Pray to Begin
Ask — that the God who once kept His purpose hidden and “now revealed” it “by the Spirit” would grant you insight to understand the mystery of Christ; ask Him to “strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,” so that you read this chapter not as a spectator but as one being changed.
Give thanks — that in Christ you have not been left outside; that whatever your background, He has made you a “fellow heir” and a member of one body, and has opened to you a way to “enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.”
Yield — the smallness of your imagining. Hand over your low expectations of God, your quiet suspicion that His love has a limit you have already reached, and open your heart to a love “that surpasses knowledge” and a God who is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”
Today’s Passage: Ephesians 3
Having spent two chapters unfolding what God has done — every spiritual blessing in Christ (ch. 1), and the raising of the spiritually dead into one new humanity, Jew and Gentile together (ch. 2) — Paul now steps forward to speak of his own place in that plan. He is “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles” (3:1), entrusted with “the stewardship of God’s grace” to make known a mystery once hidden and now revealed: that through the gospel “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise” (3:6). Paul marvels that so vast a task was given to one who calls himself “less than the least of all the saints,” and he lifts our eyes to God’s stunning strategy — that “through the church” His “manifold wisdom” is displayed even to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (3:10). Then the letter’s argument dissolves into prayer. Paul bows his knees before the Father and asks for the deepest things a soul can receive: inward strength by the Spirit, Christ dwelling in the heart, roots sunk deep in love, and power to grasp a love too large to grasp — “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” — until we are “filled with all the fullness of God.” It ends where Ephesians keeps ending: in doxology, before a God who can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (3:20).
As you read, hold this: The mystery once hidden is now revealed — in Christ, Jew and Gentile are one new people, fellow heirs — and the God who displays His wisdom through the church can root us in a love beyond knowing and do far more than all we ask or imagine.
Context The world of Ephesians 3
A prisoner writing about riches. Paul opens by naming himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus” (3:1) — almost certainly written during his Roman house arrest around A.D. 60–62 (Acts 28). Keep that picture in view as the chapter soars: the man promising “the unsearchable riches of Christ” and “the riches of His glory” is chained to a guard. He does not say he is Rome’s prisoner, or Caesar’s, but Christ’s — even his chains belong to a larger purpose.
An interrupted sentence. In the Greek, verse 1 begins a thought — “For this reason I, Paul…” — and then breaks off. Paul is so overcome by the wonder of what he has been given that he digresses for twelve verses about his stewardship and the mystery, before finally circling back at verse 14: “…for this reason I bow my knees before the Father.” The trail of dots in the text marks a man whose heart outran his sentence. The digression is no distraction; it is the very ground of the prayer.
The great dividing wall. To feel the force of chapter 3, remember the world it addressed. Between Jew and Gentile stood one of the deepest divisions of the ancient world — religious, moral, and social. In the Jerusalem temple a literal barrier warned Gentiles, on pain of death, not to pass into the inner courts. That everyone — Gentiles included — should be “fellow heirs” on equal footing, members of the same body, was not a minor adjustment. It was the revelation of a secret hidden “for ages past” (3:9), and it is the mystery Paul was sent to announce.
A watching, unseen audience. Paul makes an astonishing claim in verse 10: God’s purpose is that “through the church” His “manifold wisdom” would be displayed “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The reconciled church — ordinary, redeemed people from every nation gathered into one — is God’s exhibition to the unseen powers of the universe of a wisdom they never guessed. The stakes of belonging to the church are cosmic.
Ephesians 3:1–6 (BSB)
¹ For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles… ² Surely you have heard about the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, ³ that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. ⁴ In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵ which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus.
Word study "mystery" — mystērion (Ephesians 3:3, 4, 9)
Greek: μυστήριον (mystērion), pronounced moos-TAY-ree-on. Strong’s G3466.
