Bite 59: What Does Paul Pray?

Paul as an Example

As Paul prays in front of us for those in the churches in Asia Minor, we not only get to eavesdrop for the purpose of study but also for the purpose of learning what every lover of Jesus needs prayer about. We have general purpose for knowledge about God and ourselves, as well as specific purposes for daily living.

Do you have someone for whom you are praying that you love with your very soul? Perhaps a mom who gives her life daily for her children. Or perhaps a husband who is like Christ to his beloved wife. What do you pray for when you kneel before the throne of grace on their behalf?

Safety?

Health?

Freedom from tyranny?

What does Paul pray? Let’s listen in as his heart pours out on the papyrus and it drips down through the corridors of time to our Bibles today.

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

Content of the Prayer

As I see it, Paul prays for a foundation for the recipients’ hearts (inner beings) that would be strengthened with this potential energy in order for some things to occur. Did you find different requests? What do you see? I don’t think the way I’ve laid out my list is the only way to see it. In fact, when I go back and look at it again, I see the grammar relationships a little differently. Are some of these requests actually explanations of the request that came before? They may not be separate requests like I have them laid out.

In any case, as we try to explore these four particular requests I noted, we may come to better understanding of what Paul intended. Separate requests? Amplified and explanatory requests? Either way, we will observe Paul’s prayer which will result in our hearts being more educated for prayer.

So that Christ may Dwell

The first point after the foundation of being strengthened with power was this request that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith. In order to understand Paul’s thinking about in-heart dwelling, I turned to the ESV cross reference attached to Ephesians 3:17.

As we analyze Paul’s prayer, we want to put ourselves in the sandals of the recipients who still had the philosophy of the Jewish temple dominating their attempt to come near to God. The temple where Gentiles were not welcomed. In individual villages and towns, there were synagogues where the Gentiles were tolerated but not allowed to participate in teaching or leadership positions. Merely tolerated. Paul earlier in Ephesians makes it clear that together these two groups are not only able to worship together, God inhabits the worship of both together.

Now Paul prays for the truth that in their hearts Christ would also dwell. With these stone buildings around as constant reminders that socially and spiritually and politically, the Gentiles “don’t belong,” Paul once again declares that they do belong and that the Savior of the world will be as close to them as conceivably possible. Living within them.

Why Pray for Christ to Dwell?

What does it say?

We learned in Bite 58 that the ESV translators used strength to describe the Greek behind it. Perhaps a better translation might be how the NET translated it:

...you may be able to comprehend 
with all the saints 
what is the breadth and length and height and depth...3

But the breadth and length and height and depth of what? He doesn’t say!

If we continue reading in the NET, the translators give us a hint about what they think the object of these dimensions are.

...and thus to know the love of Christ 
that surpasses knowledge, 
so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.4

From the context, it appears that the NET scholars see the dimensions as measurements of the love of Christ. And that is one of the questions I wrote down in the observation phase of my study.

Answering Questions

While looking at the context of the NET, I’m satisfied with “measurements of the love of Christ.”

For the second question, I’m not sure this is a Bible study question as much as a geometry question.

SIDE NOTE:

Which is a GREAT time to mention (again?) that the Bible is not a book of science. Not a text book to understand how the mechanics of the world work. Wrong genre of literature. Primarily, we go to scripture to understand who God is and who man is. Not for specifics of how God moves in the realm of nature or what the rules governing that nature are. Scripture is the revelation of God moving in history, interacting with his creation, bringing about salvation. If we try to press whatever current science is vogue at the time, problems will arise because that is not the purpose for which the Bible was written. End side note.

And, is there a right answer? I’m not sure. However, when I consider what Paul is praying and how much love he himself has for the church, I have a suspicion about this. Not confused. Not exaggeration. Not all the superlatives imaginable.

He covers all the capacity and then he also covers beyond capacity. Or, if you prefer, below capacity. BDAG defines this word as “the space of distance beneath a surface, depth.”⁵ Christ’s love for the recipients? It isn’t something that can be contained; it goes deep.

Knowing that Surpasses Knowledge

Paul wants the recipients, who already have love themselves that goes deep (they are rooted and grounded in love, Eph 3:17), to have strength to have Christ taking up residence in their souls to be able to comprehend with all of history how much love Christ has for them. Understand there is all the capacity as well as there is distance beneath the surface.

