tawbah moral-resolve flattening. |
| 4:25-32 | Mutual Edification and Unity (Low); Church as Body of Christ (High, “members one of another”); Sanctification (High, grieving the Holy Spirit) | Practical household-of-faith ethics; بدن imagery reused; روحالقدس reused from baseline with Critical-tier caution intact. |
Chapter 4 summary: Contains the book’s single highest-density doctrinal verse (4:13); every section otherwise carries at least High-tier content. No portion is doctrinally inert.
Ephesians 5 — Light, Love, and the Household of Christ
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 5:1-2 | Walking in Newness of Life (High); Redemption and Atonement (sacrifice, Critical); Love (Medium, baseline-adjacent) | پیروی کردن از خدا (imitators of God) — تقلید absolutely forbidden; قربانی (sacrifice/offering) collides with Eid-e Qorban and Ashura frameworks. |
| 5:3-7 | Sainthood (Medium); Universal Human Accountability (High, cross-reference) | Vice list framed against corporate holiness; reinforces rather than introduces new terms. |
| 5:8-14 | Walking as Children of Light, Not Darkness (Critical); Spiritual Warfare (Critical, cross-reference to 6:12) | The book’s clearest Zoroastrian-dualism collision point: نور/تاریکی must convey a completed transfer out of a defeated condition, not an ongoing battle of co-equal powers. |
| 5:15-18 | Walking in Newness of Life (High); Sanctification (High, filled with the Spirit) | پر شدن از روح contrasted with drunkenness; low incremental risk beyond established Spirit-terms. |
| 5:19-20 | Thanksgiving (Low); Fellowship (Medium, baseline) | Corporate worship instruction; low risk. |
| 5:21-33 | Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships (High); Church as Body of Christ (High, bride/body imagery); Love (Medium) | تابع بودن (submission) and سر (head) reused from 1:22/4:15 in the marriage context — mutual submission (5:21) must structurally control the husband-headship reading (5:23,25); احترام (reverence, 5:33) shares the same sensitivity. |
Chapter 5 summary: Contains two of the curriculum’s most culturally sensitive passages — the light/darkness ethical dualism (5:8-14) and the household code (5:21-33) — both requiring theologian-level review for their respective Critical/High doctrines.
Ephesians 6 — Household Codes Continued, Spiritual Warfare, and Closing
| Section | Doctrines Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 6:1-4 | Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships (High) | Children/parents instruction; کریم reused; standard household-code caution, no new terms. |
| 6:5-9 | Household Codes (High); Lordship of Christ (Critical) | غلامان و اربابان; the identical Greek root κύριος for human masters requires deliberate lexical distinction (ارباب) from خداوند to protect Christ’s unique Lordship — flagged for combined review. |
| 6:10-13 | Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God (Critical) | فرمانرواییها، قدرتها، جهانداران این ظلمت، نیروهای شرارت روحانی — the fullest concentration of the powers-vocabulary cluster; direct real-world safety implications for house-church readers given Iranian jihad/Basij rhetoric. |
| 6:14-17 | Spiritual Warfare / Armor of God (Critical); Redemption/righteousness (cross-reference, baseline عدالت); Inspiration of Scripture (High, word of God) | زره تمام خدا itemized piece by piece; کلام خدا (6:17) requires the same Qalamullah-distinction caution as 3:5/2:20’s inspiration doctrine. |
| 6:18-20 | Prayer and Intercession (Critical); Mission/Evangelism (baseline High, cross-reference) | دعا و شفاعت combined with سفیر (ambassador) — Paul’s self-description as an imprisoned ambassador has direct pastoral relevance to underground house-church persecution risk. |
| 6:21-22 | (Personal commendation of Tychicus) | Reviewed — no new doctrinal content; standard epistolary closing courtesy. |
| 6:23-24 | Grace (High); Faith (High); Love (Medium); Peace (Medium, baseline) | Closing benediction reuses established baseline and Ephesians terms exactly as recorded; no new risk introduced. |
Chapter 6 summary: Opens with the household-codes doctrine’s second half, moves through the curriculum’s single most concentrated spiritual-warfare passage (6:10-20), and closes with a doctrinally uneventful but term-consistent benediction (6:21-24), explicitly reviewed as introducing no new risk.
