In verses 15 and 16, Paul wrote of a personal, spontaneous thankfulness. That inner response rose up from God’s work in the Ephesian church. Encouraged, his words continue to flow. Stoking the flames already abounding in Ephesus he seeks to infuse much more. Read those words now:
17 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, (Ephesians 1:17–ESV)
What is Paul asking God to give the Ephesians?
Several things are linked together and they go beyond the 17th verse on into the following ones. For this lesson, though we will look at but two.
Spirit of wisdom
Life throws many things at us and often they come quickly. We must have a spirit of wisdom readily available to respond appropriately.
Let me jump off into a personal experience. Most days I rise early and prepare these lessons for the Sunday class. By the time the day’s work arrives I have been up for hours and gelling in a bit of a personal cocoon. As I walk into the clinics or the prison or the OR then comes the testing. Then comes the moments where wisdom must play out. I have read, studied, and learned, but like Jesus taking on flesh and blood time for living the lessons arrives (sometimes gently; sometimes less so).
On Thursday of the week of this lesson, all was good when I walked into the Augusta State Medical Prison. This is a men’s facility, but low and behold there was a woman inmate sitting in my exam chair! Years ago this was somewhat frequent; the men have no monopoly on eye problems I assure you, but for a long time now they have been getting their care from other providers. Well, walking past the room where I live my prison hours and seeing a woman in the chair did little other than raise alarm bells. Is this a new policy? What if this lady needs to see me many times (and on reading the chart it was evident that it could be so)? Will I suddenly have 2 and 3 women each day? These thoughts fire nearly instantly and accompanying them are clouds. The clouds are the clinic disruption inherent in bringing women into a men’s prison facility. I want my clinic to flow quickly. Implications began scrambling all over the walls of my brain.
I needed wisdom then. My innards were jittery, but I still need to maintain a cool and set out the situation well. I decided that I needed to figure out whether this was once off or the new thing. No point in making a fuss over a once-off, right? So, I walked to the “nurses station,” and began talking to the nurse manager. In the midst of these flurries, I found at least one semi-senior staffer watching me very, very closely. The words in my mind were buzzing, “choose your words wisely, keep your voice even-keeled, and seek to unravel the situation with care.”
A couple of minutes later I took my fast-beating heart back to my exam room where I emailed my prison clinic boss. My resident had already examined this patient, and I had signed off the chart. I thought she would still be there, but nope, gone. The pulse diminished a little, and I settled down to my first patient. In came another nurse who runs my clinic phone in hand, “Dr. Ulrich, Dr. [prison boss] is on the phone.” “Wow, that was quick,” I said, or I thought. “Hello, Dr. [prison boss].” He replied, “I hear you are raising hell out there.” He went on to explain how this situation had cropped up and why it was not a policy change or something permanent, etc., etc. I hung up and went back to my patients, and kept nervously laughing to myself as I recalled his conversation. “Raising hell? Hmmm. I would rather not be known for that. I would consider raising hell a loud and screaming situation which I don’t do, didn’t do.”
So, see how we need a spirit of wisdom? These things come, spontaneously, quickly, powerfully and we must respond.
Spirit of revelation
The Bible is God’s revelation to us through the pens and words of real people who lived real situations. There are things which are plain in those pages, and things which are not. It is important to properly figure out what the words mean, though, and often that requires God’s insight to us. Little of what we know as the New Testament was available when Paul wrote to the Ephesian church. That made the presence of men like Paul, Titus, Timothy, Apollos, Priscilla, Aquilla, and others very important.
So, Paul prayed that they would have a spirit of revelation. That way they would be able to live with godliness in the moments that they had. In some manner, things are different now given our ready access to the scriptures. In other manners, it is the same. We need God’s hand upon our thoughts to connect them in the most fruitful of ways.
Why did Paul want them to have these things?
Paul said that he prayed that they might have the spirit of wisdom and of revelation that they might know God the Father better. Depending again upon your translation it may seem more relational or more practical. It is not crucial that Paul’s words be parsed one way or another. It is key that we understand God’s character that we might relate to him properly and that we might relate to others as God would.
Leave a Reply