Word Live: Power To Stand
Ask God to ‘strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being’ (v 16).
Bible passage
Ephesians 3:14–21
A prayer for the Ephesians
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.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
What is the biggest challenge you have faced? If you actually knew the one setting that challenge, wouldn’t you turn to them for help? No wonder then that Paul starts praying.
Verses 14,15. Paul prays, not for his own sake despite being a prisoner, but because he doesn’t want the Ephesians to be discouraged by his suffering (v 13)! Notice how Paul always returns to eternal truths to put his life and ministry into perspective (v 15).
Verses 16–19. What is Paul’s first prayer request (vs 16,17a)? It makes sense in an uncomprehending – sometimes hostile – world to request power. But God’s purpose in granting it is not so that we impress the world or defeat God’s enemies. It is simply so that ‘Christ may dwell’ in us. In other words, that we may enjoy the riches of our unity with him.
The key is God’s love (vs 17b–19). Even though God has already done amazing things for us, we still struggle to grasp the fact. Why do we need God’s power? Notice that Paul’s prayer is ‘with all the Lord’s holy people’ (v 18). An isolated person cannot show true love. These words are not about information learned but a relationship experienced (v 19).
Verses 20,21. How do these closing verses turn the themes of Ephesians 1–3 into praise?
Author
Mark Meynell
Respond
Read Paul’s prayer again. Stop to pray the same things: for yourself, your church and those around you.
Deeper Bible study
‘Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off, you met us in your Son, and brought us home.’1
Deep emotion surrounds the image of Paul kneeling, perhaps on the floor of his cell. Kneeling is not a common posture for prayer in the Scriptures: people stand to pray.2 Kneeling is often part of extreme situations, the gesture of deeply troubled people with nowhere else to turn. Images come to our minds – the leper kneeling before Jesus,3 Stephen at his moment of death4 and Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane.5 In this passionate prayer, Paul names God as Father, the complete and everlasting cosmic Father. English translations lose the Greek play on words (pater means father; patria means clan or race). God is the ultimate Father of all families, tribes and races, the one from whom all derive their ‘name’ (v 15). It is as children of the one Father that we gain our real identity and through him we achieve our true destiny.
What, then, is Paul’s prayer to the one Father of us all? It is that we will let the power of God’s Spirit reach into the deepest place of our being so that Christ may dwell there (vs 16,17). Paul’s use of superlative language and strong words like power and glory has wrongly led some commentators to think that this prayer looks forward to a triumphant church conquering the world. Paul’s kneeling posture should have warned them that this was not so. Paul faces death: he wants all Christians who will face what he is facing to feel what he is feeling in the unassailable depth of their beings – that the love of Christ is immeasurable, beyond all knowing; that they can let themselves be filled with the fullness of the God who fathers us all. Words ultimately fail Paul (v 20). God’s presence and power for us, even in the worst of crises, is immeasurably beyond anything we can imagine.
‘You our Father, Christ our brother / all are yours who live in love / teach us how to love each other / lift us to your joy above.’6
1Prayer Book for Australia 2Mark 11:25 3Mark 1:40 4Acts 7:60 5Luke 22:41,44 6 Henry Van Dyke, 1852–1933, ‘Joyful, Joyful’ (altered)
Author
John Harris
