Bite 50: Suffering and Your Glory in Ephesians 3:1-13

Suffering

I have decided for myself to refuse to be part of the global panic-demic. Part of that decision involves limiting social media exposure, especially after seeing someone’s post about “We aren’t panicking enough.”

The entire country is closed and we are essentially on house arrest here in Colorado. Yes, there is plenty of panic.

Somewhat similar and yet quite different, when he wrote Ephesians (and the companion letter, Colossians), scholars believe Paul was on house arrest. For two years, at his own expense, he was limited to his own house in Rome with his only contacts being those who came to visit. So when he wrote Ephesians 3:1-13, if he’d known us, he would have had at least some sympathy for the plight of most of the world today.

Can you imagine the suffering of Paul being on house arrest? Heart which thrived on interaction and proclamation of the gospel? Shut down. For me, as an introvert of immense magnitude who is accustomed to regular quantities of isolation, this mandated isolation is strangling my soul. Paul’s soul must’ve been exponentially more strangled.

Additionally, as we approach Holy Week, we follow Jesus walking toward the ultimate limitation by the authorities of his day. He voluntarily chose to be limited to death by authorities with self-preserving motivations. Authorities much like our politicians who face an election year and who are afraid of the hindsight criticisms that will surely follow the events of these weeks and months.

He suffered limitation to death for the greatest good. And don’t let anyone tell you Jesus didn’t panic. But he panicked well with his eyes on his Father.

So looking at our passage, I wonder what Paul means when he says he’s a prisoner on behalf of the Gentiles. Even more, I wonder what he means when he says, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you which is your glory.” Let’s explore and determine what Paul meant.

The Passage

Just like always, I want to keep the passage in mind, so I bring it here for us to read again.

¹ For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— ² assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, ³ how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. ⁴ When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 

⁶ This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. ⁷ Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 

⁸ To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, ¹⁰ so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 

¹¹ This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, ¹² in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. ¹³So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.¹

Pre-Study. This is What I Do.

How I Found Cross References

In preparation for sharing with you, I looked around at the cross references the ESV adds through the super-scripted notes. I went a variety of different directions, obviously to Colossians, but also over to both Corinthians and Romans. I could have even branched out to Proverbs which has many references to suffering. However, in my experience, exploring a wealth of cross references often does not lead to clarity but instead clouds and overwhelms the picture. For our study, it’s my hope we are going to spend most of our time in Colossians again, since it is the closest writing we have (keeping in mind the concentric circles) to when Paul wrote Ephesians.

I tell you all of that so you know my steps and my decision-making process. If you don’t learn something of how to pick and choose for yourself, I at least partly missed my objective in our time together. We both want to come away with a better understanding of how to be students of the Word.

What Questions are We Asking?

That last one really stumps me. How is suffering somehow tied to the Gentile’s position or appearance or something? How does Paul mean glory there? What am I missing in order to follow Paul’s thinking?

These are all questions that are rolling around in my head before I dig into the Word. Sometimes we read the Word for the purpose of reading and fellowshipping with our God. No direction required.

But sometimes we are reading and studying the Word for the purpose of gaining clear and succinct understanding of what the human author intended to convey as he was led by the Holy Spirit. For that we need direction (pertinent questions to answer) and a set of guidelines by which we explore (hermeneutics). Bible study is that simple.

Taking Notes in Colossians

At the top of my sticky I wrote what I know so far: “Paul prisoner on behalf of G.” Then knowing my verse in Colossians in which Paul refers to suffering is Col 1:24, I examined the context surrounding. Is he having the same (or at least similar) discussion in both letters?

On this sticky, I established that much of what Paul discussed in Ephesians is discussed in Colossians. Even some of the same verbiage. Therefore, I am not pressing the text into what I want it to say. Rather, I am allowing the author’s words to say what he meant them to say. And he’s speaking similar concepts in Colossians as he does in Ephesians.

Now that we’ve established the contexts are similar, let’s look at it here. Does he add anything in Colossians that isn’t present in Ephesians?

A Lengthy Cross Reference

²¹ And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, ²² he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, ²³ if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. 

²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, ²⁵ of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, ²⁶ the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. ²⁷ To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

²⁸ Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. ²⁹ For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.²

Additional Information from Colossians

Reading through the cross reference, the added information that I noticed I put in a list. Did you notice anything else? Go ahead and write it down–and feel free to let me know what you noticed. I’d love to hear what you’re learning.

The last note I jotted was because I saw additional information about the gospel. Not so much about the why’s and wherefore’s of Paul’s suffering.

We saw that Paul rejoices in his suffering. Not only does he not want his audience to lose heart (Eph 3:13), he himself had joy in the process (Col 1:24). Furthermore, Paul somehow seems to be saying that Christ’s afflictions were insufficient.

How? Why? What in the world? I have a tilt of the head and a raised eyebrow. I don’t understand this yet. Let’s keep exploring. We may need to branch out of these companion letters into other texts Paul wrote to shed light on our question.

Myriad Cross References

Gaining no satisfaction from any mention of these companion words, I turned my focus to the word glory in Ephesians 3:13. Was this where I needed to turn attention?

Original Language Tools

You know how I’ve said before that we are going to study this together, come what may? We are in the process of that right now. My dictionaries offered no clarification whatsoever. All the information was either historical (interesting but not immediately pertinent) or the entries were based on the glory that belongs to God. Not what I’m looking for because that isn’t what Paul is talking about.

