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Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians 3: 14-21 (NIV)
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
“For this reason …” (verse 14) is a continuation of the Apostle Paul’s train of thought before he interrupted himself after Ephesians 3: 1. There he began with similar words: “For this reason I, Paul, …”.
For what reason?
Paul had just been impressing upon the Gentiles of Asia (Ephesians 2: 19-20) that:
… you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
This was the same man speaking who approvingly witnessed, two-and-a-half decades ago as the Pharisee Saul, the stoning of the Christian deacon Stephen and then set about destroying the Church and hauling off to prison the disciples of the executed “Messiah”, Jesus of Nazareth.
God gave this persecuter of the Way who had studied under the respected Pharisee Gamaliel (Acts 22: 3), a life-shattering revelation: those previously-detested Gentiles had an inheritance in the kingdom of God equal to that of the Jews.
Once our Lord had revealed this truth to Paul, he did not hold it grudgingly. He owned it fully and accepted whole-heartedly the mission stemming from it. We perceive his embracing of the Lord’s tasking of him in the passion of his prayers for the Gentiles of Asia. Verses 16-19 provide but one example:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
For a moment, let us:
- reflect on our own prayers for those newly come into Christ’s family;
- recall with what earnestness we pray for those in our own parts of the household of God; and
- compare our uses of social media or of hand-written letters or greeting cards against the encouragement which the Apostle Paul continued to offer, even from prison (Ephesians 3:1).
What is God in Christ calling us to do now to build up and fortify his Church?