Changing Inside and Looking Outside (In Search Of Truth, Ephesians 1:15-19)

(Ephesians 1:15-19, ESV)
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might


v.15-17

In previous verses, Paul mentions the fact that his readers responded to truth and the good news of Jesus by believing and trusting in him to rescue them from sin. Because of this faith, and the resulting love toward other believers that came with it, Paul is moved to thank Yahweh for his readers.

Without ceasing, Paul "remembers" them in his prayers, which in Greek suggests that he actually mentioned them verbally in his prayers. Specifically, Paul prays that God will give them wisdom and reveal knowledge of God to them.

How often do we make this our prayer for other believers? We pray for their health or that they will be rescued from suffering or difficult situations, which are good things to keep praying for. Do we also pray for their growing wisdom and understanding of who God is?

The reality is that both wisdom and an understanding of God's character have direct impact on our experience of difficulty in life. They also provide further encouragement and joy. Wisdom and fuller understanding of God are "evergreen" traits that have value in any and every situation, and so we should seek to develop them ourselves and pray for God to develop them in the individual believers we know.


v.18-19

Paul also prays that his readers will have the eyes of their hearts enlightened. In scripture, the heart is the source of both thought and moral judgment, in addition to emotions. Paul is praying that our entire inward self, the inner us that no one but God truly sees, would gain deeper understanding of truth. We can have and develop a sort of public or social understanding of truth, that's more on a head knowledge level or that we only bring to bear in conversations with others. But Paul wants the real you and me, in our private inner thought lives, to grow in our understanding of truth. Why? So that we will really understand and experience the hope that we've been called to have.

The Greek word for "hope" used here and elsewhere in the New Testament is not just a wishful thought in spite of what reality is telling us. "Hope" here is a confident expectation of something good. That "something good" is the riches of a "glorious inheritance" we share with all who have trusted Jesus for their forgiveness.

Paul also wants believers to understand, in their true inward thought life, the immeasurable greatness of God's power, presently at work in our lives.

We don't get to see mountains split open or oceans launch into the sky as we go about our daily routines. But God is orchestrating events and moments throughout our days that encourage us and remind us of his care, or provide opportunity to be a source of blessing and undeserved favor for other people. But we need to have a spotlight on truth in our inward thought lives in order to see those things.


SO WHAT'S IN THIS FOR GEEKS?

I'm gonna describe some things about myself (both where I've been and where I still struggle to get away from), but I'm going to pretend for a moment that it's not just me and use some "we language". I'll trust you to do some inward searching to see if this applies to you. (My advice, as you do that, is to remember the tireless patience, forgiveness and love that God has for us.)

Many of us geeks have a very active inner thought life. And it's often a very different mode from the outward version of us. The inner us has doubts and fears or bitterly stews over wrongs against us. The outer us presents itself to others as intelligent and self-controlled. But over time, that outer us can start dominating our inner life, because we like that picture of ourselves and want to believe it's true. So we stuff down the doubts and fears, and justify our bitterness, protecting our self-image even in our own minds and becoming increasingly self-focused in the process. We pray for others less, and when we do it's often judgmental prayer for some character flaw in them to be fixed (which we disguise as pious compassion).

In these verses from Ephesians, Paul is both modeling for us and calling us up to a different kind of faith life. God does not want us to just learn new things and modify our behavior. Yes he wants that, but without a change in our true, inward perspectives and feelings about life, learning and changing behavior are just empty practices dependent on our willpower.

I would make a terrible Green Lantern. So willpower can't really change me. I need my perspective and feelings to change, so that obedience becomes a natural reaction. God doesn't want us to wait to obey until it feels natural, that's not what I'm saying. But we can't sustainably grow in obedience if our perspective and feelings about life are not changing and becoming more like Christ's perspective and feelings.

So Paul prays for our inward, private selves to gain a more full and accurate view of reality. Reality as God sees it and as it actually is.

Paul is also modeling a prayer life for others. He thanks Yahweh for the specific believers he knows and prays for them to experience the kind of inward transformation that will result in a confident expectation of all that God has promised. He prays for them to gain wisdom, understanding of life as it really is, wrinkles and all, and how God wants us to approach life in that context.

(As an aside, wisdom is a great thing to pray for. We geeks can usually gain knowledge well enough, but still have unrealistic expectations of life and people that result from a lack of wisdom. In fact I'm considering taking us through the book of Proverbs when we're done with Ephesians.)

It's good for us geeks to follow Paul's example and pray for other believers. Thanking God for them, praying for wisdom and understanding in their inward lives, so that they can experience the hope God offers.

The results of that inward change are a growing recognition of the immeasurably rich inheritance we have, the significance and authority we will share with Christ in his rule over Creation. And with that recognition comes a better perspective on life now, shrinking problems in our minds that can seem so mammoth as we stew over them. That perspective also brings a growing awareness of events that God is constantly orchestrating for us, to encourage us or engage us in blessing others.

It's an inward life that increasingly sees truth about God and ourselves, gains genuine hope and confidence from that, and then looks outward to bless others in response.






Resources used to prepare this study include:
"Expositor's Bible Commentary", Frank E. Gaebelein General Editor (Zondervan Publishing House)
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance
Blueletterbible.org (primarily for search functionality)