Did We Learn About Prayer?
When we started this passage, our focus was to learn from Paul and how he prays. How did we do? Were we successful in our investigation? Were we exposed to some new ideas about what prayer is all about? Did we develop any techniques? I’m going to go back through, summarize, and see what this passage means to me personally.
Here is my desk right now with all of my notes and my structural diagram. And my Kenyan coffee. Mm.
But mostly my notes. I’m going to go over the notes and also peruse the articles I wrote, because basically they are my journal.
Do you keep a journal of what you’re learning? I once heard it said that you may not remember every meal you ever ate, but each of them nourished you. The food performed its function whether or not you remember eating it.
The same is true about reading and studying. However, for my own self, I’d like to try to remember what I “ate” so that I can be nourished by it again. Hah. Maybe having and looking at my journal is akin to leftovers in this silly analogy. I get the benefit of the nourishment without having to prepare the food again.
Summary
Draft #1 immediately got erased. Too much paraphrase and not enough summary.
Now I’m thinking more about what did Paul want his audience to remember? He used alliteration, right? Paul prayed for his audience to be changed and then worshipped God because he is so other. I’ll give another go.
Draft #2:
Paul prayed for the potential functionality of the audience by the Spirit to know the love of Christ and to be filled with God (trinity). Ascribing honor to the one who has no potential followed the request.
Now that I have a working summary, I will proceed to apply and find what this passage means for me.
Finding Significance
God is Able
I was riding bike with a friend the other day. One of my favorite things to do is to chat about what God is teaching me and then ask whomever I’m hanging out with what they are learning about. In this case, my friend sparked the conversation with what she’s been learning about our Savior and his refusal to partake in wine laced with ancient anesthetic. “Of course he would refuse!” she said.
Which then made me think about what I’ve been meditating on: God has no potential. In the case my friend and I were discussing, he had no boundaries for how much pain he could endure. How often do we say, “I can’t take this anymore!” and then we take a little more. Or we snap. Either way, we don’t know how much we actually can take. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes we’ve reached the apex.
Not God. He can take it all. There is no question.
In conjunction with God’s able-ness, Paul attaches to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. Do what? Anything. Since this is me studying and you happen to be on this journey with me, this is the next thing I would do:
Kristi, think about what bothers you.
- Think that the current situation of brokenness in the world can never be made right? Far more abundantly.
- Think that you’re too insignificant of a part of the body to ever be useful? Far more abundantly.
- Think that the uncertainty of your future and your kids’ future is overwhelming? Far more abundantly.
Paul prays for his audience, which includes us by extension, that believers would be made strong for the ultimate purpose of knowledge of the love of Christ and being filled with all that God is. I can know that God has no boundaries, no potential for being active in my life. No matter what “little” things dominate my mind when I’m not consciously taking my thoughts captive. He is able.
I Am Strengthened
When I study scripture, my main endeavor is two-pronged. To know God better and know man better. Because I am a human being, specifically, know myself better. Did you know that when we talk about ourselves, whatever that hormone is that makes you happy is released? Dopamine? Jeremy told me about a study that he read about that. Figures, doesn’t it? Anyway.
It impacted me that the strengthening with power that Paul prays for isn’t strong-ness coming from the audience. The voice in Ephesians 3:16 was passive, remember? Which typically means that the subject is the one performing the action. He may grant you to be strengthened…
- He who? God.
- To do what? Make the audience strong.
- For what purpose? That the audience (and by extension, I) might know the love of God (Christ) and to be filled with God.
If you’ve been hanging out with me for any length of time, you know that I place value on a level of diet and fitness that lets me have fun and do fun. Pizza and beer sometimes but not so that it keeps me from biking. Or choking someone in BJJ.
I Am Passive
No one makes me strong. Now, I’m not talking about the ultimate reality that I can’t do anything without God. I’m talking about the simple reality that no one can do the actual discipline of exercise and proper food intake for me. I strengthen me physically. There are consequences for each cheeseburger and every bench press. For good or bad.
But Paul prays that my inner being be strengthened with power through the Spirit. That God would be active in strengthening my inner man. God is active; I am passive. This is what I’ve seen so far. Let’s keep digging around here.
A Little More Interpretation Necessary
What does this mean?
Side note: Now, I realize that we are not in the stage of interpreting right now. However, we know that we cannot exhaustively study every aspect while focusing on interpretation. Our objective is to study and learn. Reaching forward to application when we haven't interpreted is something I try to minimize. In this case, I need to be careful I'm not glossing over interpretation to be applying. I always want to try to recognize my limitations and work within them. Both of us need to be aware of my (our) weaknesses in both skill in hermeneutics and an ever-present possibility of forays into neat-o-gesis. Caution, caution. End side note.
My question here is for what am I being strengthened? As I take a glance at the action words here, I see may have strength, to comprehend, to know, may be filled.