C. Summary Statistics
Consistent with assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json:
| Tier | Count | Review Routing | Total Requiring That Routing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 15 | Human theologian | — |
| High | 13 | Human theologian | — |
| Medium | 4 | Native speaker review | 4 |
| Low | 2 | Automated review | 2 |
| Total doctrines | 34 | — | Theologian: 28 (15 Critical + 13 High) |
Chapters with zero doctrinally inert sections: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — every verse-range carries at least Medium-tier content.
Sections explicitly reviewed with no new doctrinal content: Ephesians 1:1-2 (salutation — established terms only); Ephesians 6:21-22 (personal commendation of Tychicus); Ephesians 6:23-24 (closing benediction — established terms only). These are recorded here per the full-book-coverage mandate rather than silently omitted.
Doctrines with a single controlling definitional passage requiring priority review: The Mystery of Christ Revealed (controlling passage: 3:3-6); The Fullness of Christ in the Church (controlling passage: 4:12-13, doubled with Sonship and Deity of Christ); Salvation by Grace through Faith (controlling passage: 2:8-10, the core passage itself).
This document extends assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json with full chapter-by-chapter narrative coverage per PRD Phase 1 Step 4. It must be read alongside analysis/08_core_glossary.md for term-level detail and will inform the Phase 1 Step 5+ artifacts (translation memory extension, AI requirements update) without altering any risk tier or routing decision already recorded in the registry.
Critical Risk Doctrines
Salvation by Grace through Faith
Persian name: نجات به فیض از طریق ایمان
Key terms: grace, faith, salvation, works, good_works, gift, boast, mercy
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Ephesians 2:8-9 states the precise inverse of the Islamic mizan (deeds-weighing) doctrine and its Zoroastrian Chinvat-Bridge counterpart, both independently embedded in Persian religious culture. اعمال (works) must never be allowed to re-enter as a ground of acceptance; اعمال نیک (good works, 2:10) must be sequenced strictly as fruit, following the Qur’anic ‘iman wa ‘amal-e saleh’ paired-condition pattern this passage directly confronts.
Election and Predestination in Christ
Persian name: برگزیدگی و تعیین از پیش در مسیح
Key terms: election, predestined, adoption, inheritance, providence
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: از پیش تعیین کرد must never be replaced with تقدیر/moqaddar-sakht, the Islamic qadar-fatalism term denoting impersonal, exhaustive determination of all events including evil. Ephesians 1:4-5 pairs election directly with adoption (فرزندخواندگی), compounding the risk of the Imamate’s lineage-based, ongoing-office election doctrine being imported onto a personal, Christ-centered choice for salvation.
Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity
Persian name: اتحاد یهودیان و غیریهودیان در یک انسانیت تازه
Key terms: gentiles, israel, commonwealth_of_israel, circumcision, dividing_wall, one_new_man, reconcile, blood_of_christ, cross, access, covenant
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: compounds the baseline’s already-High ‘israel’/political-sensitivity caution with commonwealth/citizenship vocabulary (2:12), the Ashura/Karbala blood-martyrdom collision (خون مسیح, 2:13), and the crucifixion-denial collision (صلیب, 2:16). The corporate ‘one new man’ (2:15) must be kept distinct from a generic self-help ‘new me’ reading and must not be flattened into commentary on contemporary Iranian state politics regarding Israel.
The Mystery of Christ Revealed
Persian name: رازِ مسیح که آشکار شده است
Key terms: mystery, manifold_wisdom, inner_man, full_knowledge, dispensation, fellowship
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: راز collides with two live native frameworks that assume restricted, elite access to hidden truth — Sufi mystical poetry’s esoteric disclosure to advanced initiates, and Shia esoteric theology’s Imam-guarded باطنی knowledge. Paul’s usage is the theological opposite: fully disclosed and equally available to every believer through the plainly preached gospel. Every occurrence requires this contrast to be made explicit.
Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God
Persian name: جنگ روحانی و زره خدا
Key terms: principalities_and_powers, armor_of_god, word_of_god, light_and_darkness
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Zoroastrian dualistic cosmology (Ahura Mazda vs. Angra Mainyu) predisposes hearers to read the ‘principalities and powers’ (6:12) and ‘light/darkness’ (5:8) as a roughly co-equal rival cosmic army rather than created, already-defeated beings under Christ’s exalted authority (1:21). Additionally, Iran’s state and religious discourse’s heavy use of literal jihad and Basij militarization rhetoric creates real risk of the armor imagery (6:11-17) being read as literal or political, which carries genuine safety implications for underground house-church readers.
Deity of Christ
Persian name: الوهیت مسیح
Key terms: lord, son_of_god, fullness, power_of_god
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Christ’s exaltation ‘far above all’ principality and power (1:20-21) and his identification as the source of the church’s ‘fullness’ (1:23) constitute the paradigm case of shirk from a tawhid standpoint shared by Persian Shia Islam. Must never be softened to a merely honored, exalted human figure.
Sonship of Christ
Persian name: پسر خدا بودن مسیح
Key terms: son_of_god, fullness, perfect_man
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: پسر خدا must be used without alteration, per the documented Hezare No controversy already flagged in the baseline. Ephesians 4:13 is the book’s only explicit occurrence and lands in the single most theologically dense verse of the curriculum (paired with fullness and perfect-man vocabulary), requiring mandatory theologian review.
Lordship of Christ
Persian name: خداوندی مسیح
Key terms: lord, servants_and_masters
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: خداوند must retain exclusive, supreme force at every occurrence. Ephesians 6:5-9 uses the identical Greek root (κύριος) for a human slave-master, requiring deliberate lexical distinction (ارباب for the human master) so the doctrine of Christ’s unique Lordship is never diluted.
Adoption into God’s Family
Persian name: فرزندخواندگی در خانواده خدا
Key terms: adoption, household_of_god, inheritance, father
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Iranian civil law’s use of the weaker سرپرستی (custodianship), reflecting the Quranic restriction (33:4-5) shared across Sunni and Shia fiqh, remains the operative real-world default. Ephesians 1:5’s pairing of adoption with predestination and full inheritance (میراث, itself concretely loaded by Iranian fiqh-based fractional-inheritance law) intensifies this collision beyond the baseline’s Romans 8 treatment.
Resurrection of Christ
Persian name: قیامت مسیح
Key terms: resurrection, power_of_god
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: shares the Quran’s crucifixion-denial (4:157) problem with the baseline; Ephesians 2:6’s believer-incorporation language (‘raised us up together with him’) must retain its already-accomplished force and must not be subordinated to the Mahdi-centered Shia eschatological framework.
Reconciliation and Direct Access to God
Persian name: آشتی و دسترسی مستقیم به خدا
Key terms: reconcile, access, peace, dividing_wall
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: آشتی دادن must be taught as a unilateral, cross-secured restoration, not a negotiated social truce (مصالحه); دسترسی (2:18, 3:12) must assert direct, Spirit-enabled access without a human intermediary, directly engaging the baseline’s Critical Imam-intercession caution rather than merely coexisting with it.
Prayer and Intercession
Persian name: دعا و شفاعت
Key terms: intercession, access
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: شفاعت remains unusually central and popularly practiced in Twelver Shia devotion (Muharram mourning rituals, shrine pilgrimage seeking the Imams’ intercession); Ephesians’ ‘ambassador in chains’ (6:20) and direct-access doctrine (2:18) together must be taught as excluding, not supplementing, this framework.
The Fullness of Christ in the Church
Persian name: کمال مسیح در کلیسا
Key terms: fullness, perfect_man, full_knowledge, body, head
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: کمال is the exact technical term of the Sufi doctrine of انسان کامل (al-insan al-kamil), an individually-attained mystical perfection. Christ’s own completeness, corporately indwelling and expressed through the church, must never be presented as achieved by mystical progress; the term is retained for lack of a viable substitute but requires the heaviest qualification at every occurrence, especially the doubled collision at 4:13.
Walking as Children of Light, Not Darkness
Persian name: رفتار به عنوان فرزندان نور، نه تاریکی
Key terms: light_and_darkness, principalities_and_powers, walk
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Iran’s own pre-Islamic Zoroastrian cosmic dualism (Ahura Mazda vs. Angra Mainyu) is the single most significant indigenous-substrate collision risk in the curriculum for this doctrine. Darkness must be taught as a defeated, subordinate condition believers have been definitively transferred out of (a completed transfer, 5:8), not a co-eternal rival power engaged in an ongoing battle between equals; connect explicitly to the principalities-and-powers doctrine of 6:12.
