[1] He became a student at Uppsala University in 1862; during that time he found the Pietist revival movement through Carl Olof Rosenius' works and publication Pietisten.

[2] The couple had eleven children,[3] including business owner and politician Josef [sv] (1870), Jakob Efraim (1876), business leader Johannes (Nannes) Laurentius [sv] (1877), Paul Emanuel (1879), Ester Katarina (1881), Fredrik Esaias (1884), Lydia Maria (1886), and Julia Elisabet (1888).

From 1877 to 1880 Ekman published Vittnet, kristlig månadsskrift, a Christian monthly, together with free church leader Paul Petter Waldenström; and from 1880 to 1885 the periodical Förbundet, together with priest Andreas Fernholm.

In 1904 he resigned as chairman and missionary director of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden because he found that his views on eschatology, especially on the restoration of all things, universalism, displeased several of the leaders of the association.

[7][5] There had been much debate about his views due to his book Evangelii fullhet och de eviga straffen ('The Fullness of the Gospel and Eternal Punishment', 1903).

After leaving the Mission Covenant Church, he became managing director of Svenska livförsäkringsbolaget (the Swedish Life Insurance Company),[2] where he had been a member of the board since 1893.

[8] From 1885 to 1887 Ekman represented the municipalities of Kristinehamn, Askersund, Nora and Lindesberg in the Riksdag's Andra kammare (lower house), and the constituency of Stockholm from 1891 to 1893 and 1894 to 1896.

He wrote 25 motions of his own, primarily on issues of religious freedom such as the introduction of compulsory civil marriage, the right to leave the state church and the abolition of the obligation to baptize children.