This is the pulse-word of the chapter, sounding in verses 3, 4, and 9. To modern ears mystery suggests a puzzle we cannot solve — a locked door, a riddle, an Agatha Christie whodunit. But in Paul’s usage it means almost the opposite. A mystērion is a secret that human minds could never have reasoned their way into, which God has now disclosed — “revealed by the Spirit” (3:5). The word carries the sense of something once concealed and now thrown open. So the emphasis falls not on what is still hidden but on what has been made known. And the content of this particular mystery is spelled out plainly in verse 6: that “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise.” Notice the drumbeat of that little Greek prefix syn- (with, together): fellow-heirs, fellow-members, fellow-partakers. The secret hidden “for ages past” was not a doctrine to be decoded but a people to be gathered — one new humanity, Jew and Gentile together, in Christ.
Paul begins to say why he prays for these believers — “For this reason I, Paul…” — and then, mid-breath, he cannot help but explain who he is to them. He is “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles,” a captive whose imprisonment is itself for them. He reminds them of “the stewardship of God’s grace” handed to him: the Greek word behind stewardship pictures a household manager entrusted with his master’s goods to distribute. Paul owns nothing of the gospel; he is a manager of another’s wealth, dispensing it. And what has been entrusted to him is “the mystery” — mystērion (moos-TAY-ree-on) — “made known to me by revelation.” This was not a truth Paul deduced; it was disclosed. He insists it “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit.” The Old Testament had hints — Abraham was promised that in him all nations would be blessed — but the sheer equality of the arrangement, Gentiles as fellow heirs on the very same footing, waited for this hour. Verse 6 states it without qualification: through the gospel the outsiders are now fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers. The dividing wall is gone; there are not two peoples of God but one.
Ephesians 3:7–13 (BSB)
⁷ I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power. ⁸ Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to illuminate for everyone the stewardship of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. ¹⁰ His purpose was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹ according to the eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In Him and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence. ¹³ So I ask you not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
Word study "boldness / freedom of access" — parrēsia (Ephesians 3:12)
Greek: παρρησία (parrēsia), pronounced par-rhay-SEE-ah. Strong’s G3954.
Parrēsia is a word with a long and dignified history. It comes from pas (all) and rhēsis (speech) — literally all-speech, the freedom to say everything, to speak without concealment or fear. In the Greek democracies it named the treasured right of a free citizen to speak openly in the public assembly; a slave had no parrēsia. Carried into the New Testament, it describes the astonishing liberty of the believer before God: not the cringing approach of a suspect creeping into a throne room, but the frank, open, unafraid access of a child to a father. Paul says that “in Him and through faith in Him” we now “enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.” Remember the dividing wall of the temple, the barred inner courts, the sense that God was fenced off behind curtains and warnings — and then hear this: the way is open, and we may come with our heads up. This freedom is not presumption; it rests entirely on Christ. But within Him it is total. The God of the universe is approachable, and we are welcome.
Paul now presses down hard on his own unworthiness — and it is not false modesty. “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace,” he says, and then, remarkably, “Though I am less than the least of all the saints.” The man who once dragged Christians to prison never forgets it; he coins a strained superlative — less than the least — to keep grace in view. Yet to this least of saints was given the highest of errands: to “preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” That word unsearchable means literally un-track-able, riches too vast to be traced out to their end — you could explore them forever and never reach the boundary. Then Paul lifts the curtain on God’s strategy in verse 10, and it is breathtaking: God’s design is that “now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The word manifold means many-colored, like a richly woven fabric; the church — reconciled, many-hued, one body from many nations — is God’s tapestry, held up before the unseen powers as the display of a wisdom they never imagined. And all of this rests on solid ground: “the eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The fruit of it, for us, is verse 12 — “boldness and confidence” to “enter God’s presence”: parrēsia (par-rhay-SEE-ah), the open, unafraid access of a child to the Father. No wonder Paul can then wave off his own chains: his “sufferings for you,” he says, are not a cause for discouragement but “your glory.”
