I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
In everyday English, as well as the Greek, the word prisoner conveys the idea of a man in bonds, a captive, captured, apprehended against his will. As I covered in an earlier Bible Truth (Bible Truth #121) we are spiritual slaves, in bonds and have no free will. That is what every human who ever lived is, a slave. According to Romans 6:17-18 (and 6:22) we are slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness - and neither slaves nor prisoners have free will. They are compelled. Paul writes here that he is a prisoner.
He continues in the same sentence urging the Ephesians to live a life worthy of the “call” they received. All of those who lived in Ephesus did not receive the call and Paul is not writing to all of the Ephesians. He is writing to the saints (Ephesians 1:1), i.e. believers.
This easily reconciles with Romans 8:30 where Paul writes that those whom God calls, He glorifies, period. That means He saves EVERY man He calls. Neither there, nor anywhere else in Scripture does the almighty creature have an option to reject the call of The Creator.
Bottom line: We Christians are prisoners as Paul is a prisoner, and not every man is called to salvation (1 Corinthians 1:26).
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