When Christ builds love inside the temple, the glory shows — and the world comes wanting whatever that weird thing is we've got.
Central Image
The chainsaw at the national forest Christmas tree hunt: Toby showed up with more power than the tradition called for, got laughed at, then watched everyone line up to borrow it. Grace that actually works like power draws people in even when they start out mocking it.
The Turn
Paul doesn't tell people what to do until chapter four — and he won't touch that until he's spent three whole chapters persuading them of who God has already made them. The command to love doesn't come first; the power for love does.
Outline
Why Paul Stops Mid-Prayer
Paul begins praying for the Ephesians, interrupts himself with a digression, then picks the prayer back up. It's not a senior moment — it's deliberate. Trophimus the Ephesian, almost certainly a member of their congregation (sent with Paul as an apprentice and their man on the mission), was the man the Jews falsely accused Paul of bringing past the dividing wall in Jerusalem. The Ephesians feel some guilt over it. And with Jews and Gentiles both in this church, resentment was likely running both directions — Gentiles blaming the Jews for what happened to Paul, the Jewish members in the congregation catching the heat for it. Paul heads it off before the prayer lands: don't lose heart, this isn't your failure, it's your glory. He clears the air first.
Three Things Paul Prays For
*Power in the heart.* Strengthened in the inner man — not Samson strength, not anything external, but interior capacity to bear love. Rooted like a tree, grounded like a building, both at once. Paul mixes his metaphors because he wants everything for them: Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith, love as the soil they're planted in and the foundation they're built on.
*Power in the mind.* Strength to grasp the width, length, height, and depth — then Paul cuts himself off mid-sentence. Translators don't quite know what to do with it. He picks it back up in the next clause: to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowing. More than the mind can hold, and he's praying they'd keep reaching for it anyway.
*Filled to the fullness of God.* This is the glory. Every time in Scripture the temple becomes what it's supposed to be — tabernacle, Solomon's temple, Ezekiel's vision, Pentecost — the glory of the Lord fills it. We are the temple. The glory follows the love. When Paul gets here, all he can do is break into doxology.
Love Starts in the Room
Paul's sequence is deliberate: love for each other first, then the world. If people show up and find that the church doesn't actually love each other, they'll leave to go be unloved somewhere more convenient — there's no shortage of options. The church is the one place with the actual power source for love that holds across lines that would normally divide people. That's not a minor distinction; it's the whole claim.
Being in Each Other's Business
Love from a distance is concern, not love. Knowing someone well enough that you'd already have a sense of what to pray for them on Tuesday — that's what love in the body actually looks like. Old things that just hover — the Lucy and Ethel candy factory since '58, perfectly civil, nothing real said — that's what happens when people stop getting into each other's lives. Sometimes love forgives. Sometimes it lets things go. Sometimes it just shows up knowing what to pray for.
The Card
Toby rewrote Paul's prayer as a take-home card for the congregation to pray daily through the rest of the Ephesians series. The reason is Paul's own logic: there's no point telling people to do things that require power they don't have yet. Pursue the power first.
The Landing
This church is the temple, and what fills it depends on what's being built inside it. The glory doesn't come first — the love does. Pray for the power. The glory follows.
Questions to Think About
- Toby showed up to the Christmas tree hunt with a chainsaw, got laughed at by everyone, and then watched the same people line up to borrow it. When have you been somewhere — a home, a church, a community — where you could just tell something was different, and it made you want in?
- Paul interrupts his own prayer with a long explanation about why he's in prison. Why does he go out of his way to tell the Ephesians that his suffering is their glory rather than their fault?
- Paul prays for two specific kinds of strength before he prays for anything else — power in the heart to bear more love, and power in the mind to comprehend more love. What's actually different about those two, and why does he need to ask for both?
- Toby said love requires being in each other's business — knowing someone well enough that you'd already have a sense of what to pray for them on a Tuesday. Who in this room do you actually know that well? What would it take to be that way with more people here?
- The Lucy and Ethel candy factory situation — two people in the same room for years, perfectly civil, nothing real said since that incident. Where are you doing that with someone right now, and what would it cost you to stop?
- Toby said sometimes love has to deal with something it can't let go, and sometimes love just lets it go. What's the honest difference between those two — and how do you know which one you're actually in?
- Paul says the glory belongs "in the church and in Christ Jesus" — not in Christ Jesus alone, but in the church alongside him. What does it mean that God decided this is where his glory lives in the world, and what does that ask of us?
- Take the prayer card Toby passed out. Before next Sunday, pray it once a day — and pick one person in this church by name to include in it each time.