What Paul Prayed For

I have been studying in Ephesians 1:18-23. This is part of what Paul says he prays for the Ephesian church to receive from God.

When I first was presented as a candidate for the ministry the District Superintendent, (whose name I do NOT remember), told me I would find so much Joy in the ministry that I would count it as one of the best things that ever happened in my life. He was correct. He also preached to the congregation, that was gathered for its annual charge conference that the most important thing the pastor (then Rev. Mike Baldwin) could do was to pray daily for his people. I believe he was correct in that statement too.

But what do we pray for?

The pastor who reads this is going to be challenged because if we ask the question: what does Paul pray for when he prays for his church? And how does that compare with the prayers that we send up on behalf of our people? (that is, assuming that we remember daily to DO this important task.) We come off feeling that we have missed key things that Paul was inspired to call upon God to do in and for His church.

Truly, we need the Spirit to assist us when we pray, because our flesh would focus on many less needful things before coming to the notion of asking God to fill our people with the inward knowledge of all the power and wonders of Jesus!

In the text:

Vs. 18 The formulation, “eyes of your heart” (or eyes of your understanding) is unique in the New Testament. The eyes of men have been places of darkness, avenues for lust and wrong desire, and blindness before God. Paul is truly asking for a revolution in the inner lives of the people. The eyes are to be enlightened , (it sounds more dramatic in greek, (photizo’), so that we may “eido” or see, which is often used in the sense that we say in English, “I see” to mean understanding. My word study resource says that this is a more intuitive sense of understanding, thus Paul is announcing a dramatic inward knowing.

Vs. 19 The language used for God’s power “for us who believe” is heavy on the suprlatives, so that even a english speaker recognizes “huperballo (lit. beyond-throw), megathos, dunamis”. This power is ‘like’ (grk. ‘kata’) which is often translated ‘according’ and has a sense of directedness; (down-from). These power words express potential or available power, and after this ‘kata’, this strength is directed and active, mighty (energia) and mighty strength, (kratos-(hold-fast) and ischus (active strength)).

And all this power is evidenced in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ. Note that His power’s expression is not centered in us, but in Christ, and that is the basis of our hope and the foundation of the faith.

The lines from vs.20-23 read like a congregational confession of the resurrection and enthronement of Jesus. If you say them aloud it sounds like what we as a church together would say to remind us of the decisive change in all things that has been brought about by God in Jesus. There is an orderedness, the powers that were in disarray and opposition to God are not ‘out there’, (perhaps noted by the eye of the Lord and reacted in in a haphazard way), they are ‘under his feet.’ And what is the effect in us? We are not so much a part of the ‘all things’ under his feet, but we are his Body, the fullness of him that “filleth all in all”. Wrap your mind around that!

Pastor Harley Wheeler