Five-minute study · Day 368 · Ephesians 2
Ephesians 2:10
A word worth stopping on: workmanship / masterpiece ποίημα poiema
'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.' The Greek word for workmanship is poiema. Say it aloud and you will hear the English word it produced: poem. You are God's poem. His poiema. The word means something made, a work produced by a craftsman, an artifact that carries the mark of its maker. In the Septuagint, poiema describes God's created works, the heavens and the earth, the creatures, the systems of the natural world. Paul takes that word and applies it to people. You are the same category of thing as a sunset, as a mountain, as the ocean. You are something God made on purpose.
Word study: workmanship / masterpiece
- Greek
- ποίημα
- Pronounced
- poiema
- Strong's
- G4161
- Definition
- A thing made, a product of labor, a work of craftsmanship. From poieo (to make, to do, to create). In classical Greek, the word could refer to any manufactured artifact. In biblical Greek, it refers specifically to God's creative works.
Poiema appears only twice in the New Testament: here in Ephesians 2:10 and in Romans 1:20, where Paul says God's invisible qualities 'are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made (poiemasin),' meaning the created order. BDAG defines it as 'that which is made, a work, a creation.' The word is rare, and both New Testament uses point to God as the maker.
Lincoln's commentary on Ephesians places 2:10 as the conclusion of the salvation summary in 2:1-10. The passage moves through three stages: what you were (dead in trespasses, v. 1), what God did (made you alive, raised you, seated you with Christ, vv. 4-6), and what you now are (his poiema, v. 10). Lincoln notes that the emphasis in verse 10 falls entirely on God's agency. 'We are his workmanship' is passive: we are the thing made. 'Created in Christ Jesus' is passive: we were created. 'Which God hath before ordained' is active, with God as the subject. At no point in the verse does the human agent act. God makes. God creates. God ordains. The person walks in what God prepared.
The connection to poiesis (the Greek word for the art of making, from which English derives 'poetry') is not accidental. In classical Greek, a poietes was a maker, and the highest form of making was poetry, the craft of assembling words into patterns that reveal truth. Aristotle's Poetics uses poiesis as the master term for creative production. Paul, writing in Greek to a Greek-speaking audience in Ephesus, uses a word that would have carried artistic connotations. You are something God crafted with intention, skill, and design.
Lincoln also highlights the phrase 'before ordained' (proetoimasen). The good works you are destined to walk in were prepared in advance, laid out like a path through a forest before you entered the trees. The image is of a carpenter who builds a house before the occupant arrives, or a poet who writes the lines before anyone reads them. The works are ready. The life has been composed. You walk into a story whose plot was written before you showed up.
Historical context · 1st century CE
Poiema and the Craftsman-God in Ephesus
Ephesus was one of the great artistic and manufacturing centers of the Roman world. The city's most famous structure, the Temple of Artemis, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a massive marble edifice adorned with 127 columns, each 60 feet tall, many carved with elaborate reliefs. The temple employed armies of craftsmen: stonemasons, metalworkers, painters, and sculptors. The silversmith Demetrius, who appears in Acts 19:24, made silver shrines of Artemis and led a riot against Paul because the gospel was threatening his trade. Ephesus was a city that understood poiema. Making things was its economic and cultural identity.
Lincoln situates Ephesians 2:10 within this context. When Paul tells the Ephesian church 'we are his poiema,' the audience would have heard the word against the background of their city's artisan culture. They walked past workshops every day. They saw craftsmen shaping silver, carving marble, weaving textiles. A poiema was the finished product of skilled labor, the object that bore the maker's mark. Paul says: that is what you are. God is the craftsman. You are the artifact.
The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, widely used in Ephesus) uses poiema in Psalm 92:4 (91:5 LXX): 'For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work (poiema),' referring to God's creative acts. The word connects the human believer in Ephesians 2:10 to the cosmic creation in Genesis 1. The same God who made the heavens and the earth made you. You are the same kind of work.
The phrase 'created in Christ Jesus' (ktisthentes en Christo Iesou) uses the verb ktizo, the standard Septuagint word for God's creative act in Genesis. Lincoln notes that Paul is describing a new creation, a second making. The first creation produced the heavens and the earth. The new creation produces people refashioned in Christ. The poiema of Ephesians 2:10 is the new-creation version of the tov meod of Genesis 1:31. God looks at what he has made and is satisfied. The artifact bears his signature.
For reflection
Poiema. You are God's poem. His crafted work. The word carries the weight of intentional, skilled making. Consider the parts of yourself you dismiss as accidental or broken. Your temperament, your particular way of seeing the world, the experiences that shaped you. According to this verse, all of it is material in the hands of a craftsman. What part of your life have you written off as a mistake that might actually be a line in the poem?
The good works were prepared in advance. The path was built before you started walking. You are not improvising. You are walking into something that was ready before you arrived.
Sources: BDAG; Lincoln, "Ephesians"