Ephesians 3:14-21. In yesterday’s post Paul began a prayer, or rather he began a report about how he had been praying for the believers in Ephesus. As he began he mentioned the fact that he was in prison. Although he was being held by the Roman government awaiting a trial he says he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He then went on explain how God had a plan for his (God’s) household and how he (Paul) was a manager (the word stewardship) of that plan. He called the plan a “mystery” that God had now revealed. Earlier in the letter he had talked about the “mystery” and explained that it was about God saving mankind through Jesus. Yesterday Paul was a little more specific about how gentiles and Jews were equal partner in God’s forever family. Even though the Jews had had a little advantage, since they had originally had some information about how God was going to deal with the sin problem (see “A Tale of Two Trees” or maybe “The Old Testament Connection”). He also reminded them that God was the creator of all things, told them that this new family they were now a part of, the church, was showing to demons that God is wise, loving and powerful, and he reminded them that they were God’s children and could talk to God boldly and confidently if they had put their faith in Jesus as God’s solution to the sin problem (their rebellion, disrespect, and disobedience toward God). He ended his little side journey by asking them not to be discouraged by the fact that he was under arrest. He reminded them that he was there because he was out serving God by helping people find Jesus , and their honorable place in God’s forever family.

In today’s reading he returns to his report about how he had been praying for them. In verse 14 he tells them because God had given him the privilege of getting to help people know about Jesus that he “bowed his knee before the Father.” In verse 16 Paul says he is “bowing the knee” so that God would do something. This clearly tells us he is asking God for something. In Paul’s day the most normal way people prayed was standing up. The idea of bowing was something that people did before kings and people of great power, both of which God is.

In verse 15 he shows one way God is powerful when he tells the readers that it is from God that every “family” in Heaven and on Earth get their name. The Greek word translated “family” is “patria” (remember that the New Testament was written mostly in Greek, the language of Paul’s day).   We get English words like patriarch and paternal from that word. The Greek’s associated families with the father who was the head of the family. So God is seen here as the one who forms or founds every “family”. Bible experts don’t agree on what it means “in Heaven and on Earth”. Some believe that in Heaven human families will still have some connection, others say that the word is sometimes used for other social groups or even people groups. Sometimes we talk about a group of friends or people we work as a “family”. Also Paul has just been talking about God as a Father and we know that he often uses family language to describe how believers relate to each other, so the family in Heaven could be God’s family and the families on earth could be human ones, or it could be about other groups. Some experts even extend the idea to the “family” of demons in verse 10. The point though is that God has authority, he is the head over all of it. God is powerful.

Although God has power that is probably not why Paul is “bending his knee” rather than standing in front of God talking to him. Yes God is powerful, but remember that Paul just told the Ephesian believers that they could boldly and confidently approach God. In Luke 22:41-43 Jesus knelt down to pay to God. This is just before he was to be arrested, tortured, and executed. We see he was very distress and emotional about what he was facing. Sometimes when people are faced with something very emotional they go “weak in the knees”, they just lose all strength to stand up. In light of what Paul told the believers about approaching God and the use of the word Father for God the picture we have here is of Paul being very emotional as he prays for these believers in Ephesus. He barely knew them, if at all, but he felt very connected to and responsible for them.

In verses 16-17 we see that he is asking God to give them strength in their inner person (Inner man, heart) so that Jesus could be a part of their lives, influence how they thought and lived (dwell or live in them). There are two important parts to how the power of God to do this comes into their lives. It is through faith and with the help of the Holy Spirit(remember before we learned that faith, hearing about Jesus and believing what we know he has done for us and trusting our life and eternity to him alone, is what brought salvation from sin into our lives, Ephesians 2:8-9. Also the Holy Spirit is how Jesus actually “lives in us”, John 14:15-16, John 14:25-26, John 15:26, John 16:7).

Greek documents (like this letter) were written without punctuation and without spaces between the letter. Also they were written in all capital letters, though there were variations as to how letters were made for books verses quickly written documents like this letter; carefully hand printed verses “handwriting” or cursive. Translators need to consider what they are reading and what they know about the person, situation, etc. to figure out things like punctuation and capitalization. Some times translators have different ideas about that in different places. It’s that way with the end of verse 17.

In the Greek ( the way Paul wrote this, or had his secretary write this) the words “in love” come first. It literally says “ you in love rooted and founded” (like a foundation of a building). Or more completely “to dwell Christ thorough faith in the hearts you in love rooted and grounded”. Now most translations say something like “so Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so you, being rooted and founded in love” and then continue on into verse 18 “may be able to grasp or comprehend…” Interestingly the “so” or “that” that they put after the word “faith” really comes after the “rooted” and “grounded” words.

I hope you are still here thinking, don’t freak out, there’s a good point to all of this. You may not know that the Bible, as it was originally written didn’t have verse numbers, those were added around 1500 AD to help people studying the Bible find different parts. Remember it was written with no spaces between the letters and no punctuation. It’s really no problem for most people to read the language they grew up with if it is written that way. Also different languages put words in different orders. In English we talk about “the red car” but in Spanish they talk about “el carro rojo”. They put the adjective (red=rojo) after the word it is describing. So the fact that the Greek words and the English words are in different orders doesn’t mean that the translators did a bad job, and in fact the fact that many English translations have the same sort of order helps us see that they did a good job. Those translations were done a different times in history by different groups of guys so the fact that they agree is a good thing.

