# Commentary on Ephesians Word Study – Mystery > *Mystery* (Eph 3:3) – *Mystērion* (Gk.): \"mystery\" or \"secret\". The term is used six times in Ephesians and 22 times in the rest of the NT. Like Jesus, who revealed the mysteries of his kingdom through parables (Mt 13:11; Mk 4:11), Paul often teaches his readers about the hidden plan of God now manifest in the reign of Christ (Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 15:51; Eph 5:32; Col 2:2; 1 Tim 3:16). The most likely background for this notion is the Book of Daniel, where \"mystery\" (Aramaic raz) appears eight times in a single chapter (Dan 2:18-19, 27-30, 47). Here the mystery is described in a dream to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who envisioned a huge statue of a human body that symbolized the great empires of the earth. Though the king himself was the \"head\" (Dan 2:38) of the statue who received his empire from the Lord (Dan 2:37), Daniel went on to describe how the statue would be destroyed and replaced by the messianic kingdom of God. This is the mystery of the kingdom revealed in Ephesians (Eph 1:9; 3:4, 9). It is the mystery of another body, the Church, with its head, Jesus Christ (CCC 772, 1066). --- > Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, *The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament*, Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010).