Rooted and Grounded in Love — Exceedingly Abundantly Above All We Ask

Ephesians 2 ended where yesterday's study ended: the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. The living stones. The dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

And then chapter 3 opens — and Paul prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts. The house is built. Now the Owner moves in. The temple is not finished when the last stone is set. It is finished when the Presence fills it.

Paul was in a Roman cell, chained to a Roman guard, awaiting a Roman verdict. And he writes: "the prisoner of Christ Jesus." Not Caesar's prisoner. Not Rome's. The chain was real — but he named the hand that held the other end.

It is the same lesson Liguori taught in July: whilst God does not will the sin, He does will our humiliation. The circumstance is not denied. It is reattributed. The soul asks not "who did this to me" but "whose hand is on the other end of this chain."

And then the astonishing turn: do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. He is not asking for sympathy. He is telling them his suffering is their inheritance. The prisoner comforting the free.

Less than the least of all the saints. Paul invents a word here — a comparative built on a superlative, which is not proper Greek and was never meant to be. He needed a word smaller than the smallest. This from the man writing the letter that shapes the doctrine of the Church.

And notice what he is smallest in relation to: the unsearchable riches of Christ. The smallness is not self-loathing. It is proportion. Stand next to unsearchable riches and every soul is less than the least. The 500 denari and the fifty denari look the same from that distance — both forgiven, neither able to pay.

Unsearchable — the word means untrackable, past finding out. Riches that cannot be surveyed or inventoried. You do not exhaust them; you enter them.

The eternal purpose which He accomplished. Past tense. Not a plan still being negotiated with circumstances. Finished — and now unfolding in time.

Manifold is a weaver's word — many-coloured, richly variegated. The wisdom of God is not a single thread. It is a tapestry, and the church is where it becomes visible. Not preached to the powers. Made known by the church — displayed by ordinary people being fitted together.

And boldness and access with confidence. Three words for the same freedom: the door is open, and the one entering need not rehearse an excuse. The stone is carried in on the High Priest's heart.

Paul does not pray for the removal of tribulation. He prays for strength in the inner man. Not the outer circumstances — the interior. The same distinction Liguori drew: the surface may be disturbed while the depth is at peace.

And the measure of the supply: according to the riches of His glory. Not out of — according to. A wealthy man may give out of his riches and give little. Giving according to his riches means the gift is scaled to the fortune, not to the need. The supply is proportioned to His glory, not to our emptiness.

Two metaphors in one phrase, and neither is accidental. Rooted — a garden word, living, drawing nourishment, growing deeper unseen. Grounded — a builder's word, foundation, load-bearing, holding weight.

Yesterday: living stones — masonry that grows. Today: a plant with a foundation. Paul mixes the images on purpose, because the soul is both. Alive and stable. Growing and anchored. And the soil in both cases is the same: love.

For pilgrims between addresses — an apartment emptied, a house not yet found, the Benimar somewhere north of Porto this morning — the rooting is not geographical. The stone travels. The root travels. Both are planted in something no move can disturb.

The width and length and depth and height. Paul does not say of what. He simply gives four dimensions and stops — because the thing he is measuring has no edges to report. He is trying to survey the unsearchable.

Then the sentence that breaks its own logic: to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. To know what cannot be known. Not a contradiction — an invitation. The knowing is not information. It is the knowing of a person, which always exceeds what can be stated about them.

And the destination: filled with all the fullness of God. Augustine's God who overflows. Kempis's Fountain that does not store. The vessel is never large enough — and that is not the failure of the prayer. It is the point of it.

Jowett said the doxology leaps to the lips whenever grace comes into view. Here it leaps — Paul cannot finish the prayer without breaking into praise.

Notice the ladder he climbs: above what we ask. Above what we think — including the things we never dared put into a request. Above all that we ask or think. Exceedingly abundantly above all of it. Paul stacks the words because no single one carries the weight.

And then the qualifier that keeps it from being abstract: according to the power that works in us. The measure of what God can do is not somewhere in the sky. It is already at work inside. The same strengthening in the inner man he just prayed for is the gauge of the exceeding abundance.

The prayer began on the knees and ended in glory. That is the shape of every morning that matters.

Le saw the thing that gives the prayer its force: he prayed for the church what he already experienced.

Paul was not praying theory. He was praying autobiography. He had been strengthened in the inner man — in a cell. He had known the love that passes knowledge — on the Damascus road and every day after. He had been rooted and grounded while chained to a guard. He asked for them nothing he had not already received.

That is why the words carry weight. A man praying for what he has never tasted is guessing. A man praying for what he has received is handing something over. Jowett said it three days ago: taste and see. Paul had tasted. Then he prayed the same table for everyone else.