Paul is Praying
In our last article, we investigated the Greek word behind power in Ephesians 3:14-21. Now we have some idea about it. Recalling that it is something that needs to be accessed, a potential for functionality, we want to understand what Paul is praying about it. Let’s keep our context before us.
Our Passage
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened
with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—
that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly
than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
21 to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,
forever and ever. Amen.1
Floundering in Study
I have questions about this passage with regard to study. Did you notice there are no cross references around power or the two English words of strengthened or strength in the ESV? NET Bible gave me no direction either. Fellow student, this will happen. Add to the lack of seeming direction from the translators that I personally feel bereft and out of sorts, that is a situation where darkness and lies have opportunity to prevail. Therefore, the best place to keep coming back to is scripture.
As students of the Word, we have ability to have light push back darkness because we have rhythm and routine. Even if the rhythm feels hollow, it’s like the idea of praying for your enemies: pray for them and the love will follow. I actually don’t know if that is biblical, but I’ve found it helpful… Study, pray, be practicing what Augustine called the ‘with-ness’ of God and I believe our hearts will follow.
In my flounder, this week I laid awake at night thinking about power that needs to be ‘turned on’ or accessed coupled with this idea of strength. What is this that Paul is praying for? Because if I have power, then why do I need strength with it? Or if I’m strengthened, don’t I already have power? Why do I need strength to comprehend these dimensions or the love of Christ? The majority of 21st century Christianity is all-consumed with the love of Christ. If everyone is consumed with it, why do I need strength to know it?
See? Floundering and wrestling.
Bible Word Studies
When I began to look in the ESV at Ephesians 3:16, 18, I assumed strengthened and have strength were the same word group in Greek. Nope. Looking at Bible word studies informed me there were different Greek words that Paul used here.
Here we have a screenshot of the color wheel portion of the Bible word study of the English word (in ESV) strengthened from my Logos software.
Here is the screenshot of the English word strength (in ESV). Even if you can’t read Greek, you can compare and see that those are different characters that make up the words, right?
At this point, I’m not sure if these words should be studied at the same time since they are different. It remains to be seen if they are related enough to tackle them together. Or even if the second word needs our attention at all in this run through Ephesians.
Cross References
In Ephesians 3:16, there is a cross reference placed in front of he may grant you and these are the verses the translators thought shed light on our verse.
I wrote them down on my structural diagram with a summary of what each says in order to keep it fresh in my memory. This was the point that I recognized that these two words are different in the Greek. The word in Eph 3:18 is only used in that one verse in the whole NT.
- 1 Cor 16:13 be strong
- Eph 6:10 be strong in the Lord
- Col 1:11 being strengthened w all power
So two of those verses sound like the audience needs to get their grit on and maybe some bootstraps to pull themselves up by, doesn’t it? I wonder if that is actually what is going on. Let’s keep investigating.
Voice of the Verb
One of the steps I take in my process sometimes is to find out the voice of the verb. On occasion, this is less important than other times. But in this instance of looking at this word behind to be strengthened, I question who does what. Am I responsible for being strong? Like if I do repetitions of some faith exercise, I will get stronger? Or what?
In order to learn what the voice of this verb is, in my Logos Bible Software, I roll my mouse over the morphology which is at the bottom of my ESV in the reverse interlinear.
Brief Overview of Voice
See that word “passive” that I circled? That is the voice of this verb. The major categories of voices in Greek are active, middle, and passive. Let’s go over the generalities of each of those.
- Active-subject of the sentence does the action
- The boy hit the ball.
- Middle-subject does the action upon himself
- The boy groomed himself.
- Passive-subject is the recipient of the action
- The boy was hit by the ball.2
As I’ve listened to lectures by Dr. Stein and Dr. Mounce, I’ve come to realize that voice is not always cut-and-dried. I won’t go into the details here, but as I was studying Romans a couple of years ago, I learned about a “permissive passive” which suggests some involvement in the object of the sentence allowing the subject to perform the action of the verb to them. I’m wondering if there is an element of permissive passive happening in our passage.
Cross Reference
Knowing that we are not studying 1 Corinthians, I still find this use of the word interesting. In 1 Corinthians 16:13, Paul commands (imperative) his audience to be strong. And it is still in the passive voice. In a broad stroke of the Greek voice brush, that means someone else is doing the action of being strong. But it’s given as a command. What?