The way he prays for this reality? …and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19). He wants them to know what is known with regard to Christ’s capacity of love for them.

How much is that?

That is what we are doing. Bible study is about getting to know all of God better. For us right now, specifically God the Son. The Word is the revealed truth about God. We are in the process of, by the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing all that is known. By extension, Paul’s prayer went out to God on our behalf in our efforts to know God in our study.

Just a Little Greek-iness

I’m not saying this is strictly necessary for study. Having the English translations that we have makes us rich beyond measure. However, just now in my study, I was able to observe Paul’s poetry and his emphasis when he chose the words he chose. Check it out.

But he used words in the same word families to be clear and repetitive. I think that’s pretty cool. So I shared it with you.

Filled with all the Fullness

What does that even mean? Filled with fullness?

I looked at a variety of cross references like these:

• And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Mark 6:43 
• Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Romans 11:25 
• For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” 1 Corinthians 10:26 
• But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law…Galatians 4:4 

From these, we get some understanding of the word’s meaning.

• A full basket of fish.
  • I can picture the bug-eyed, floppy fish brimming and falling out.
• The fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
  • I can picture all of us Gentiles like the end of iRobot. All of the purposeless robots milling around but then see Sonny standing on the hill above them to save them from meaninglessness.
• The fullness of the earth.
  • All of the earth, everything is the Lord’s.
• Time was full.
  • I can picture the cosmic hourglass where the final grain of sand dropped onto the pile below. The trigger for what came next.

As I look these examples over, I get the idea of “completeness.” However, I don’t want to rely on my own suspicions. I want to get verification so I will peruse a couple of dictionaries.

Mounce

I looked a few different dictionaries, but the most succinct was Dr. Mounce which I brought here for you to read.

Noun: πλήρωμα (plērōma), GK 4445 (S 4138), 17×. plērōma describes that which fills, the fullness of something, or what is brought to completion.

(1) In several instances plērōma describe the absolute wholeness, the fullness, of the deity. Thus, we have all received grace upon grace from the fullness of Jesus (Jn 1:16). In Christ, God was “pleased to have all his fullness dwell” (Col 1:19); indeed, “in him all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (2:9). Knowing Christ is, for Paul, for the purpose of being filled to “all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). This is the goal of the discipling ministry of the church, that people might become mature, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (4:13).⁶

Fullness includes ideas of completeness, wholeness, even becoming mature is possible in our context. Being filled with all the fullness of God is addressed in his entry. Maturity, Mounce says. Being complete and whole spiritually.

Reflection

As we think about what exactly we are studying, it isn’t a “do this” text. It isn’t a “good job” text. What we see is simply Paul’s heart, educated by the Spirit, pleading with God on behalf of brothers and sisters. Some of whom he’s never met. He doesn’t know all the places his letter will roam in Asia Minor. He knows the drama that is happening in the region, and these are the points he brings before the Father.

Is this how I pray? Sometimes. I don’t think abandoning a prayer list with real issues is what Paul is demonstrating. His example though is about matters of the head and heart. When the head and heart are strengthened with power to know the love of Christ and be filled with fullness of God, what can’t they handle?

For my own self, I want to follow Paul’s example and pray what I now understand better in his prayer.

Wrap Up

As our Bible Study Bite for today, I want to tell you that sometimes I just don’t know which direction to go. That’s okay. Do you remember that I was saying earlier that I don’t know if there are multiple topics Paul was praying or if some of the items on my list were explanations?

Not knowing is okay. I want to encourage you to pick a direction and go. Please recognize that we are never going to study perfectly. God knows this. It’s part of the reason why Jesus left the Spirit behind.

He guides our God-given intelligence. I believe we need to use the tools available to us, learn new tools when we can, be striving and efforting to know our God according to his revealed Word. Learn and grow in peace, humbly re-evaluating what we have stuffed into our backpacks, aware that we all have fallacies and biases. And then rest.

And so, fellow student of the Word, keep wrestling with the text. With me. It’s a struggle and wrestling match for me too. We can keep our eyes on our Dad as we try to know him better. He knows our limitations. Knowing them, he loves us and smiles on us with affection that has no boundary (breadth, length, height, depth).

1. Ephesians 3:14–21 (ESV)
2. Ephesians 2:22 (ESV)
3. Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Eph 3:18). Biblical Studies Press.
4. Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Eph 3:19). Biblical Studies Press.
5. 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. 162). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
6. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 276). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.