A Word for Today | Ephesians 1:16-17
The prayer that concludes Ephesians 1 is significant in showing how Paul always joins the ministry of prayer to his teaching of God’s Word. Paul shows us that if we want to reach people for Christ, we need both to witness and to pray. This prayer also shows Paul’s priorities in prayer. How many things he must have had on his mind! Yet, when tells of his ceaseless prayer for these believers, his first priority is that they would know God and know Him better: “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” (Eph. 1:16-17).
Charles Spurgeon echoed Paul’s priority in the opening words of the first sermon recorded from his ministry: “There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity… But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continuing investigation of the great subject of the Deity.”[1] This priority in Spurgeon’s preaching helps explain the remarkable blessing of God on his fifty years of ministry.
Notice, further, how Paul locates our knowledge of God in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ. He is “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” (Eph. 1:16). Jesus came to reveal the glory of His Father (Jn. 14:9). Notice, as well, that it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convey to us this knowledge of God: “may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Eph. 1:17). How exciting it is to embark on the journey of knowing Him who is our Creator and Redeemer! Could anything else be so exciting? During these strange days in our nation, as so many distractions have been providentially removed, what better use could we make of our time than to open God’s Word, or read a good book of biblical teaching, to know God better. We can be sure that it will pay off in our lives since Jesus promised: “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn. 17:3).
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Phillips
[1] Charles Haddon Spurgeon: The New Park Street Pulpit, 6 vols. (Pasadena, Tx: Pilgrim Publications, 1855, reprint 1975), 1:1.