Ephesians 3:14–19 (BSB)
¹⁴ … for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth ¹⁹ of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Word study "power" — dynamis (Ephesians 3:16, 20)
Greek: δύναμις (dynamis), pronounced DOO-nam-is. Strong’s G1411.
Dynamis is God’s inherent, effective power — the ability to do, to accomplish, to bring about what is willed. Our words dynamic and dynamite descend from it. It runs like a thread through this whole chapter: Paul’s ministry came “through the working of His power” (3:7), the prayer’s central petition is that God would “strengthen you with power” by His Spirit (3:16), and the closing doxology praises the God who acts “according to His power that is at work within us” (3:20). Notice where Paul asks this power to land. Not on our circumstances, not on our platform, but “in your inner being” — the hidden interior self, the place no one else sees. The deepest Christian strength is not the ability to perform outwardly but to be inwardly established: Christ at home in the heart, the self rooted so deep in love that it cannot be uprooted. And observe the sheer scale of the supply — this strengthening comes “out of the riches of His glory.” God does not measure His power to us out of His poverty but out of His inexhaustible wealth.
Word study "length and width and height and depth" — the four dimensions (Ephesians 3:18)
Greek: πλάτος (platos, breadth, PLAH-tos), μῆκος (mēkos, length, MAY-kos), ὕψος (hypsos, height, HOOP-sos), βάθος (bathos, depth, BAH-thos). Strong’s G4114, G3372, G5311, G899.
Paul reaches for the language of measurement — the four dimensions of space — and then does something wonderful: he applies them to a thing that cannot be measured. He prays that we might “comprehend the length and width and height and depth… of the love of Christ.” Interpreters through the centuries have loved to fill in the picture: the breadth of a love that reaches every nation and kind of person; the length of a love that stretches from before the foundation of the world into eternity; the height of a love that lifts us to be seated with Christ; the depth of a love that stooped to the cross and to the grave. But the deeper point is the paradox Paul builds on purpose. He asks that we would have power to comprehend the dimensions of a love, and then in the very next breath calls it “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” We are to know what is beyond knowing — not by mastering it, but by being immersed in it, the way a fish knows the ocean it can never measure. The goal is not information but saturation: “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Now, at last, Paul completes the sentence he broke off in verse 1: “for this reason I bow my knees before the Father.” Kneeling was not the ordinary Jewish posture for prayer — one usually stood — so the bowed knees signal a weight of reverence and longing. He prays to the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,” the source of all fatherhood, the One after whom every household is patterned. Then the petitions rise like a staircase, each one leading up to the next. First, that God would “strengthen you with power” — dynamis (DOO-nam-is) — “through His Spirit in your inner being.” Second, and as a result, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” — the word for dwell means to settle down and make a permanent home, not to lodge as a passing guest. Third, that being “rooted and grounded in love” — two metaphors at once, a tree sunk deep and a building set on foundation — you would have power “to comprehend the length and width and height and depth… of the love of Christ.” And then the summit and the paradox: “to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” Paul prays that we would know the unknowable, measure the immeasurable — not to exhaust it, but to be flooded by it, “filled with all the fullness of God.” It is the boldest thing a person could ask for another soul.
Ephesians 3:20–21 (BSB)
²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, ²¹ to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Having prayed for the greatest things imaginable, Paul suddenly realizes he has still asked too small — and so the prayer breaks into praise. God, he says, “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” The Greek here is a piled-up superlative, a word Paul seems almost to invent for the occasion: hyper-ekperissou, super-abundantly-beyond. Trace the ascending steps of the phrase. God can do what we ask. More — what we ask or imagine. More — all that we ask or imagine. More still — above all that we ask or imagine. And then, at the top, immeasurably above all that we ask or imagine. Our largest prayers and our wildest imaginations are the floor of what God can do, not the ceiling. And this is no distant, theoretical power: it is “according to His power that is at work within us” — dynamis (DOO-nam-is) again, the same strength Paul just prayed would fill our inner being, already operating in every believer. The chapter that opened with a prisoner in chains closes with a doxology that has no limits: “to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Notice where the glory is displayed — in the church. The gathered people of God, reconciled from every nation, is the theater of His glory not only before the watching powers of heaven but throughout all the ages to come.
