Ephesians 3:20
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,
Now to Him who is able
This phrase emphasizes the omnipotence of God. The Greek word for "able" is "dynamai," which conveys the idea of inherent power and capability. In the context of Ephesians, Paul is reminding the believers in Ephesus of God's limitless power. Historically, Ephesus was a city known for its idolatry and magic, and this declaration serves to contrast the true power of God with the false powers worshipped in the city. It is a call to trust in God's supreme ability to act beyond human limitations.

to do immeasurably more
The Greek term "hyper" is used here, meaning "beyond" or "exceedingly." This phrase speaks to the boundless nature of God's actions. The word "immeasurably" suggests that God's works are beyond human calculation or comprehension. In a historical context, this would have been a profound encouragement to the early church, which faced persecution and challenges. It reassures believers that God's plans and actions are far greater than any earthly circumstances.

than all we ask or imagine
This part of the verse highlights the limitations of human understanding and the vastness of God's wisdom. The Greek word "noeo" for "imagine" implies mental perception or understanding. Paul is teaching that even our greatest requests and dreams are small compared to what God can accomplish. This is a call to faith, urging believers to trust in God's greater vision and purpose, which surpasses our finite minds.

according to His power
The word "power" here is "dynamis" in Greek, indicating miraculous power or might. This power is not abstract but is actively working in the lives of believers. Historically, this would have been a powerful reminder to the Ephesians, who were familiar with displays of power in their culture, that true power comes from God. It is a reassurance that God's power is not distant but is intimately involved in the believer's life.

that is at work within us
The phrase "at work" comes from the Greek "energeo," meaning to be active or effective. This indicates that God's power is not dormant but is actively transforming and empowering believers. In the scriptural context, this is a reminder of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who works within us to accomplish God's purposes. It is an encouragement to the church that they are not alone; God's dynamic power is continually at work in their lives, enabling them to live out their faith boldly.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Paul the Apostle
The author of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus to encourage and instruct them in their faith.

2. Ephesus
A major city in Asia Minor, known for its temple to Artemis and as a center of early Christian activity. The Ephesian church was a diverse community of believers.

3. God
The central figure in this verse, described as having the power to do more than we can ask or imagine.

4. The Church
The body of believers in Ephesus and, by extension, all Christians who are recipients of this message of encouragement and empowerment.

5. The Holy Spirit
Implied in the phrase "His power that is at work within us," referring to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in believers.
Teaching Points
God's Omnipotence
Recognize that God's power is limitless and beyond human comprehension. This should inspire awe and trust in His ability to work in our lives.

Faith in Action
Our prayers and expectations should reflect our belief in God's ability to exceed our requests. Approach God with boldness and confidence.

The Role of the Holy Spirit
Understand that the power at work within us is the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to live out our faith and accomplish God's purposes.

Imagination and Vision
Encourage believers to dream big and align their visions with God's will, knowing He can do more than we can imagine.

Living with Expectancy
Cultivate a lifestyle of expectancy, looking for God's hand in every situation and trusting Him to work beyond our limitations.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does understanding God's omnipotence change the way you approach prayer and your daily life?

2. In what ways can you actively rely on the Holy Spirit's power in your current circumstances?

3. Reflect on a time when God exceeded your expectations. How did that experience strengthen your faith?

4. How can you align your dreams and goals with God's will, trusting Him to do more than you can imagine?

5. What practical steps can you take to live with a sense of expectancy, looking for God's work in your life and the lives of others?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Philippians 4:13
This verse speaks to the strength and ability given to believers through Christ, similar to the power mentioned in Ephesians 3:20.

Romans 8:28
Highlights God's ability to work all things for good, aligning with the theme of God's power and purpose in Ephesians 3:20.

