Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Ephesians 1:18 . . . that you may know what is . . .
WITH EYES WIDE OPEN: TOUCH REALITY
Despite the endless hours that are sometimes consumed in debates over which translation of the Bible is the "best" English translation, for the most part most of the translators are right. The times when the translation makes a significant difference are few, albeit they are often very important differences. Often you don't need a degree in Greek to properly understand a verse--you simply need to understand the translation and stop to think about it.
These verses are no exception. I think that people, myself included, often float over the words that follow in verse 18 and 19, thinking of Paul's words as abstract imagery, which give a vague outline of beauty and glory. Yet Paul says I want you to know "what is"--what truly exists. When you stop to really think about what Paul says here there is nothing ethereal or abstract in the words that Paul will use. He does not call on us to consider some lofty and high sentiment that would be in the end a useless puff of emotional effigy. Rather, these words of Paul are extremely concrete. He gives us not the soft scent of swiftly fleeting spring but the solid reality of truth.
Neither Paul nor the prophets and especially not the Holy Spirit ever seek to ground our faith, hope, or comfort in things fluffy and vaporous. Throughout the Scriptures God drives the faith of the saints like a tent peg into the deepest part of the most solid ground--whether that be a historic fact or an earthly substance that can both give heavenly forgiveness and at the same time be touched by earthly hands.
This verse is no exception. The Holy Spirit through Paul calls us to see that "which is." At that point in time when we are most overcome with sorrow, with depression, with lowliness, when we believe that we too stand alone in a dying and fading religion, Paul reminds us that we are part of something so much greater, so much more glorious, and so much more real than anything on this earth. He seeks that we may see and know truth: 1) Where we are going. 2) What we are. 3) The power to get us there.