Study notes Going deeper
The mystery is a Person. Paul defines the once-hidden mystery not first as a doctrine but as Christ — and Christ in us. What was kept secret “for ages past” was the plan to indwell a people from every nation with His own life:
"the mystery that was hidden for ages and generations but is now revealed to His saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:26–27 (BSB)
The riches Paul calls “unsearchable” (3:8) have a name and an address: Christ, dwelling in the hearts of His people (3:17).
The church is God’s exhibition to the heavens. Paul’s claim that God displays His “manifold wisdom… to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (3:10) is not a lone flourish. The unseen world leans in to watch what God is doing among ordinary redeemed people:
"It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they foretold the things now announced by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things." 1 Peter 1:12 (BSB)
If angels crane to see the gospel at work, then no gathering of the reconciled — however small or unimpressive — is ever merely ordinary.
Boldness before God is the gospel’s gift. The “boldness and confidence” to “enter God’s presence” (3:12) is grounded in the reconciliation of chapter 2, where the same word for access appears:
"For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." Ephesians 2:18 (BSB)
The open door is Trinitarian and it is for both — Jew and Gentile alike come to the one Father, through the one Son, by the one Spirit. The way is not narrow with suspicion but wide with welcome.
Personal Application
1. Fellow heirs — no one on the margins. The mystery Paul unveils is that in Christ there is no second tier: outsiders are made “fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise.” Where do you still quietly rank yourself — or others — as more or less at home in God’s family, further in or further out? What would change in how you gather with God’s people if you truly believed the dividing walls are already down?
2. Power in the inner being. Paul’s central request was not for changed circumstances but for inward strength — Christ making His home in the heart, roots sunk deep in love. In what area of your life have you been asking mainly for the outside to change, when the deeper need is to be “strengthened with power… in your inner being”? What might it look like to pray Paul’s prayer for yourself this week?
3. A love beyond knowing — and a God beyond asking. Paul prays that we would know a love that “surpasses knowledge,” and praises a God who can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Where have your expectations of God quietly shrunk to fit what seems reasonable? What would it mean to let this chapter enlarge them — to ask boldly, and then to rest in a love too vast to measure?
Pray to Close
The central truth: the mystery once hidden is now revealed — in Christ, Jew and Gentile are one new people, fellow heirs — and the God who displays His wisdom through the church can root us in a love beyond knowing and do far more than all we ask or imagine. From a prison cell Paul unveils a cosmic plan and then bends his knees to pray the deepest things a soul can receive; the fitting response is to kneel and receive them.
Praise — the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,” who kept His purpose hidden for ages and then flung it open in Christ; give Him glory “in the church and in Christ Jesus,” for a wisdom too rich and a love too vast to trace to the end.
Ask — that out of the riches of His glory He would strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, that Christ would settle down and dwell in your heart, and that, rooted and grounded in love, you would begin to grasp a love that surpasses knowledge.
Yield — your small asking and your smaller imagining. Bring your boldest prayer, lay it before the God who does “immeasurably more,” and then trust Him past the edge of what you can picture — for His power is already at work within you.
Worship for Today
One Thing Remains · Passion / Kristian Stanfill
In Ephesians 3 Paul prays that we would be able to grasp the immeasurable dimensions of a love that finally “surpasses knowledge” (3:18–19) — reaching for breadth and length and height and depth until human language gives out. This contemporary worship song lingers on that same wonder: the love of God that does not fail, does not run dry, and does not give up on His people. It returns, again and again, to the one thing that remains when all else is stripped away — the steadfast, pursuing love of God in Christ. Let it settle the chapter’s prayer into your heart, until you are “rooted and grounded in love” and caught up in the doxology Paul cannot help but sing: that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”
Listen: