The Higher Life Prayer. (Rewritten).

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every familya in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, 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 God.

"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." — Ephesians 3:14-21 NRSV.

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In the third chapter of Ephesians (verses 14–21), Paul opens the door of his prayer closet just enough for us to overhear what he is saying to God. Across the centuries, believers have leaned in and been deeply moved by what they’ve heard. We’re invited to listen — not as intruders, but as reverent guests. This kind of eavesdropping is honorable.

Like Jesus himself, Paul’s most urgent prayers are not aimed at hardened unbelievers — “the world” — but at those who already belong to Christ. His concern is “the perfecting of the saints.” Before we trace the powerful requests of this remarkable prayer, it helps to pause and look at the people he is praying for.

Who Were the Ephesians?

The Ephesian church was made up of people who, by almost any measure, lacked sophistication, stability, and moral polish—certainly far less than members of many modern congregations. Most were poor and working class. Historically, these are the kinds of people who respond first when Christ is preached in a community.

The Dove Descending and Abiding (Rewritten)

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her fine essay on “Primitive Christian Experience,” uses the following language:

“The advantages to the Christian Church in setting before it distinct points of attainment, are very nearly the same in result as the advantages of preaching immediate regeneration in preference to indefinite exhortation to men to lead sober, righteous, and godly lives. It has been found, in the course of New England preaching, that pressing men to an immediate and definite point of conversion, produced immediate and definite results; and so it has been found among Christians, that pressing them to an immediate and definite point of attainment will, in like manner, result in marked and decided progress. For this reason it is, that, among the Moravian Christians, where the experience by them denominated full assurance of faith was much insisted on, there were more instances of high religious faith than in almost any other denomination.”

That is a strikingly practical insight, grounded in real observation.

Introduction to the Epistles of John (3): Where Was it Written?

 

THE PLACE WHERE THIS EPISTLE WAS WRITTEN.

There is in the New Testament no hint of John' s residence in Ephesus, but there is ample indirect proof of this fact. Christianity from the beginning of its conquest of the world entrenched itself in those great centres of influence, the great cities of the Orient, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth and Rome. Paul found a small society of Christians in Ephesus, and by his years of labor greatly enlarged and strengthened it. The place was of sufficient importance to attract one of the Twelve to succeed the apostle to the Gentiles. 

The trade of the Aegean Sea was concentrated in its port. Since Patmos, the place of John's exile, is only a day's sail from Ephesus, "the metropolis of Asia," it is quite probable that this city was the place of his abode both before and after his sojourn on that rugged island; and doubtless he was recalling the scenes he had looked upon in the Ephesian markets when he gave that gorgeous description of the merchandise of Babylon in Rev. xviii. 12, 13, "of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet; and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle and sheep; and merchandise of horses and chariots and slaves, and souls of men." The last two items intimate the terrible wickedness of the times, especially in great commercial cities. 

While no contemporary writer testifies to John's residence in Ephesus, there is testimony to this fact by a number of subsequent writers, such as Justin Martyr, probably within fifty years of John's death, Irenaeus, Polycrates, Polycarp find Apollonius. We will not multiply witnesses to prove what few, if any, deny.

The church in Ephesus in John's day must have been quite large, since it had enjoyed the labor of Apollos, Paul, Aquila and Priscilla, Trophimus, Timothy and the family of Onesiphorus. Paul left it well organized under presbyters, whom he afterwards addressed at Miletus. Such was the environment of John in his last days. For the splendor and magnificence of idolatry in Ephesus see our note on the last words of this Epistle, "Guard yourselves from idols."