Bible Strands
Ephesians 2:21
In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Paul addresses the Ephesian church, explaining the spiritual construction of believers immediately after declaring salvation by grace in the preceding verses.
The words — συναρμολογουμένη (sunarmologoumenē) literally means "being fitted together," and αὔξει (auxei) means "is growing" or "is increasing."
The thread — The architectural metaphor appears in 1 Corinthians 3:9 where believers are called God’s building, in 1 Corinthians 3:16 identifying them as God’s temple, and in 2 Corinthians 6:16 contrasting the temple of the living God with idols.
Why it lands — The text states that a unified structure is being joined and expanded into a holy temple centered on Christ, requiring readers to abandon isolated religious identities and submit to collective spiritual formation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
- 1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
- 2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”
- Ephesians 4:13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.
- 1 Kings 6:7 The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.
- Hebrews 3:3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.
- Exodus 26:1 “You are to construct the tabernacle itself with ten curtains of finely spun linen, each with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and cherubim skillfully worked into them.
- Psalms 93:5 Your testimonies are fully confirmed; holiness adorns Your house, O LORD, for all the days to come.
- Ezekiel 42:12 And corresponding to the doors of the chambers that were facing south, there was a door in front of the walkway that was parallel to the wall extending eastward.
- Ezekiel 40:1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month—in the fourteenth year after Jerusalem had been struck down—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He took me there.