Ephesians 1:15-17

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.

Paul extends his prayer of praise from v3-14 to intercession. Paul prays to God for what he would have God do in the lives of God’s people. Interestingly, much of this prayer is a prayer that God would bring about in us a realization of the things that we have just praised Him for in verses 3-14. In other words, Paul prays that God, by His Holy Spirit, would give us an experiential understanding of the truths for which we praise God in our own lives. To consider that this composition is merely a general letter, written from prison – house arrest – in Rome, along with other letters, like Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, makes it all the more meaningful.

Though Paul was in Ephesus for over two years, he is writing some five to seven years later. Perhaps much has changed. No doubt the church had grown. The circular intent of this letter may be clearly seen in Paul’s wording in v15. He tells his audience that he is thankful for them on account of their faith and love – “generally the whole excellence of Christian character,” according to Calvin. Ligon Duncan says, “By faith, the Apostle Paul refers to both believing the truth of God’s word and trusting in the person of Jesus Christ, and those two things always come together. Saving faith always entails believing the truth of God’s word and trusting in the person of Jesus Christ.”

In v16, Paul implies that he is thankful to God – not to them – for their faith and love. Paul sees faith and love; he’s encouraged by it, but he gives all the praise to God. We are to do the same. When I read this, I see Paul in a great light, but I see myself as faithfulnessless. I lack faithfulness. I have stopped giving thanks for you; I have not remembered you in my prayers. I have not done what Paul does here. How can I live the Christian life without striving for the life that Paul lived? He says to imitate him. But I do not.

In v17, Paul asks God to bless His people with wisdom and revelation (see 1 Corinthians 2:10), specifically “the Spirit [or a spirit] of wisdom of revelation.” Christians know God; He has revealed Himself to them in a special way already. Christians have the Holy Spirit; He indwells their hearts and leads them in this life of transition. Paul knows that one of the crucial works of the Holy Spirit is to bring the truth of God’s word to our hearts; therefore, even as we have just praised God for who He is and what He has done for us in v3-14, now Paul wants the Holy Spirit to bring that truth to our hearts. Those who know God need to know Him better; those who have the Spirit need to be refilled constantly (due to leakiness).

Paul is asking God to grant his readers the intellectual quality of wisdom and revelation, or as he puts it in Colossians 1:9, “spiritual wisdom and understanding.” Thus some translations say, “a spirit,” rather than “the Spirit.” Such wisdom, of course, is the result of the Holy Spirit’s work in the human mind, so either translation fits. One commentator said, “What Paul is praying for is that God might so work in the lives of the Ephesian saints that they will have the spiritual wisdom and a revelation from Him that is the result of the Holy Spirit’s work of energizing their human spirit. That spiritual disposition should characterize these saints.” Ligon Duncan says, “Increase in the knowledge of God, experiential understanding of who God is and what He has done for us, is the key to maturity in the Christian life.”

Vincent Cheung says, “The foundation of such a request can be nothing other than God’s absolute sovereignty over all things. Within the biblical worldview, to pray for wisdom and enlightenment presupposes God’s direct contact with and control over the mind of man. Biblical teaching opposes any idea that God would exercise absolute control over all things but at the same time allow the human mind to control itself by its own free will, as if this is even metaphysically possible... Paul’s priority is intellectual, and his prayer reflects this. A Christian properly operates by intellectual understanding of revealed information. In other words, a Christian should strive to understand and remember biblical doctrines, and then obey them and live by them. A Christian lives and grows by knowledge, and knowledge about the things of God. When Paul prays that his readers would receive spiritual wisdom, that they would receive an intellectual acuity about spiritual things, he is in effect praying that God would open to them the way to real and sustained spiritual blessing and progress.” I read an exposition of 2 Peter 1:3-11 in this context the other day:

3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. 4Through these He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins [the Gospel]. 10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Keeping the gospel ever before our mind’s eyes is the key to living the Christian life. That’s why Paul asks the glorious Father to give his Christian audience the Spirit [or a spirit] of wisdom and revelation, that they might know God better. How do you pray for one another? Do you thank God when you see faith and love displayed in the lives of your fellow Christians? And do you intercede for your brothers and sisters in your local congregation, that they would come to know God in greater and deeper ways? It was Paul’s concern. He thanks God for the spiritual blessings that have been heaped on everyone who is in Jesus Christ, and then he turns around and he asks for all those who truly know God, that they would know Him even better. Paul begins his prayer of intercession with thanksgiving – for the faith and the “faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6) of the Christian congregations of Asia Minor – and supplication – asking God to give those same Christian congregations “the Spirit [or a spirit] of wisdom and revelation.” He is thankful to God, and he asks for wisdom and revelation so that the Christians of Asia Minor would know God better.