Redemption and Atonement through Christ’s Blood and Sacrifice
Persian name: رهایی و کفاره از طریق خون و قربانی مسیح
Key terms: redemption, blood_of_christ, cross, sacrifice, forgiveness
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: this cluster collides with three distinct, deeply embedded native frameworks simultaneously — the Karbala/Hussein martyrdom-ransom devotional pattern (redemption, blood), the Qur’an’s crucifixion-denial (cross), and the Eid-e Qorban ritual-sacrifice calendar (sacrifice). Christ’s atonement must be taught as a unique, historical, once-for-all, judicially sufficient act, categorically distinct from all three at every occurrence.
High Risk Doctrines
The Church as the Body of Christ
Persian name: کلیسا به عنوان بدن مسیح
Key terms: church, body, head, fullness, temple, saints
Review routing: Human theologian
سر (head) collides with Iran’s codified Islamic family-law headship (qavamiyat) once the same term recurs in the household code (5:23); بدن (body) must not collapse into a generic social ‘community’ sense; معبد (temple, 2:21) risks passive absorption of Shia shrine-veneration assumptions unless taught as a deliberate temple-replacement claim.
Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships
Persian name: احکام خانواده و روابط مسیحمحور
Key terms: submission, head, love, reverence, servants_and_masters
Review routing: Human theologian
Intersects directly with Iran’s codified Islamic family law (qavamiyat, Qur’an 4:34), which grants husbands formal legal headship over the household. Must be taught with the mutual-submission framing of 5:21 kept structurally prior and controlling, and husbands’ headship (5:23,25) explicitly redefined by Christ’s self-sacrificial love, not confirmed as unilateral legal authority. Every translated occurrence requires theologian-level, not merely native-speaker, review.
Gifts for Building Up the Church
Persian name: عطایا برای بنای کلیسا
Key terms: spiritual_gifts, evangelist_pastor_teacher, equipping, full_knowledge, perfect_man, fullness
Review routing: Human theologian
Ephesians 4:13 doubly collides with named Sufi doctrines: πλήρωμα (‘fullness,’ کمال) with al-insan al-kamil, and τέλειος ἀνήρ (‘perfect man’) with the same doctrine if rendered literally — hence the departure to بلوغ کامل. ἐπίγνωσις (‘full knowledge’) further risks assimilation to Sufi ma’refat mystical-ascent epistemology unless marked corporate and gift-mediated.
Walking in Newness of Life
Persian name: زندگی در تازگی حیات
Key terms: walk, old_new_man_individual, workmanship, imitators_of_god, filled_with_spirit, fruit_of_the_spirit
Review routing: Human theologian
The individual ‘old man/new man’ (4:22-24) risks being flattened into the Islamic tawbah (‘turning over a new leaf’) moral-resolve framework rather than a change grounded in union with Christ’s death and resurrection; ‘imitators of God’ (5:1) must never use تقلید, the Shia marja’-following technical term for clerical-authority obedience.
Grace
Persian name: فیض
Key terms: grace, mercy, gift
Review routing: Human theologian
Feyz’s Persian philosophical loading (an automatic ontological emanation) must be corrected toward a freely willed, personal gift; Ephesians pairs grace pervasively with mercy (رحمت, 2:4), which independently carries the risk of being read as general Islamic divine clemency apart from Christ’s specific atoning work.
Faith
Persian name: ایمان
Key terms: faith, access
Review routing: Human theologian
Persian Shia iman includes belief in the Imamate as a core article; must be anchored as personal trust in Christ specifically. Ephesians 2:8 requires faith to be rendered as the means (‘through faith’), not the meritorious ground, of salvation.
Sanctification
Persian name: تقدیس
Key terms: sanctification, holy, baptism, flesh
Review routing: Human theologian
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making the church holy, pictured in 5:26 as cleansing ‘with the washing of water by the word’ — must not be read as ritual ablution (ghusl/wudu) or Sufi نفس self-mortification.
