You and I can't afford to live a day out of fellowship with God. Colossians 3:16 parallels Ephesians 5:18; 19; 20 where the singing of hymns, etc, is the outgrowth of being filled with (controlled by) the Holy Spirit. "Commentary on Ephesians 3:16". The "strengthening" mentioned in this passage is not mysterious or miraculous. He asked for one thing in this prayer—power. Ron, I was the same, living as a Christian but not spending time in the word. The spirit of man is the inner most part of our being and glory to God, that is where God the Spirit works - it ought to show forth to the outside don"t you think? τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον. My Comment: On my first real job I worked as a power room operator running the generator room for the telephone company. And He not only said that for those eleven apostles; but He says it for all His people, for those who should believe on Him through their word. And I say that that is the part of our being where we are the most weak, where we need the most strength—in the inner Prayer of Manasseh , not the outward man. And so the Christian Church is a great, continuous, supernatural community in the midst of the material world; and every believing soul, because it possesses something of the life of Jesus Christ, has been the seat of a miracle as real and true as when He said ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ Precisely this teaching does our Lord Himself present for our acceptance when He sets side by side, as mutually illustrative, as belonging to the same order of supernatural phenomena, ‘the hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live,’ which is the supernatural resurrection of souls dead in sin,-and ‘the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth,’ which is the future resurrection of the body, in obedience to His will. Verse 17 is a corollary to verse 16. The ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος itself occurs only thrice in the NT, and all three occurrences are in the Pauline Epistles (Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:16). Cross-References Psalms 95:6 – Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker Ephesians 1:10 – To be put into effect when the times reach their fulfill… You think of these few things. BibliographyHodge, Charles. Through his Spirit. But to what end would Paul have added εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρ., if he had meant such special strengthening? The *temple of thegoddess (female god) Diana (or Artemis) was there. There the prayer is for illumination, here for strength to grasp the mystery, to be rooted in love, and be filled up to the fulness of God. We have all of us, in the discharge of duty and in the meeting of temptation, to face such tremendous antagonisms that unless we have grace given to us which will enable us to resist, we shall be overcome and swept away. The strength, therefore, which was to be communicated by the impartation of new spiritual power through the Holy Spirit was a gift to enrich and invigorate the deepest and most central thing in them—their whole conscious, personal being. "The inner man," says Meyer, "is the νοῦς, the rational moral Ego, the rational soul of man which harmonizes with the divine will, but needs to be strengthened by the Spirit of God ( δυνάμει κραταιωθῆναι διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος), in order not to be overcome by the sinful lusts of the σάρξ, whose animating or life principle is the ψυχή, the animal soul." It was the capital of the *Roman region calledAsia. The moment you start to pray, the moment you call upon your Saviour for your present need, He hears you. "Commentary on Ephesians 3:16". "Commentary on Ephesians 3:16". Now the place of this action is in the inner Prayer of Manasseh , the place where we are most weak. . They were to receive power communicated through the Holy Spirit. BibliographyMeyer, Heinrich. "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged". This operation of the Spirit imparts such courage and energy as appear like a species of spiritual omnipotence. BibliographyConstable, Thomas. Verses 1-21. Now in the first request in Ephesians 3:16, he prayed that God "would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.". 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, . “God"s standard of giving is liberal, bountiful, and overflowing” (P.P. ‘That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints ... and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,’ such is the third, and all lead up at last to that wonderful desire beyond which nothing is possible-’that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’. It is a miserably inadequate conception of Christianity, and of the gifts which it bestows, and the blessings which it intends for men, when it is limited, as it practically is, by a large number-I might almost say the majority-of professing Christians to a simple means of altering their relation to the past, and to the broken law of God and of righteousness. διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ. He might well pray, therefore, for the whole wonderful energizing expressed in the following verses; for spiritual power is in sum total what he asks. A conscious effort to act against what we know God wants us to do - scary thing, yet so many believers live their life like this. “With power through His Spirit”: Which reveals the "medium, channel or source" of this strength. The Lord strong and mighty in battle." ii. If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: Verse 2. According to His rich fulness in glory, God can and will bestow that which is prayed for. ‘In the day when I cried, Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.’. Paul said that his outward man was perishing, but the inward man was being renewed day by day. The trouble Isaiah , we get so occupied with passing, temporal things we fail to realize the wonders of God's grace and God's glory for us. 1863-1878. We strive and we set our wills and we set our jaws, and we're going to do this and we're going to do that; and first thing we know, we're in failure. David said that God "restores my soul" (Psalms 23:3), and yet he points out that such was accomplished through the "law of the Lord" (Psalms 19:7). That Spirit is God's, as He bears God's commission and does His work. According to the riches of his glory. There is no part of my being that is not patent to the tread of this Divine Guest. It lies open to His touch; all the paths of its deep things can be trodden by Him. Nor can we assume, with the Greek commentators, that the reference is merely to “temptations,” to surmount which the apostle craves upon them the bestowment of might. When I think of how most of us just putter along. In chapter 2 and the first half of chapter 3, Paul talked about the great transformation that God has wrought in their lives, from death to life (2:1-10)—and how Christians are no longer divided into Jew and Gentile, but are now one in Christ Jesus (2:11-22). ): for that is introduced in a subordinate clause by and by (see on τε below): rather, with De W., that the genitive after these nouns is left indefinite—that you may be fully able to comprehend every dimension—scil., of all that God has revealed or done in and for us (= τὸ μυστήριον τ. θεοῦ, Colossians 2:2)—though this is not a genitive to be supplied, but lying in the background entirely) and ( τε introduces not a parallel, but a subordinate clause. Man is composed of more than just a physical body and man has more of an existence than just mere physical life (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Matthew 10:28; James 2:26). You cannot fight with both classes of weapons. Ephesians 3:16. 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