Paul here is just coming down from the high of describing our relationship with God, 180 words straight of praise to God for “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.” He moves directly off of that and into 160 words straight of prayer.
Perhaps we should be more like that. What would it be like if, the moment needs came up in our minds or in conversation, we brought it to God in prayer immediately?
He begins this section be calling back to all that he said about salvation, as well as citing all the great things he has heard about the faith of the Ephesian church.
Because of all this, he prays for them constantly, both with thanks for them and prayers that they would receive the Holy Spirit.
How do we know that the term Paul uses here, the “Spirit of wisdom and revelation” means the Holy Spirit, rather than a spirit of adventure or the spirit of Christmas? It goes back to what Jesus told his disciples about the Holy Spirit when he promised he would come. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would “teach you all things” andconvict the world “of sin, and righteousness and judgement,” – ultimately, to know God. And that is what Paul is praying for here.
It can be easy to think we know God sufficiently – even though we know that God is eternal, and that if we spent a hundred years learning one new thing about God every century, we would still never got to the end of Him.
So that’s the journey Paul is praying the Ephesians for, that the “eyes of your hearts” would be opened. The Jews saw the heart as being the seat of a person’s life, will and very breath. The Greeks saw the heart as the center of our perspective and bias. We know both of these are naturally set against the will of God. That is why the “heart’s eyes” must be enlightened, showing it more and more of the things of God, so that we can know God more.
This passage about hearts having eyes, combined with passages elsewhere that talk about our “heart of stone” together bring to mind the blank eyes of ancient statues. Our hearts need to be given life like Pygmalion, so that their eyes can be opened and we can see God.
And not just God, but also the hope that he called us to in eternity past. That hope is confidence in the inheritance God promises us. Jesus tells us what that inheritance is like in the story of the prodigal son.
And Paul describes it in verse 19, using four different words for power to talk about what God does for us.
And God answers this prayer – what Paul prayed for the Ephesians and what we pray for each other – by speaking to us. He speaks through his word, he speaks through the spirit, he speaks through others, through circumstances and so much more. We must check all that against what the scriptures say and who Jesus is, but God has many ways of enabling us to know Him more and more and more.
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, August 9, 2020