Answer: Paul is not recommending repetition
When Paul says, “I do not cease to give thanks for you,” he is not proposing that Christians thoughtlessly cast up words. My earlier interpretations edged toward the vain repetitions from which Jesus warned his disciples1. Paul is not even making recommendations, but in this part of his letter is telling us of the way things were going in his life. As I mentioned my struggle in coming to Paul’s words, Paul wrote of his state of mind when he considered the Ephesians. “This is what has happened,” he is saying. Let us look at that.
Think back over the missionary journeys of Paul. Did he not have a succession of quick stops and occasionally even quicker departures? How many times was he cast from cities with Jewish and Gentile hate spewed around him or carried out with thrown rocks? Sometimes I think that Paul’s evangelistic efforts were a bit pollen-like: spread everywhere with only a few trees coming from the yellow haze. When was the last time you saw a tree grow from a pollen grain? Probably never. The seeds are scattered, but the fruit is hard to visualize.
Consider also how Paul had spent his evangelistic years steeped in thought, preaching, and praying over all that God had done, and was doing. Paul’s assurance grew and grew as did his awareness of what the deeds of God meant for the lives of men. These things he taught, told, spread, and cajoled. As that clarity grew brighter so did Paul’s view of the shadows cast all around the lives of men. So much excellence infused the relationship with God, but the pollen-spread of God’s grace garnered only the occasional interest.
Ephesus was a pine tree that sprouted. When did he hear of the first growths? Was it while he was in Antioch? Maybe during his overland journey back toward Priscilla, Aquilla, and Apollos. Perhaps it was later than this or while he was in that first Roman imprisonment around A.D. 60. Could it be that Ephesus seemed to him like one of his many quick-stops?
Paul’s experience at Ephesus may have started as but a port city on the way to Antioch, but it became so much more. Not many places would have Paul as their lead pastor for three years. So, during that Roman imprisonment where he penned this letter, he found himself thankful. It was not an exercise but a reality. He was not saying, “Thank God without ceasing,” but, “I find my mind is just pleased with the thing God did in Ephesus and every time it comes up in my mind I thank God for you.”
Remembering: What has God done in and around your life?
Without looking for an activity or a purpose, but rather to inspect God’s work in and through you pick your gaze up off of these words and look back into the stream of your life. What parts of your life have seemed to be of little value, but went on to produce great results? Likely you will need to look in reverse from the great results to the beginnings of the efforts. Find those things and recognize God’s role in them. I bet you will find thankfulness to arise from those things spontaneously. If it does not, thank God anyway not just to have something to say, but that you might stretch the muscles of connecting God’s doings to your respondings.
There is an alternate way to look at this. What about those things into which you poured great energy with little result. Don’t become discouraged at this for God is still at work and some fruit comes in a long time after the planting. Also, recognize the immense efforts of God’s grace realizing that many times people (ourselves included) don’t go in for grace. Pollen is scattered; a bunch of trees grow, but a bunch don’t.
Some questions for thought:
- Are prayers like pollen?
- If prayers are like pollen does that diminish their value?
- Can Satan guide interpretation from truth to error? (Like with me going from propriety to compulsion)
- Or could it be rephrased or recast as immaturity?
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