Paul has described his stewardship and the many-coloured wisdom on display through the assembly. Now he kneels, and what follows is the second and longer of the letter's two prayers, ending in one of the great doxologies.
What happens
"I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of Theos. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
What to notice
Kamptō ta gonata mou — "I bend my knees."The default posture for Jewish prayer was standing; kneeling is what you do in emergency — Solomon at the temple dedication, Daniel under a death sentence, Jesus at Gethsemane. Paul is signalling that this is not routine. Then a pun no English carries: ton patera, ex hou pasa patria… onomazetai — a patriabeinga lineage, a clan descended from a common father, so: the Father from whom every fatherhood takes its name.Every family that exists is named after him rather than the other way round.Errizōmenoi kai tethemeliōmenoi en agapē — and the two participles come from different trades: rizoō is to put down roots, agricultural; themelioō is to lay a foundation, architectural. You are being described as a plant and a building at the same time, and the soil and the footing are the same thing. Then the four dimensions, and the striking fact is what is missing: ti to platos kai mēkos kai hypsos kai bathos, "what is the breadth and length and height and depth."Of what?The sentence never says. No genitive follows; every English Bible either leaves the gap or quietly supplies of the love of Christ from the next clause — and that is a separate infinitive, so the supply is a guess.The most honest reading is that the object is deliberately withheld: four dimensions is simply everything there is. And the verb is katalabesthai, to seize, to lay hold of — not to understand at a distance but to get your arms around. Then a deliberate contradiction stated without embarrassment: "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowing." The doxology contains one of Paul's largest constructed words — hyper ek perissou, three intensifiers stacked.He is out of adverbs and builds a new one. And the last clause is unusual: "to him be glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus."
Psalm 33 came six days ago with different middle verses. Today's selection adds the two stanzas that matter on a day about households coming apart.
The selected verses
Psalm 33:1–2."Exult, you just, in Yahweh; praise from the upright is fitting. Give thanks to Yahweh on the harp; with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises." Psalm 33:4–5."Upright is the word of Yahweh, and all his works are trustworthy. He lovesjustice and right; of the kindness of Yahweh the earth is full." Psalm 33:11–12."But the plan of Yahweh stands forever; the design of his heart, through all generations. Blessed the nation whose Theos is Yahweh; the people he has chosen for his own inheritance." Psalm 33:18–19."See, the eyes of Yahweh are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness, to deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine."
What to notice
Psalm 33:11 is the day's counterweight: atzat Yahweh l'olam ta'amod, machshevot libbo l'dor va-dor, "the counsel of Yahweh stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to generation and generation."The verse immediately before it, not in the selection, says the opposite about us:Yahweh brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. And l'dor va-dor is the same phrase Ephesians reaches for in its doxology. On a morning when the Gospel divides fathers from sons and mothers from daughters, both the psalm and the epistle insist on something that runs through the generations rather than between them.Psalm 33:18 sharpens an image: hinneh ein Yahweh el-yere'av, "behold, the eye of Yahweh is toward those who fear him" — singular, the eye — and what it is looking at is ha-meyachalim l'chasdo, "those waiting for his hesed." And Psalm 33:19 is honest about what is promised: l'hatzil mi-mavet nafsham, u-l'chayyotam ba-ra'av, "to rescue their life from death, and to keep them alive in famine."Not to prevent the famine. To keep them alive in it.
Five verses, and they are the hardest in this part of Luke. The discourse has been about watchfulness and stewardship; it now turns without warning to what the speaker himself is heading into, and then to what his arrival does to families.
