1:15,16
As is often the case, Galatians being a notable exception, Paul gives praise, thanksgiving and prayer for the Ephesians. “For this reason ...”, the thanksgiving is all founded in what God is doing, and has done. There are two key aspects of the Ephesians that brings joy to Paul. The first is their “faith in the Lord Jesus”, and the second their “love toward all the saints”. We should all use the same two measures in assessing ourselves, and our churches. So Paul does not stop giving thanks and remembers them in his prayers. In Philippians 4:8 Paul says we should focus on whatever is noble. This is an example of that.
1:17
We then learn about the nature of his prayers for the Ephesians, and we do well to model our prayers for each other on this. We should also look at how we pray for each other, we may well find that our prayers are rather impoverished. Our reaction to this should be to up our game! First of all Paul reminds us of whom we are praying to, the Father of glory. Too often our prayers are founded on our own insecurities and weaknesses (now it is not wrong to confess our weaknesses and fears to God, David does this often in the Psalms), instead they should be founded on “the Father of Glory”. Paul asks this God to give them “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him”. Spirit here might be spirit, but either is true and relevant. We need our own spirits to have wisdom and revelation, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives us wisdom and revelation. And this wisdom and revelation is “in the knowledge of Him”. Him here is Jesus Christ, but could be God in total, again it matters little as all of God’s plans and purposes for man are fulfilled in and through the Son. For myself, if I know and understand Jesus better then I will be better. When we pray for others, so often the problem is a lack of understanding of who Christ is and what He has done. We do well to pray this for ourselves, and for each other.
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