In Ephesians 3:16, we don’t have an imperative, I realize, but as we look at other uses of the word, we are trying to get a clearer picture of what the author means when he writes his words. Paul here in Corinthians purposely used the word as a command. And in the passive voice. See why I wonder about the permissive passive?
Looking at each of the other three uses of this word in the NT, each time it is in the passive voice. In our passage, to be strengthened. Twice in Luke, Luke 1:80 and Luke 2:40, became strong. And in 1 Corinthians 16:13, be strong.
Based on the other usages, I do not feel confident about how Paul used this word. Let’s look in some dictionaries to see if they will illuminate.
Looking Up κραταιόω in Dictionaries
BDAG
In our lit.(literature) only pass.(passive): become strong. In the physical sense(…): w. αὐξάνειν Lk 2:40, as also GJs 6:1. In the psychological sense of encouragement to remain firm: 1 Cor 16:13 (w. ἀνδρίζεσθαι, as Ps 30:25; 2 Km 10:12); κ. πνεύματι grow strong in spirit Lk 1:80; δυνάμει κ. διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος be mightily strengthened through the Spirit Eph 3:16.3
If you happen to look at that and say, “What the unpleasant nonsense is going on?” I completely understand. There is a lot of seeming gibberish in that quote. Boiled down, the dictionary entry says that in the NT there are two ways the word is used. The physical sense and the psychological sense. Good to know. Next dictionary.
TDNTA
krataióō. This word, which means “to make strong,” occurs 64 times in the LXX. In the NT we find only the passive “to become strong.” In Lk. 1:80; 2:40 it denotes childhood growth. In 1 Cor. 16:13, with andrízesthe, the exhortation is to “be strong” (cf. 2 Sam. 10:12). Eph. 3:16 traces such strengthening to the inward operation of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Sam. 22:33).4
In this dictionary, we see confirmation of what we learned from the morphology in Logos: in the NT, the word is only used in the passive voice. Additional information is the statement that our verse “traces such strengthening to the inward operation of the Holy Spirit.” Which also leads to confirmation of our suspicions about the passive voice. The activity of the Spirit to flip that switch of power we talked about in Bite 57.
Reflection
What have I learned in my digging for knowledge? I think that the last sentence in the previous section is the beginning of a good summary. Paul is praying for the Holy Spirit to be active, moving upon the potential energy within each believer, for purpose.
Remembering from Bite 57 where that power originates, I’ve been thinking about power that is within me. About how Paul prayed for believers (including believers like you and me) to be strengthened with that power. Power according to Ephesians 3:20 that is already present and active within them (and us). Power for what? I think that is what we will look into next time. We shall see what we shall find.
Wrap Up
Our Bible Study Bite for today is that you do not have to study exactly like anyone else to arrive at truth. There are guiding principles that are non-negotiable when it comes to hermeneutics. For example, as students of the Word, we want to come to an understanding of what the author intended when he wrote what he wrote. We are finding what he meant, not previously having a conclusion and then going to scripture to “prove” what we already think. That’s proof texting.
Bad. Stop it.
But as far as the nuts and bolts of the process, you don’t need to do it exactly like I do or anyone else. A lot of your process will depend on the concrete tools you have access to. What Bible translations, which dictionaries, your time, that sort of thing. Please do not dismiss your ability to study and learn for yourself who our great God is, based on your resources.
A Little Hack
Let me give you just a little example. Even if you don’t have Logos, you have the ability to compare the ESV translation with the NET translation. Check it out there; I linked those versions to their websites. As we briefly discussed, Ephesians 3:18 in the ESV has the English word strength, right? If you compare the NET, you will see that instead of the English word strength, they used a more accurate (in my opinion) translation of you may be able.
Therefore, if you don’t have a way to check out some facsimile to a color wheel like Logos has, you can arrive at the same knowledge using a different tool. Looking at those two translations, you would ask yourself the question “why is there a difference in the way they are translated?” You would look at the tools on those respective websites and ta-da! You would discover Ephesians 3:18 does not use the same Greek word that we were looking at in Ephesians 3:16.
I want to encourage you that you can study for yourself, using the tools you have accessible to you right now.
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- Ephesians 3:14–21 (ESV)
- Pierce, L. (n.d.). Tense Voice Mood. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
- Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 564). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (pp. 467–468). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.