The two prayers in 1:15-23 and 3:14-21 are models for our praying. Paul had a specific people in mind in his prayer, and his litany of praise for their spiritual virtues is an excellent commentary on the qualities to be found in a renewed Christian community.
(1) The Characteristics of a Renewed Church (1:15-23)
Faith (1:15), trust in God through Christ, is the foundation of the Christian life. It is not 'believing where we cannot prove', but rather the strong conviction and confident trust in a God who has proved himself to be utterly reliable and faithful. There are all sorts of temptations in 'unrenewed' churches to place our faith in other things than in the living God: a particular hermeneutic (the fundamentalists), a tradition (some liturgical churches), an ossified version of a previous reformation (the Reformed churches), a charismatic leader (sectarian and some pentecostal groups). We are to hold to Christ, and for all else be uncommitted.
Love. Without love it is possible to be orthodox, but not Christian. Love for all God's people includes the radicals, the heterodox, the fundamentalists, the liberals, the Protestants, the Catholics. Love for Christ, and love for others, cannot exist without each other. We love him as much, no more, as the one we love least. Swift said: 'We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.' (42)
Thankfulness. 'I have not stopped giving thanks for you' (1:16). Paul is not merely being diplomatic here: he's telling the truth. Why should we give thanks for one another? There are two compelling reasons: first, God deserves to be praised for his creation. If God has taken pains over another, then as we see that one from God's perspective, our response must be to praise and thank him. But second, when we look at things God's way, no one is a hopeless case. We focus on possibilities rather than difficulties. We stop praying from the darkness of our own shadows. Unfortunately we are, to some extent, 'visually handicapped' and our perspectives of others are distorted. When we understand the value of the other to God, then we will be more thankful. The thesis of Milton's Paradise Lost is that Satan knew the thing he could do to hurt God most was to cause human beings to fall into sin, so great was God's delight in humanity. Among all that was ever created humans most resemble God. If a person is depraved, he or she is a depraved version of something very sublime.
There is something seriously wrong with a Christianity devoid of thankfulness (Philippians 4:6). Indeed humanity's primal sin is ingratitude (Romans 1:21) and ungrateful people become foolish, perverted, 'they have no conscience, they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others' (Romans 1:31).
The greatest of the Psalms (eg 100, 116:12-14) are hymns of gratitude. The Bible is devoid of the platitudes we use in trouble ('things could be worse', 'look for the silver lining'). Thankfulness is not merely making lists of things we like. We are meant, says Paul, to give thanks 'in everything'. Many sermons have been preached on that little 'in' (as distinct from 'for'). What Paul is saying is that a thankful disposition aligns our perspective, by faith, with that of God.
Wisdom. For Paul (baptized) 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' (1:17) were most important for a renewed Christian (1 Corinthians 12:8, Colossians 1:9). Spiritual wisdom is not the outcome of an academic education; it's a deep insight into the Word of God and the ways of God. It's an ability to distinguish human wisdom from divine wisdom (eg 1 Corinthians 1:25).
Knowledge issues from obedience to the word of Christ (John 7:17), or it may be a special endowment enabling a Christian to 'know' something by a direct, supernatural means. Indeed, Paul says (1 Corinthians 2:10) that any knowledge of God comes to us by revelation 'by means of the Spirit'. And yet there is also a sense in which we 'grow in .... knowledge' (2 Peter 3:18), by diligent study and learning.
In an unrenewed church, where 'means' rather than 'ends' occupy most of the agendas for most of the meetings, there are often endless hours of discussion about procedures, precedents, and other similar matters. Godly knowledge in a renewed church encourages the leaders to focus their attention on the ends for which the church exists: worship, fellowship, formation, mission. Such leaders are encouraged to submit to the learnings the Spirit is inculcating in the church in these times, particularly through reading, attending seminars, exposing themselves to growth-producing encounters. Spiritual wisdom comes from reflection, which is also nurtured by an intentional teaching ministry in the church.
Revelation is a foundational biblical concept. The Bible is simply recorded testimony of God's revelation to us. The transcendent God must reveal himself to us, or he remains hidden (John 1:18, 1 Timothy 6:16). The living God is both subject and object of revelation. He reveals himself in word, deed, theophany, and in the incarnated Christ, but his revelation is never simply a matter of interest or wonder for its own sake: God always elicits a response. In this sense we are 'known' by God, although our knowledge of him will always be fragmentary and partial (1 Corinthians 13:9). Our earnest prayer is for a renewed mind which will 'know him more clearly, day by day'.