Apostleship
Persian name: رسالت حواریون
Key terms: apostle, prophet
Review routing: Human theologian
Ephesians 2:20’s claim that apostles and prophets form the church’s literal ‘foundation’ intensifies the baseline’s Imamate-succession collision, since it asserts a unique, closed foundational authority that could be read as competing with claims of ongoing authoritative succession.
Inspiration of Scripture
Persian name: الهام کتاب مقدس
Key terms: prophet, word_of_god
Review routing: Human theologian
کلام خدا (6:17) directly risks equivalence with the Qur’an’s own formal title کلامالله (Kalamullah) and its verbatim-dictation (wahy) doctrine of inspiration; must be qualified at every occurrence as God moving human authors to write in their own words, referring to Christian Scripture, never the Qur’an.
Universal Human Accountability
Persian name: مسئولیت جهانی انسان
Key terms: sin, trespasses, dead_spiritually, children_of_wrath, flesh
Review routing: Human theologian
Ephesians 2:1-3 is the curriculum’s densest statement of this doctrine, combining total spiritual deadness (مرده), inherited guilt (‘by nature children of wrath,’ به طبیعت فرزندان خشم) and the sin-prone نفس, together confronting both Islamic fitrah (innate purity) doctrine and Zoroastrianism’s independent Chinvat Bridge deeds-weighing ethic.
Christian Identity in Christ
Persian name: هویت مسیحی در مسیح
Key terms: one_new_man, old_new_man_individual, body, workmanship
Review routing: Human theologian
Identity located in union with Christ (both corporate, 2:15, and individual, 4:22-24), distinct from national, ethnic, or religious identity markers that carry unusually high personal and social cost to depart from in the Iranian context; the two senses of ‘new man’ must not be conflated.
Putting Off the Old Self, Putting On the New
Persian name: از تن به در کردن انسان کهنه و پوشیدن انسان نو
Key terms: old_new_man_individual, walk, flesh
Review routing: Human theologian
Risks flattening into the Islamic tawbah (‘turning over a new leaf’) moral-resolve framework of self-improvement through renewed intention, rather than a decisive identity-change grounded in union with Christ’s own death and resurrection; deliberately avoids کمال/انسان کامل vocabulary.
Baptism as Union with Christ
Persian name: تعمید به عنوان اتحاد با مسیح
Key terms: baptism, one_new_man
Review routing: Human theologian
The surrounding Iranian ritual-purification culture (Islamic ghusl/wudu, pre-Islamic Zoroastrian purity rites) may predispose hearers to read baptism as a self-performed purification act rather than a sign of union with Christ’s own accomplished death and resurrection.
Medium Risk Doctrines
Sainthood (Called to be Holy)
Persian name: قدوسیت مؤمنان
Key terms: saints, holy
Review routing: Native speaker review
Corporate sense for all believers throughout Ephesians, not an ascetic or shrine-venerated elite class.
Spiritual Gifts
Persian name: عطایای روحانی
Key terms: spiritual_gifts, evangelist_pastor_teacher, equipping
Review routing: Native speaker review
Must retain the ‘spiritual’ qualifier throughout the office-gift list of 4:11 so gifts are not read as ordinary talent or personal achievement.
Kingdom Mission
Persian name: ماموریت ملکوت
Key terms: kingdom_of_god
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s and Christ’s shared spiritual reign, distinct from Iran’s own explicitly religious-political governing structure (Velayat-e Faqih).
Providence
Persian name: تدبیر الهی
Key terms: providence, predestined, dispensation
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s personal, purposive governance of history, applied specifically to the unfolding of the mystery; keep distinct from folk qadar-style fatalism, especially given its direct pairing with predestined vocabulary in 1:11.
Low Risk Doctrines
Thanksgiving
Persian name: شکرگزاری
Key terms: thanksgiving
Review routing: Automated review
Shukr is also a major Islamic virtue; broadly compatible, low risk.
Mutual Edification and Unity of the Spirit
Persian name: بنای متقابل و اتحاد روح
Key terms: unity_of_the_spirit, equipping, exhort, fruit_of_the_spirit
Review routing: Automated review
Building one another up in Spirit-wrought unity; low independent doctrinal risk beyond the caution (flagged separately at Medium) that اتحاد not be read as pan-Islamic Ummah political solidarity.
Referenced passages