The reason I mentioned all of this though is because some experts in Greek think that the words “You in love rooted and founded” are a separate little statement. Since the word “so or that” is right before the rest of the words in verse 18, they think it should say something like, “so Christ may live through faith in your hearts; in love you have been rooted and founded, So you may be able to understand with all God’s people…” They say the grammar is a lot like Ephesians 2:8-9 “for by grace you have been saved; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”. So what’s the point? Both was of punctuation this have the same basic meaning, Paul want Jesus to be strong in them so they can understand something, that we haven’t come to yet. They are planted and have a good foundation but Paul wants them to have more. He wants the tree or the building to grow. All of this comes up because the grammar is very hard here at the end of verse 17. It even seemed that way to early believers near the time of Paul that were native Greek speakers (By the way Paul spoke an older form of Greek. Modern Greek is different, think English you use and the English in a King James Bible or the way actors talk when they are doing Shakespeare). We need to remember that Paul was dictating this. Some Greek experts think that Paul was becoming very emotional. Remember he cares about these people. He keeps taking them about the power of God and how they are all a part of God’s family. They are not second class Christians behind the Jewish believers they are all one “new man” one “family of God” one “house for God to live in”. Although this is a report of how Paul has been praying for them it is turning in to a prayer right then and there as he speaks, a fact we will see when we come to verses 20-21.

In verses 18-19 Paul says he wants the gentile readers (see Ephesus 3:4-6) to “be able to comprehend” (the word translated “comprehend” means to grab ahold of something). He wants them to have the ability to grab something and make it an active part of their lives. He says he wants them to be able to really understand know the size of something. Interestingly he doesn’t actually tell them at first what he wants them to know. In verse 18 he uses four different words for dimensions. Width, length, height,and depth this is his way of saying, “Dudes, I’m praying that you really have the ability to get this totally huge thing.” He finally tells them what the huge thing is though, “I want you to know the unknowable love of Jesus so you can be filled all the way up.” This doesn’t mean that Paul is praying that they will become like God or as strong as God or as smart as God he is praying that they will be strong in Jesus so they can be all God made each of them to be.

In verses 20-21 we see that this is no longer just a report about what he had been praying, all this emotion has turned his words into a prayer right there on the spot, right in the middle of his letter. He has just told them that he has been asking God to help them really understand the love and power of God that God has used for them and placed in them. How God has fixed their broken relationship with him and made them one new group for him. Here at the end of all that Paul recognizes that God can do way more that we can even imagine. When Paul calls God “the one who is able” he uses the Greek word for “power”, “the powerful one”. Then Paul uses two two ideas to describe this power. The first one means something like “way more” or “more extremely”. The second idea is something like “infinitely more than”. Both of these apply to what the readers could ask for or even imagine. Paul’s words are communicating an insanely powerful God who is using that power through the loving plan he has for us in Jesus. That power is working in us, and Paul want them to understand that. But he knows we will probably never really “get it” all the way because God’s actions are way big, more extreme, and unimaginable. Now in these two verses he says, “To that huge God who is working in us beyond what we could even imagine be honor and recognition (glory) in the church (all believers in Jesus from all time) and in Jesus (as the one who made the church possible through his actions as the “chosen one”, the “Christ”; chosen to be our substitute, our savior).

So Paul ends this first part of the letter the way he began, with a prayer that God would receive honor (Bible scholars like to call these types of prayers “doxologies” from the Greek word “doxa” which is translated “praise, honor, or glory”). This first part has been all about the power of God and how he used it to build Jewish and non-Jewish (gentile) believers in to one new group; a family, a house for God, a temple of God, the family of God. He has written especially to gentile believers who must have been feeling unwelcome or under other pressures from the people around them. He asked God that they would understand the immense size of His love in Jesus so they could be all that each of them was meant to be, as a person with a relationship with God. In the next few reading we will find out more about this full life.

I may have said this before but it is amazing how much God loves us. It is amazing that the creator of the universe would create a universe for us, a world , for us, friends and families for us, that he would create each one of us with a place and a purpose and that that place is with him and that the purpose is part of his world. Its amazing that we get to be with God, relate to him, share in the “administration” of the forever existence of us and the world. It’s amazing that we can talk to God boldly and confidently. It’s amazing that he took rebellious disrespectful us, rebellious disrespectful me and cleaned me up and gave me power to start living for him. We need to never doubt that God loves us, that he wants us with him. We do need to accept his forgiveness though. We need to admit we fail and need his powerful help. Once we accept that we are on the winning team. Hopefully we will understand the tip of God’s love for us. May he be honored in your life and mine as we live as part of his forever family.

God help me live and learn and honor you. Let my life bring you honor. Help the world understand you though my life. Help others respond to you. Let my life teach them. Thank you for opening your family to me, to us. You are way big, way powerful, more extreme, way better. You are “far out” and close in, thank you for your love.