Praising God (Ephesians 3:20-21)

It is obvious that this doxology by Paul marks a break in this letter. So far, Paul has been focussing on various doctrines; now he comes to focus on practical issues, although we should not imagine that he does not include doctrines in the second half of his letter.

 

Many people confuse a doxology with a benediction. At a basic level, a doxology is something we say to God and a benediction is something that is said to us by a divine spokesperson. A doxology is a set of words that describes one or more of the divine attributes and it can be said to the three persons of the Trinity or to one of the three Persons.

 

The divine Person who is praised here is God the Father. Yet the other two persons are also mentioned. The Holy Spirit is ‘the power at work within us’ and Jesus is mentioned as bringing glory to the Father. So we have here an example of when we think of the one Person, we also think of the three Persons in their different roles.

 

The Father is addressed in his role as the answerer of prayer. I suppose that one question that may come to mind when we pray is this: ‘How keen is the Father to answer our prayers?’ Another question that may arise is, ‘How capable is the Father of answering our prayers?’ Both questions are answered by Paul’s statement that the Father can do far more than we can ask or think.

 

The Father is also spoken to as the One who receives glory. To receive glory is to be given the highest praise possible. We would not be surprised to be told that the angels glorified God when they saw his work of creation. After all, all of them together could not create anything, but they saw their God create millions and millions of things in his creation.

 

When we think of his ability to answer prayer, we should note what Paul says about it. He points out that God can do abundantly more than Paul could ask or think about. We know that Paul had great thoughts of God, yet even his best thoughts fell short of how great God is. Paul prayed for many amazing things, even as expressed in his prayer in Ephesians 3:13-18, but God can do more than that.

 

Paul also says that God could do much more than the combined prayers and anticipations of the Ephesians and Paul put together. We don’t know what the Ephesians would have prayed for, but however big their combined prayers, God was bigger and able to answer them abundantly.