Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians
14 This is why I kneel before the Father. 15 Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him. 16 I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of his glory through the Spirit. 17 I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, 18 I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. 19 I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.
20 Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; 21 glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and always. Amen.
Reflection
Today is our son’s birthday. Happy birthday to Brian.
We know that Paul was a Pharisee – he was a knowledgeable man who was a stickler for the Mosaic Laws before his conversion on the road to Damascus. In the beginning of Ephesians 3 Paul explains that the Gentiles were also in the plan to be coheirs with the Jews to God’s kindom. He explains that it is his job to preach to them and welcome them into God’s grace. We know that there was much controversy in the early church between the Jews and the Gentiles (anyone who wasn’t Jewish) as the Gentiles had not been following the laws handed down to Moses. Paul’s prayer in our scripture is that everyone would understand that God’s grace is extended to ALL humans. Verse 19 says “I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God”. I think here Paul is asking us to put aside what we think about others – where they come from, what they believe, how much money they have, who they love, what their disability or ability is, what color their skin is, and any other qualifier we can think of that makes people “other” than us and just come with love and give them the grace that God gives them. Now, I think that all of our “qualifiers” make us unique and special, and I think we should embrace those, so it sounds like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth. I think the point Paul is making is that we have preconceived ideas about others based on what we think we know. In his time, the Gentiles were not circumcised, and they did not necessarily know the laws of Moses, so those things were a huge issue for the Jews and the new Christians – most of which were Jews at the time. It took leaders like Paul to follow Jesus’s example to reach out to the “others” of that time to accept them so they could come to know that they were saved through Christ and were part of the kindom of God.
Have we seen those issues throughout history and do we still see them today – even among those of us who call ourselves Christians? Of course – we have seen it and continue to see it – those who oppose war and those who believe it is our Christian duty to fight in war, those who oppose LGBTQ+ rights and those who support our LGBTQ+ siblings, those who want to help immigrants and those who want to send them home, those who accept more rights for women and those who don’t, and the list goes on and on – you name a topic and there will be different factions. We see it in the Church, and we see it more and more in our country right now. It is difficult, but Paul’s answer is to love everyone no matter what because Christ died for ALL of us, and it was God’s plan for ALL of us to share in the Grace given to us by Christ’s death. I don’t always agree with things Paul said – again, we aren’t always going to agree with each other or with what we read from those who went before us, but I think we can agree that we need to see others as God sees them. It’s not always easy, but that should be our goal.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering and Prayer
What messaging from what groups of people are you struggling with right now? What do you do to drown out the noise of negative messaging and see those people who are providing those messages as coheirs with us in the kindom? How can we be like Paul and provide the message of God’s love and salvation to all?
Prayer: God of salvation for all humankind, give us strength to remember that you sent Jesus to be our example and the Savior for ALL. Help us to be more like Jesus and be willing to be with those we don’t agree with and to minister to them so that we may show your love for ALL. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
