Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14-21 is the lesson around which our worship at Friendship Lutheran Church will be built this weekend. You can find the first pass at the lesson, with general comments here.

14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
(1) The phrase, "for this reason" refers back to 3:1, in which we're told that Paul is imprisoned for the sake of preaching the Gospel about Jesus Christ to Gentiles.

(2) Although going to one's knees was not an unknown prayer posture in the Biblical tradition, it was not the most common stance for prayer. In the Bible, most instances of people being on their knees refer to subservience to some powerful earthly person. Given the Ephesian culture's penchant for sychophancy to Roman authority, this image of prayer may be a deliberate way of saying, "God is greater than all the Roman governors, emperors, or gods to which you give homage. It's to the living Father of the universe that I bow."

15from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.
(1) There's a play on words here that isn't apparent in English. The Greek word for father is pater. The word translated as family is patria, which can be aptly translated as clan, race, nation, or patrimony. The sense of the two verses that begin the lesson is: "I bow down in prayer to the Father Who fathers every people." As one scholar notes of this passage, "God is the archetypal father."

16I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit,
(1) Paul presents part one of his prayer for the Ephesian church. He asks that the Ephesian Christians be filled with strength in the power of God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit given to all believers in Jesus Christ.

If believers are filled with the Spirit, why do they need to be filled again? Billy Graham deals with this well in his fantastic book, The Holy Spirit. He says that out of the abundance of His life, God gives His Spirit to all when they come to believe in Christ. But those believers can also be filled again and again, for their consolation; for reminders of God's love, presence, and power in the midst of trying circumstances; and for sharing Christ with others by our words and actions.

(2) God has a storehouse of strength for us, drawn from "the riches of his glory." This is not the last time that God's glory will be mentioned in the passage.

17and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
(1) The notion of Christ dwelling in Christians is a theme of last week's lesson from Ephesians. (See here, here, and here.)

The idea of Christ living in believers in Him is consistent with Paul's view, as expressed to the Athenians, who were fond of erecting monuments to gods, when he said:

"The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands..." (Acts 17:24)

Jesus was getting at this same point when He told the Samaritan woman He met by the well at Sychar:

"...the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24

While things like altars, candles, and stained glass may help people to worship the God we meet in Jesus Christ, they aren't necessary. Christ doesn't dwell in things. He dwells in living people, who draw their life from Him alone.

18I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
(1) The knowledge that Paul prays the Ephesians will acquire is the capacity to comprehend how great the God we meet in Christ truly is. The grandeur of God and his appreciation of the uniqueness of Christ is what attracted scientist Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, to faith in Christ.

(2) See here.

19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(1) To know something that surpasses knowledge is to experience something beyond intellectual entrapment.

(2) The thing to be known is the love of Christ. Knowing that fills us with the fullness of God because, as John reminds us, "God is love."

20Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(1) In the Church and in Christ, may God's glory be apparent for all coming generations. This is, as mentioned in my first pass at the passage, a doxology, a word of glory for God.

(2) Once again, the emphasis is on how God's glory comes to live in believers of Jesus.