- To be strengthened (passive) Eph 3:16
- May be able (active) Eph 3:18 (Remember that NET interprets this word differently than ESV)
- To comprehend (middle) Eph 3:18
- To know (active) Eph 3:19
- May be filled (passive) Eph 3:19
Getting bogged down in the minutia of Greek tenses is the last thing I want us to do here in our efforts at finding significance, but I think addressing them at least a little is necessary for understanding.
Briefly, we know that the active is roughly that the subject is performing. Passive is that someone else is acting on the subject. What the heck is middle again? Yeah, I have a sticky stuck to my monitor for that one because I just don’t have it dialed yet. My Tense, Voice, Mood book basically describes the middle as emphasizing the actor (subject) of the verb. Also, we talked about it a little here in this article.
Conclusion of This Brief Session of Interpretation
I don’t have a clear conclusion. This may be something I need to ponder for a while. As I study elsewhere, these ideas will be present. Paul doesn’t typically write important concepts once and never visit them again. Getting the end of an aspect of study and saying, “Huh. I just don’t know for sure” is perfectly acceptable and normal. We aren’t studying some ordinary Joe like Aristole or something. This is our relationship to God we are attempting to understand. Both easy and very complex. Which is humbling.
What I do see is a combination of someone else (God) empowering me and at the same time I am to be active in empowering myself. Why? To comprehend dimensions of something, we think God’s love, as we discussed here (middle voice which emphasizes my part in the comprehending). Why else? Also to know for certain the love of Christ. Anything else? To be filled with fullness of God (passive).
What can take away with me from this exercise in interpretation? I have a role in being able (Eph 3:18 NET) even as God strengthens me. Plus, I have an active role in knowing the love of God in Christ. The result of all of that? I will be filled with the fullness of God (remember that being filled is passive).
I would like to be filled with the fullness of God because what’s inside Kristi is kind of sludgy sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. In the last few months of all of this virus business, more and more sludge has risen to the surface… And yet, in my labor to know the love of God, I will be becoming filled with God-stuff. No shame. No condemnation. Simple recognition and a will to keep walking alongside my heavenly Dad.
What is the significance I find for myself? I will keep plugging away at actively knowing the love of Christ (this involves study and prayer and fellowship with saints) so that I will be continuing to be filled with the fullness of God.
Reflection
Going back to the beginning. Did I learn anything about how to pray? From our context, Paul has been discussing how there is one new man in the place of two that were hostile towards one another. He has been explaining nuances of the gospel wherein both Gentiles and Jews now have access in Christ to the Father. And for the next part of the letter, Paul is going to be exhorting his audience to walk in a manner worthy of that gospel. What does he pray?
For God to be active, providing power for the purpose of learning. Knowing the love of Christ.
Sources of the Truth
Where did the recipients learn that? Actually, at that time, in the OT. The Septuagint. It was their pew Bible. And the letters that got shared between the towns.
Where do we learn about the love of Christ that will result in being full of God? Our Bibles.
It’s funny that I’ve been thinking about this thought I saw yesterday on Facebook. It said basically that mature people can disagree and still be civil. Sometimes I’m just not civil. Therefore, according to the quote, I’m not mature.
Yep. I know that. The solution? Yes, I can try to contain my immaturity. I can filter (ok, maybe not…). But what will provide a lasting solution? An internal solution? Learning all I can about the love of Christ. As I learn, I will be filled with the fullness of God. And being filled with God, then when I’m jolted by disagreements, what will come out? More of God, less sludge that is Kristi.
Will you join me in the endeavor to know Christ’s love more? Let’s pray for that empowerment of God and our own willingness to participate in it. Pray for ourselves and pray for one another.
Wrap Up
Our Bible Study Bite for today is partly to consider the voices of the verbs and also recognize that looking at them can be misleading. Hold the information we gain from considering it loosely. There is a phrase among Greek students… well, it should be among the students… There is a phrase among Greek scholars that someone “knows enough Greek to be dangerous.” That is how much I know.
What I want us to walk away from as a Bible Study Bite is that there is information to be learned from these voices in Greek, but we don’t have all the information about them. I don’t. Maybe you do. If you do, can we be better friends? Because I would enjoy learning.
Anyway, the lesson we can learn as we are burgeoning Greek students is to attend to the data about the voice and then compare it to the rest of scripture.
Questions to Consider for Accuracy
- Does it make sense that God would grant power (passive)? Yes.
- Does it make sense that I would also have some responsibility in being able to understand truth (middle)? Not exclusively, but to a degree, yes.
- Does it make sense that I need to be efforting in becoming a know-er of the love of Christ (active)? Yes.
As with all of our study, does what we think we’ve learned line up with the rest of scripture? We are students of the Word which means that we are not professionals of the Word, right? This is why we are ever examining the contents of our backpacks to make sure what we carry around in there as our doctrine and as our opinions agree with the Word. We learn by efforting, sometimes being correct and sometimes being incorrect.
Don’t let that paralyze you. We can keep learning and growing and exploring the truth. When we err, we will re-examine and try again. Even in something as foreign and complicated as voices in Greek.
If you find my musings at all useful or thought-provoking, would you share this article with someone else who would like to join us in being students of the Word?