Paul then prays for 'enlightenment' of literally 'the eyes of your hearts'. The 'heart' is the seat of knowledge and understanding as well as of love, conscience, emotions and is sometimes translated 'mind'. The moral and spiritual connotations of 'heart' in the Old Testament (Genesis 8:21) persist in the New Testament. God knows the heart (Luke 16:15, Acts 1:24; Romans 8:27). Human beings are to love God with their whole heart (Mark 12:29-30). God's gift of the Spirit is put in the human heart (Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 1:22, Galatians 4:6). Christ makes his home there (Ephesians 3:17): hearts which are simple (Ephesians 6:5, Acts 2:46, 2 Corinthians 11:3, Colossians 3:22), upright (Acts 8:21), pure (Matthew 5:8, James 4:8) are open without reservation to the presence and action of God. The first believers in Jerusalem had one heart and one mind (Acts 4:32).
Hope (1:18) is the antithesis of despair. Knowing God means knowing our destiny - so hope isn't something creating itself in a void. Hope is one of the three great realities along with faith and love that will last forever (1 Corinthians 13:13). It is the strong conviction that the God who was with his people in the past will be with them now and forever.
Inheritance. 'The future reality in the Christian life is hope; the past reality is our heritage; the present reality is the power of God open to us who trust in him'. (43)
Power (1:19). Paul uses four words for power in these two prayers, piling them up on top of one another. Dunamis is power, might, strength or force; energeia is something effective, active; kratos is force, might, strength; ischus is forceful strength or ability. For Paul the supreme proof of the power of God occurred at the resurrection of Christ. The powers of evil tried to extinguish the life of the Giver of life. They tried to edge God out of his own creation. But when Jesus was raised from the dead the 'powers were overpowered'. (44) The resurrection of Jesus was proof that God's power is stronger than our sin, that God's purpose cannot be stopped by any action of his creatures.
If we see the reality of the power of God, says Leonard Griffith, 'we shall be less pessimistic about the future of Christianity in the world. With full recognition of all that the sociologists are saying about the probable demise of the institutional church, we shall not give the sociologists the last word. We do not see God's purpose of unity in terms of the survival of institutions; we see it in terms of the operation of God's power.' (45)
Griffith continues: 'John Wesley saw that power when God illumined his inward eyes on the evening of May 24, 1738. All around him institutional Christianity was dying of sheer spiritual paralysis and moral anemia. The priggish semiatheism enveloped England like a London fog; and all around the decadent church a decaying social structure swayed and tottered on the brink of bloody revolution. Yet we know that out of one man's inner illumination came a religious revival, and out of that revival came a passion for social reform that swept the length and breadth of the land like a prairie fire, so that historians, writing of England's modern period, divide it into two parts - Before Wesley and After Wesley'. (46) 'If we could see how vast are the resources of God's power in the hands of those who trust him, we would radically revise many of our church programs giving priority to those which establish communication with God and open our lives to his power. We should spend less time in committee rooms and more in the sanctuary, less energy talking to people about God and more energy talking to God about people. We should realize that what matters in God's great scheme of unity is not so much what we can do for God but what God can do in and through us insofar as we yield ourselves to him in faith and prayer. Therefore we should pray to God without ceasing that our inward eyes may be illumined, so that we may know what is the hope to which he calls us, what is the wealth and glory of the share which he offers us among his people in their heritage, and how vast are the resources of his power open to us who trust in him'. (47)
These powers are now under the authority of Christ: he rules over 'demons and angels', the names of cosmic powers attested in Jewish apocryphal writing. Paul does not discuss the mode of these celestial beings - they are simply under the dominion of Christ (Colossians 1:16, 2:10).
The final major idea in Paul's prayer for the Ephesians concerns the body of Christ (1:22-3). The church as the fullness of Christ is an evocative idea. Can Paul really mean what he says? Is Christ incomplete without the church? In a sense, yes. The creation of human beings at the outset carries a similar daring thought. 'Why, with all his foreknowledge of man's fall, should God have risked the great adventure of creating (man/woman) in his own image, a being who could (and would) rebel against him? Creation is a mystery. And the church stands at the other end of God's predestinating will. He had us in mind from the first'. (48) The adverbial phrase 'all in all' is used to suggest something of limitless size (cf 1 Corinthians 12:6, 15:28; Colossians 3:11). A head without a body, or a body without a head is useless. 'The church is quite literally hands to do Christ's work, feet to run his errands, a voice to speak his words'. (49) What an amazing thought: the church is the complement of Christ.
Our prayers are often conditioned by our materialistic values: we pray for things like prosperity, security and good health. Paul's prayers for his friends are different. In his eagerness, the words tumble over one another. Indeed, Marcus Barth suggests the whole of Ephesians is one long prayer.
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