"... rooted and established in love ..."

Reading Ephesians 3:14-21

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

This one sentence is packed full of hope, and healing, and wholeness. The first thing that we note is that, in life, we are "rooted and established." We are not like those who are "without hope and without God in the world" (2:12). We are not detached from any ultimate meaning. We are not an accident of nature. We have a place in the Universe. Our existence means something.

Paul is clear about the nature of the grounds of our being. We are not about bare existence but about love. Love is always personal by definition. If we are grounded in love then we are grounded in a loving person, God. The roots of our life go down into a bedrock of love and from this we are able to draw up into ourselves continually the love of God. The whole context of our life provides for our need to be loved and cared for.

Paul prays that we will "know this love that surpasses knowledge." It is clear that Paul has two different kinds of knowing in mind. One type of knowing allows us to enter into this love, the other leaves us floundering. Both types of knowing are honored in the Bible. The knowing of the mind and the knowing of the spirit are both encouraged. The knowing that Paul prays for us to excel in with respect to the love of God is one of a deep inner experience and contact that is more immediate than thought. This is not to say that this kind of knowledge is irrational but that it is relational. While words and thoughts fail in trying to grasp the love of Christ there is a deep, personal, and relational level at which we may experience his love. In this way the mind filled with thoughts of God's love only begins to know what the spirit "filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" already knows.

I am more than a brain and a body. I have feelings, needs, hungers, desires, motivations, longings, drives, hopes, and aspirations. I hurt, get wounded, experience healing, and taste freedom. Being filled or satisfied is not something that the mind can do for us all by itself. There must be an acknowledgment that we are in a living relationship with God and that our deepest needs are fed out of that relationship. This is why we practice prayer, meditation, and worship in addition to rational reflection and cognitive thought.

"...his whole family in heaven and on earth..."

Reading Ephesians 1:14-21

Paul's description of the family which is derived from the Father God presents us with two interesting challenges, the first having to do with the limits of the family and the second with its scope. The family of God is not coterminus with the whole of the human race, some are included and some are excluded. This is clear from the description of the family and how it came into being, given in the prologue. The family are those who, on the one hand, have been redeemed and forgiven through the blood of Jesus, who have been chosen and adopted out of the pool of humanity. The family, on the other hand, are those who have heard the gospel and believed (Grace extended and received). This limited definition of the family presents an apologetic challenge to the concept of a God whose love is presented in this letter as being unfathomable. It forces us to ask questions about the nature of God, of sin, of human nature, and of the history of the fall and redemption. For whatever reason God has not found a way by which every member of the human family has been adopted into his special family. In this realization we are forced to face some fundamental truths about God and about ourselves.

The second challenge that arises from Paul's description of this family has to do with its scope and inclusiveness. Paul envisions here the "whole family in heaven and on earth." He is interested in the Ephesians because they are a part of this one, unified (in the Father), family. I say this presents a challenge and that is because of the extremely fractured nature of the family on earth. It is not just an apologetic challenge that requires us to explain our brokenness in the light of the character of God and of our call to love one another, but it is a practical challenge to the living out of our faith in relationship to the whole people of God. If I am a Baptist what do I do with the multitude of other brands of Baptists that I have been pleased to distinguish myself from? If I am Reformed what do I do with the Arminians? If I am a cessationist what do I do with the Pentecostals and Charismatics? If I am a Catholic how do I view the Protestants and the Orthodox? Can I, at the very least, like Paul, kneel before the Father on behalf of these other brothers and sisters? When I read in the newspaper about the troubles of some Catholic diocese, within the leadership of the Greek Orthodox church, or with some prominent evangelical, is there a thought to pray or do I wash my hands of them as if they were from some other family, safely removed from me and my circle? Is my church or denomination such a fortress that its walls keep out even those whom God considers family?

If we have trouble loving the church, what hope is there that we will ever love the world?

A horrifying truth

I have discovered a horrifying truth. Stated simply, it is this: If I do not love my enemy I cannot love anyone.

I have learned this the hard way. I have learned it through pain and hurt, received and inflicted. Have you ever wondered why Jesus would force on us such a radically counter-intuitive demand as this: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Mat. 5:44), "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you..." (Luke 6:37-28), "love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back..." (Luke 6:35)?

Jesus understood that all of my love is at risk if I refuse to love (defined as praying for, doing good to, lending to, etc...) my enemy. I am genuinely horrified at this realization. I have good reason to be. There are things we will never understand about ourselves, about God, about the people around us until we can stand before our enemy with love and compassion.

This is not an option reserved for saints. We cannot afford to wait until we achieve sainthood to test the waters on this. There have been few insights that have shaken me as much as this one has.