NET Bible

I’m hitting dead ends all over. Considering that sometimes passages are simply obscure, vague and demonstrate the difficulty of attempting to understand another person across time and space, I made a last ditch effort. What does the NET say? Do the translators offer any information that I couldn’t find anywhere else?

Example of No Word Breaks

Let me give you an example in English, if our spacing was eliminated. And just know how much I love you because it took me over an hour to puzzle out such a conundrum.

This is what happened in Ephesians 3:13. The letters are all smushed together on the manuscripts. No spacing. So does Paul mean which is your glory? Or does he mean who is your glory?

I don’t know. In my head, I think the second one does from the immediate context. Can we know for sure? Nope. Is it a point on which we should base an obscure doctrine? Nope. Does it cause cracks in any previously established and orthodox doctrines? Nope.

One Answered, Still Another

That leaves us with two of our questions. Why does Paul say he’s a prisoner on behalf of the Gentiles and why is he suffering for them? Which are probably both the same question just phrased differently.

Going back to Colossians 1:24, Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”

That still seems like there is some sort of deficiency on the part of Christ, doesn’t it? What tools do we have in the toolbox when the verses are unclear? I think I heard you say text comparison, but it was a little muffled through my computer. Yes! There are other tools, too, but this is the one we will employ right now.

We will examine the ESV, NET, RSV, and NASB and see if any of the translators have a different way of expressing the same Greek text that might help us better understand.

ESV

²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…³

The NET Bible

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body—for the sake of his body, the church—what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.⁴

RSV

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…⁵

NASB

24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I ¹do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.^6
1 Or representatively … fill up

The translators wanted to leave room for the possibility that text could be interpreted representatively … fill up. For me, that, in addition to the NET’s physical body helped me to wrap my mind around Paul’s intention for his audience.

Paul is the representative on earth (at that time) who is able to suffer something like Jesus did. In a physical sense, Jesus can no longer suffer here on earth. But Paul can. (Could.)

Suffering

It’s a huge concept. I’m going to talk about it, looking at more cross references and dictionaries and whatnot, next time we get together. Will you come back and join me in the adventure?

Reflection

While studying in this Bite, there were trails we ambled about without any real direction, weren’t there? However, we did pause a moment on one thought I’d like to remember for myself.

It’s at this point that I’m determining a small piece of significance to take with me. If I walk away from the text without a thought to sustain and to meditate on, I’ve foregone an essential part of my time with our God. You’ve been hanging out with me long enough to know this is a challenge for me. I’m holding myself accountable to you to allow my heart to hear and ruminate on truth.

Don’t Lose Heart

The moment of pause my heart had was that point where there was clear trumping vague. Paul didn’t want the recipients to lose heart over his suffering. By implication, over any suffering. Don’t lose heart. Right now, that’s a temptation.

I ordinarily stay close to home; even pride myself on it. When governing authorities tell me to stay home? Let’s just say I have hackles. Hackles that rise so high. Especially when I do not believe the scare is as bad as the media portrays. But I won’t get into that here. Not the point.

The point? I’m walking away with not losing heart. What does that look like in my life?

Well, I have a number of daily activities that I’ve always done that I’m fighting with myself about. Exercise isn’t as fun because I can’t bike with the weather conditions. Pottery sales are down for a variety of reasons. Concentration is not at a high level but instead is replaced with high levels of distraction. In my life, these are me losing heart.

Paul has ASKED his audience to not lose heart. It’s on the table as a possibility. He knows it, addresses it, encourages them to not participate in their current panic-demic. Most likely they had persecution in their near future. Don’t lose heart. How?

How Do I Not Lose Heart?

Attitude

Attitude? When I sit down to study or write or I try to listen to the currently free Sproul lectures (you can access the philosophy one I’m listening to right now here) and I find my attention wanders, I will not berate myself. Grace for the circumstances. Yes, I’m given to dead air space in my head with regularity right now. And that’s okay. You may be finding yourself in a similar situation. That’s okay.

For me, I am recognizing it, telling God that I’d like to be able to focus, and then exercising my brain by trying to refocus. Eventually it will listen. Eventually life will either return to normal or I’ll get used to the new normal. Regardless, being frustrated with myself will not solve anything. Acknowledge the problem and move along.

Don’t lose heart, fellow student of the Word. If this resonates with your heart, how are you heeding Paul’s request to not lose heart? If this isn’t the significance you found in our study, what did you come away with today?

Wrap Up

In our wrap up of our Bite today, did you notice that we have tools in the tool box now? We used a variety of them today: cross references, original language study, and multiple translations. When we are studying, we will hit dead ends on our trails. That’s just fine. Maybe the question we’re asking doesn’t have a biblical answer, but maybe we need to rummage around in the tool box for a different tool.

The main thing to remember for this Bible Study Bite is to let the author say what he meant to say. As always, we both need to leave our backpacks at the door and never press the text to say what we think it says. Even if we can’t determine the author’s meaning. Bible study should never include us pressing the text to say what the author didn’t intend to say at that point. No matter if it’s true elsewhere in scripture, if the author didn’t mean to say it right here, it’s at best poor technique and at worst heresy.

Let the vague be vague and cling to the clear.

See you next time as we wrestle with the concept of suffering as Paul mentions in Ephesians 3:13.

1. Ephesians 3:1–13 (ESV)
2. Colossians 1:21–29 (ESV)
3. Colossians 1:24 (ESV)
4. Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Col 1:24). Biblical Studies Press.
5. The Revised Standard Version. (1971). (Col 1:24). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
6. New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Col 1:24). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.