1 Corinthians 2:9
Discusses the unimaginable things God has prepared for those who love Him, echoing the idea of God doing more than we can imagine.
A Pattern of PrayerCanon Vernon Hutton.Ephesians 3:14-21
An Ascending PrayerA. G. Brown.Ephesians 3:14-21
Christian PrayerG. Brooks.Ephesians 3:14-21
KneelingEphesians 3:14-21
Kneeling in PrayerEphesians 3:14-21
Paul's Prayer for the Ephesian ChristiansJ. C. Brown, LL. D.Ephesians 3:14-21
Prayer a Self-RevelationA. G. Brown.Ephesians 3:14-21
St. Paul's Example as to PrayerPaul Bayne.Ephesians 3:14-21
St. Paul's Prayer for Gentile ChristiansA. F. Muir, M. A.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Christian Brotherhood - Paul's Second PrayerR.M. Edgar Ephesians 3:14-21
The Christian Temple: its Material and MagnitudeA. J. Parry.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Ladder of PrayerC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Top of the LadderC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:14-21
A Great DoxologyT. Croskery Ephesians 3:20, 21
AbundanceT. Guthrie, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Abundant Answer to PrayerEphesians 3:20-21
An Omnipotent HelperW. Lamson, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Christ More than SatisfiesC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:20-21
Distrusting God's SufficiencyH. W. Beecher.Ephesians 3:20-21
Divine Ability for Human NecessityJ. J. Wray.Ephesians 3:20-21
DoxologyR. Finlayson Ephesians 3:20, 21
Exultant PraiseD. Thomas Ephesians 3:20, 21
God's AbilityJ. Parker, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
God's Grace InexhaustibleJ. Caird, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Grace AboundingH. W. Beecher.Ephesians 3:20-21
Latent PowerT. Guthrie, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Measureless Power and Endless GloryA. Maclaren, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Men Do not Avail Themselves of the Riches of God's GraceH. W. Beecher.Ephesians 3:20-21
Never be Afraid of Expecting a Great Thing from GodP. B. Power, M. A.Ephesians 3:20-21
The Inworking PowerJ. J. Wray.Ephesians 3:20-21
The Work of the SpiritBishop Samuel Wilberforce.Ephesians 3:20-21
Unknown Riches of GraceT. Guthrie, D. D.Ephesians 3:20-21
Unmeasured BountyEphesians 3:20-21
People
Ephesians, Paul
Places
Ephesus
Topics
Able, Abundantly, Beyond, Desires, Exceeding, Exceedingly, Exercise, Full, Highest, Imagine, Immeasurably, Infinitely, Measure, Power, Prayers, Thoughts, Within, Worketh, Working, Works
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ephesians 3:20

     1060   God, greatness of
     1130   God, sovereignty
     4035   abundance
     5457   power, human
     5957   strength, spiritual

Ephesians 3:14-21

     8611   prayer, for others

Ephesians 3:16-20

     6670   grace, and Holy Spirit

Ephesians 3:20-21

     1305   God, activity of
     5694   generation
     8646   doxology

Library
April 15. "Rooted and Grounded in Love" (Eph. Iii. 17).
"Rooted and grounded in love" (Eph. iii. 17). There is a very singular shrub, which grows abundantly in the west, and is to be found in all parts of Texas. It is no less than the "mosquito tree." It is a very slim, and willowy looking shrub, and would seem to be of little use for any industrial purposes; but is has extraordinary roots growing like great timbers underground, and possessing such qualities of endurance in all situations that it is used and very highly valued for good pavements. The
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

August 28. "According to the Power that Worketh in Us" (Eph. Iii. 20).
"According to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. iii. 20). When we reach the place of union with God, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, we come into the inheritance of external blessing and enter upon the land of our possession. Then our physical health and strength come to us through the power of our interior life; then the prayer is fulfilled, that we shall be in health and prosper, as our soul prospereth. Then, with the kingdom of God and His righteousness within us, all things are added
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity Paul's Care and Prayer for the Church.
Text: Ephesians 3, 13-21. 13. Wherefore I ask that ye may not faint at my tribulations for you, which are your glory. 14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 and that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be strong
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'The Whole Family'
'The whole family in heaven and earth.'--Eph. iii. 15. Grammatically, we are driven to recognise that the Revised Version is more correct than the Authorised, when it reads 'every family,' instead of 'the whole family.' There is in the expression no reference to the thought, however true it is in itself, that the redeemed in heaven and the believers on earth make up but one family. The thought rather is, that, as has been said, 'the father makes the family,' and if any community of intelligent beings,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Strengthened with Might
'That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory; to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.'--Eph. iii. 16. In no part of Paul's letters does he rise to a higher level than in his prayers, and none of his prayers are fuller of fervour than this wonderful series of petitions. They open out one into the other like some majestic suite of apartments in a great palace-temple, each leading into a loftier and more spacious hall, each drawing nearer the presence-chamber,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Indwelling Christ
'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; ye being rooted and grounded in love.'--Eph. iii. 17. We have here the second step of the great staircase by which Paul's fervent desires for his Ephesian friends climbed towards that wonderful summit of his prayers--which is ever approached, never reached,--'that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.' Two remarks of an expository character will prepare the way for the lessons of these verses. The first is as to the relation of this clause
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Paradox of Love's Measure
The breadth, and length, and depth, and height.'--Eph. iii. 18. Of what? There can, I think, be no doubt as to the answer. The next clause is evidently the continuation of the idea begun in that of our text, and it runs: 'And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.' It is the immeasurable measure, then; the boundless bounds and dimensions of the love of Christ which fire the Apostle's thoughts here. Of course, he had no separate idea in his mind attaching to each of these measures
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Climax of all Prayer
'That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.'--Eph. iii. 19. The Apostle's many-linked prayer, which we have been considering in successive sermons, has reached its height. It soars to the very Throne of God. There can be nothing above or beyond this wonderful petition. Rather, it might seem as if it were too much to ask, and as if, in the ecstasy of prayer, Paul had forgotten the limits that separate the creature from the Creator, as well as the experience of sinful and imperfect men,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Love Unknowable and Known
'That ye ... may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.'--Eph. iii. 18, 19. This constitutes the third of the petitions in this great prayer of Paul's, each of which, as we have had occasion to see in former sermons, rises above, and is a consequence of the preceding, and leads on to, and is a cause or occasion of the subsequent one. The two former petitions have been for inward strength
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Measureless Power and Endless Glory
'Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21. Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.'--Eph. iii. 20, 21. One purpose and blessing of faithful prayer is to enlarge the desires which it expresses, and to make us think more loftily of the grace to which we appeal. So the Apostle, in the wonderful series of supplications which precedes the text, has found his
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Christian Church a Family.
Preached January 11, 1852. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH A FAMILY. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."--Ephesians iii. 14, 15. In the verses immediately before the text the Apostle Paul has been speaking of what he calls a mystery--that is, a revealed secret. And the secret was this, that the Gentiles would be "fellow-heirs and of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel." It had been kept secret from the former ages and generations;
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

