Bible Study - Ephesians 3
S - ...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17–19 ESV
O - Commentary:
The participles “being rooted and established” are in the perfect tense, indicating a past action with continuing results. They could be translated “having been rooted and established.” The purpose of the request is that they may have power (exischysēte, “have inherent strength”), together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. These measurements most likely describe not the thoroughness of comprehension but the immensity of the thing to be comprehended...
The content of this comprehension is to know experientially the love of Christ that supersedes all knowledge (cf. Phil. 4:7). The more a Christian knows about Christ, the more amazed he is at Christ’s love for him.
Harold W. Hoehner, “Ephesians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 631–632.
A - We usually ask God for strength to do something. Here Paul asks for strength to know something — a love too big for our minds to fit. And that's the point. If you could figure God's love out, He wouldn't be God. This love made you. This love sent Jesus to die for you. This love gave you the Spirit to walk with you every single day. You don't earn it. You just get to stand under it. And the more you let that sink in, the more it moves you — toward Him, and toward the people around you.
R - Father, You are love. Thank You for creating us, for dying for us, for sending Your Spirit to walk with us — three Persons, one love, poured out fully on us. Grow our capacity to grasp it, Lord, so it overflows onto everyone we meet. We love You.
