Run-on sentences

 Continuing our journey through Paul's letter to the Christians in Ephesus long ago, we venture into the latter part of what is numbered chapter one. In some of the research I have been doing for our look at this book, I came across a very interesting point. In Ephesians 1, we have the two longest sentences in the entire New Testament. The first one, verses 3-14, consists of over 200 words in Greek! Can you imagine writing a sentence with 200 words? The second longest is verses 15-23, with 169 words in Greek. That is just staggering to think about, or at least for someone like me. Of course, I am a bit of a grammar person and find such things as that fascinating.

What I also find fascinating is how focused Paul is on God and His work in Jesus. When you read through chapter one, you find Paul almost exclusively talking about what God has done, what Jesus has done, and for the Ephesian Christians to know God's work and how that is meant for them. After having Jesus personally confront him on the road to Damascus and re-orient his life to serve Jesus, Paul seems to devote everything to pointing to Jesus. He wants everyone to know the same thing that he came to see: Jesus can take even the most hardened of people against Him and turn them to Him in grace.

It's easy for us to think that Paul had it kind of nice. He got to see Jesus personally after His resurrection and ascension. "If only Jesus would appear to me, then I wouldn't doubt anymore. Then I would be more sure of how I live my life or do what God wants me to do." Such thoughts are easy to intrude, and I would suggest that we should look at such thoughts critically. When Jesus went out of His way to reveal Himself to someone, He usually had a task for them that required a great sacrifice from who they were and what they were previously doing. It also meant that they stopped looking to their own good, and instead looked to the good of others almost to extremes. Think about that for a moment next time you have one of those moments where you wish Jesus would just show Himself to you.

Still, that doesn't take away those momentary doubts that pop up from time to time. We still would like a bit more certainty about what we believe. After all, we believe a dead man came back to life and His death covered everything that is wrong with the world. That is a fairly unbelievable kind of thing, and in fact, it is unbelievable without God's Spirit inspiring faith within us. We only come to believe by God's grace. Humbling, right?

That calls for thankfulness on our part. I'm planning to do another blog post about thankfulness and prayer, and hope that it proves helpful as you read it. For now, though, I encourage you to take a few moments to calm yourself and talk to God, thanking Him that He has called you as His own child in Jesus.