The Measure of the Cross
EPHESIANS iii. 18, 19. That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. These words are very deep, and difficult to understand; for St. Paul does not tell us exactly of what he is speaking. He does not say what it is, the breadth and length, and depth, and height of which we are to comprehend and take in. Only he tells us afterwards what will come of our taking it in; we shall know the
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Past Knowledge.
(Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.) EPHESIANS iii. 19. "To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." There are some things which no earthly school can teach us, no earthly science explain. Science can do very much, it has done marvellous things, and will do still more. Men can work now with ease such wonders as would have sent them to the fire as wizards three hundred years ago. Science can calculate the exact time of an eclipse ages before the time, science can connect two worlds with the
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

First Day for the Power of the Holy Spirit
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Power of the Holy Spirit "I bow my knees unto the Father, that He would grant you that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit."--EPH. iii. 16. "Wait for the promise of the Father."--ACTS i. 4. "The fuller manifestation of the grace and energy of the Blessed Spirit of God, in the removal of all that is contrary to God's revealed will, so that we grieve not the Holy Spirit, but that He may work in mightier power in the Church, for the exaltation of Christ and
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Strength and Indwelling.
"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Love of Christ.
THE Patience of Christ was recently the object of our meditation in these pages. Blessed and inexhaustible it is. And now a still greater theme is before our hearts. The Love of Christ. The heart almost shrinks from attempting to write on the matchless, unfathomable love of our blessed and adorable Lord. All the Saints of God who have spoken and written on the Love of Christ have never told out its fulness and vastness, its heights and its depths. "The Love of Christ which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Holy Spirit Forming Christ Within Us.
It is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that Paul offers in Eph. iii. 16-19 for the believers in Ephesus and for all believers who read the Epistle. Paul writes, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

"Love that Passeth Knowledge. "
"To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." (Ephesians iii. 19.) If I could only make men understand the real meaning of the words of the apostle John--"God is love," I would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart. If we really make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think God hates them;
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Another Archbishop
Paul did not say, Let everyone desire the episcopate. It is a work, not a relaxation; a solicitude, not a luxury; a responsible ministration, not an irresponsible dominion; a fatherly supervision, not a tyrannical autocracy.--Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. iii. 216. Nectarius, then, on September 27, 397, lay dead in his splendid palace; and the breath was hardly out of the Archbishop's body when there were a dozen austere intriguers' in the field, and the subterranean plots and whisperings began, and the
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom

His Dwelling-Place
T. S. M. Eph. iii. 17 Thou knewest not where to lay Thy head; When over the twilight sea The birds of the mountains homeward sped, There was no home for Thee. But God had prepared for the weary feet A home when the toil was past, And there, in His chamber still and sweet, O Lord, Thou shouldst rest at last. A Home to be won by deadly fight, The price to be paid in blood-- Oh where is that palace of fair delight, That glorious Home of God? The City that hath foundations shone To Abram's eyes of
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

The Apology of Rufinus.
Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius, [2814] Written at Aquileia a.d. 400. In Two Books. In order to understand the controversy between Jerome and Rufinus it is necessary to look back over their earlier relations. They had been close friends in early youth (Jerome, Ep. iii, 3, v, 2.) and had together formed part of a society of young Christian ascetics at Aquileia in the years 370-3. Jerome's letter (3) to Rufinus in 374 is full of affection; in 381 he was placed in
Various—Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus.

Whether Only a Bishop Can Confer this Sacrament?
Objection 1: It seems that not only a bishop can confer this sacrament. For Gregory (Regist. iv), writing to Bishop Januarius, says: "We hear that some were scandalized because we forbade priests to anoint with chrism those who have been baptized. Yet in doing this we followed the ancient custom of our Church: but if this trouble some so very much we permit priests, where no bishop is to be had, to anoint the baptized on the forehead with chrism." But that which is essential to the sacraments should
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

"And if Christ be in You, the Body is Dead Because of Sin; but the Spirit is Life Because of Righteousness. "
Rom. viii. 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." God's presence is his working. His presence in a soul by his Spirit is his working in such a soul in some special manner, not common to all men, but peculiar to them whom he hath chosen. Now his dwelling is nothing else but a continued, familiar and endless working in a soul, till he hath conformed all within to the image of his Son. The soul is the office house, or workhouse,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

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