I have learned to ask, "What's the story" when I am teaching the Bible. And there is a "big story", the God-story... of a cosmic plan to bring these two groups, Jews and gentiles, together in a new humanity, a new community, united like one body with Jesus as its head.... This big story, this "God story" is the background to what Paul writes in this chapter... He says "for this reason" - looking back to the previous chapter all about the Church being the new humanity in Christ.So Paul goes on to talk a wee bit about his own ministry... For the first time, in this chapter, Paul hints at the fact that he is in fact a prisoner, "For the Gentiles." Paul really believed in preaching the Good News of Jesus; and in particular, he believed in preaching that Good news to all people, not just his fellow-Jews. Maybe, it's just possible, that if he had contented himself with preaching only to Jews, he could have remained a free man. Going to the Gentiles meant going out into strange territory; and it meant upsetting the traditional Jews who thought he was a threat to the purity of their faith.... It was often the Jews, not the gentiles, who caused trouble for Paul... so he was in prison for the sake of "you gentiles."
Paul knows his ministry is a huge privilege; he has special insight and a clear job to do; he is willing to pay the price of doing that job. That's how he sees and understands his ministry... God is at work, revealing things that have been kept hidden for years and years. And he has been doing that through apostles and prophets. Paul's work is all about building up this new humanity church he was speaking of in Chapter 2. And - here's the mind-blowing bit - the "New Humanity Church" exists to make known to the principalities and powers the multi-coloured wisdom of God. We often think of the Church existing to make the Gospel known to our neighbours. It's vital that we do spread the Good News of our faith. But the real purpose of the Church is to make God's wisdom known to the principalities and powers. That's what Paul has been given an amazing share in. God calls every one of us to be involved in this cosmic plan and in this glorious community called the Church!
New perspective
And all of that, he is putting in brackets, as he jumps back in verse 14 to repeat "For this reason"... Isn't that amazing? We need to learn, as Paul did, to put ourselves, our ministry, our interests, our comfort, our reputation, our struggles, in brackets; to get a Jesus-centred perspective on all of our lives... God can do it without us. We suffer, along with the rest of the human race, from an inflated sense of our own importance. Our Heavenly father loves us so much. He gives us the dignity of being part of this new humanity; he pours out love into our lives. None of us are rubbish; none of us are losers, however weak we are, and whatever mistakes we make. God welcomes us with big, wide, open arms; but he invites us to a place of repentance; to a place where we say "Jesus, be the centre".
Because God has made a new rainbow humanity, built together as a place for God to live, in order to show his multi-coloured wisdom to the principalities and powers, Verses:14-19.
Paul's prayer is worshipful - or his worship is prayerful. It was much more normal for a Jew - or an early Christian - to pray standing up; kneeling was homage; it was worship as is appropriate for the God who is over and above very human tribe and every rank of angels... it's the cosmic God of the cosmic new humanity in the cosmic Church that Paul is praying to. Maybe worship like that - getting a grasp on the splendour of the King - will help us pray. New power!
And what is Paul praying for? He is praying - again, see Eph 1. 17-21 - that his friends would be strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being. Paul wants the Spirit - who raised Jesus from the dead, who is at work in Paul, to be at work in the Ephesian Christians. An encounter with the Holy Spirit is not just for leaders or particularly spiritual people. Paul prays the same work of the Spirit that is seen in his life, into the lives of the Ephesians...
What does it mean to ask the Spirit to touch us? What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? The language Paul uses here tells us...
1. It's about strength and power in our inner being. (v 16)
2. It's about fellowship. ("Rooted and grounded in love" v 17; "with all the saints" v 18) The work of the Spirit is personal within each of us, but is never given just for us as individuals, but so we can play our part in the "Body".
3. It's about understanding the full immensity (length, breadth, height, depth v 18)) of God's love.
4. It's about experience Christ's love ("knowing" v 19) We all need to know we are special; part of that is about believing what god says in his word: it's "cognitive". You can help yourself by believing the truth. The truth will set you free. But part of it also is about feeling the love of God; it's "affective". God heals the broken hearted.
5. And lastly, you can't separate the Spirit from the Trinity
o It's about Jesus. Paul prays for the Spirit to come so that "Christ may set up home in your hearts (the seat of personality) through faith." The Holy Spirit comes to show us Jesus, to help us grasp truth about Jesus, to form in us the character of Jesus and enable us to continue the ministry of Jesus. There is no difference between the work of Jesus and the work of the Spirit. We don't experience Jesus except as the Spirit, and we don't experience the Spirit except as Jesus. o It's about God the Father. "That you may be filled towards all the fulness of God". IF in the New Testament we experience Jesus by the Spirit, in the Old Testament we experience the Father by the Spirit. And in Paul's teaching the Spirit is the Spirit of sonship. To pray for the Spirit to come is to pray that God himself will come: the God of the Big bang, the God who spoke worlds into existence, the God of the Red Sea, the God who raised Jesus from the dead. There's always more, of God, to be poured out into our lives.
Maybe that's why Paul finishes with that wonderful Blessing: "Now to him who is able to do more than you can imagine, to him be glory in the Church..." If every believer were filled toward the fullness of God, there would be glory in the Church!
© Gilmour Lilly May 2011
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