What happens
"I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establishpeace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
What to notice
Pyr ēlthon balein epi tēn gēn — "fire I came to throw on the earth."Ballō is a violent verb, to cast, to hurl. And the second half is one of the genuinely difficult sentences in the Greek New Testament: word for word it reads "and what do I want, if it is already kindled" — either a wish, a question, or a Semitic idiom carried into Greek. Every translation is a decision. What is not in doubt is the impatience. Baptisma de echō baptisthēnai, "I have a baptism to be baptized with" — not water.Baptizō means to plunge, to immerse, to sink, and is used of ships going down. He is describing being submerged in what is coming.Pōs synechomai heōs hotou telesthē — and synechō is far more physical than anguish suggests: to be held together, hemmed in, gripped, constricted. Luke uses it of a woman gripped by a high fever (Luke 4:38) and of a crowd pressing in on all sides (Luke 8:45). He is not distressed so much as held — under pressure, with no room, until it is finished. Then the sentence that ought to be quoted more often against sentimental Christianity, and it comes from the same gospel that gave the angelspeace on earth at Luke 2:14: "Do you suppose I arrived to give peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division."Luke wrote both sentences and did not reconcile them.Diamerismos, a splitting apart, is from the same root as meris, the portion Mary chose on October 6. And the arithmetic is precise: five in one house, three against two — a specific and ordinary household size, and the pairs named next are exactly that household. And it is a quotation: Micah 7:6, where the same words describe a society in collapse.Luke has him name it as a consequence of his own arrival — not as an aim, but as a thing stated in advance so that nobody is surprised.
How They Fit Together
The epistle prays for strength; the Gospel says what it is for
Fire, a submersion, and five people in one house on opposite sides
The epistle prays for strength, the Gospel says what the strength is for, and the psalm holds the ground between them.
Ephesians 3 is often read as the warmest page in Paul, and it is — rooted and grounded in love, filled with all the fullness — but read the actual petition and it is a request for structural capacity.Krataiōthēnai dynamei… eis ton esō anthrōpon — to be made strong with power, in the inner human being.Strength is asked for first, before the love is mentioned, and the purpose clause explains why: hina exischysēte katalabesthai, "so that you may be strong enough to lay hold of."The thing to be grasped is too large to be taken in by somebody unreinforced.
And what is it? The sentence never says.Breadth and length and height and depth — four dimensions, no genitive, nothing attached. Translators have filled the gap for centuries and every filling is an editorial act. The most likely reason for the silence is that four dimensions is a way of saying everything — the whole extent of what is — and the prayer is that a person be built solidly enough to get their arms around it without coming apart.
Then the paradox, stated flatly: to know the love that exceeds knowing.Ephesians does not apologize for the contradiction and does not resolve it, which is the right decision, because the alternative is to shrink one of the two terms.
The Gospel then tells you what the reinforcement is for, and it is not consolation. Fire, hurled at the earth. A baptisma that is a drowning rather than a washing. And a speaker who says synechomai — I am held, hemmed in, gripped — a word Luke elsewhere uses of a fever and of a crowd crushing in. This is the closest thing in Luke to Gethsemane before Gethsemane, and it is spoken in the middle of a discourse about being ready.
And then the division, which is the passage people would like to forget and Luke would not let them. The same evangelist who wrote peace on earth to those of good will has him ask do you suppose I came to give peace? and answer no.Both are in the book. The reconciliation, if there is one, is that the peace announced at the manger is peace with Theos, and Luke 12:51 is about what the arrival of that peace does inside a house where not everyone wants it.
Because the divisions are named with terrible domestic precision. Five people. Three against two. And the pairs are the ones you cannot leave: father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.Not a division between the household and the world — a line drawn through the kitchen. Micah said the same words about a society falling apart; Luke has him say them about the effect of his own coming, in advance, as a warning rather than a threat.
Which is exactly why Ephesians prays for the inner self to be reinforced and for people to be rooted and grounded, and why the psalm insists that the counsel of Yahweh stands to generation and generation.When the line runs between the generations, something has to run through them.
And the psalm's promise is measured with care and worth taking as it stands: not deliverance from famine, but being kept alive in it.The famine is not cancelled.
A Question to Sit With
The prayer asks for strength first and love second — to be reinforced in the inner self so as to be able to lay hold of something whose dimensions the sentence never finishes naming. And the Gospel says what the strength is for, and it is not comfort: fire, a submersion, and a line drawn through a kitchen. I would rather have the love without the reinforcement. If something is being asked of me that requires me to be built differently first, what part of that construction have I been putting off?