Tag Archives: Ephesians 1

To Know Better

June 24, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 (NIV)

Yesterday at my desk I received an invite on my computer. The invitation came from Wendy asking to meet for a pre-dinner beverage downstairs in the Vander Well Pub. As we settled in at the bar, Wendy said she wanted to discuss a question I raised in a message I gave yesterday amidst our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. The message was about prayer, and specifically about the phrase Jesus used in teaching His disciples to pray: “give us this day our daily bread.” The question I raised in the message was “What is/are the thing(s) with which you struggle most to trust God?”

Wendy wanted to have a V-Dub Pub conversation to talk about each of our answers to that question.

I have to tell you that the conversation got gut-level honest and transparent. As we talked about some of the (admittedly stupid) things that I struggle to trust God for, the onion of my soul got peeled back a few layers deeper. I confess that it was uncomfortable, even though there is no one on this earth who knows me, my struggles, and my foibles as well as Wendy does. She loves me anyway. It was a good conversation, even if it was uncomfortable. As we headed upstairs to make dinner we knew one another a bit better, and we had been given the opportunity to extend grace to one another in expressing our love for one another despite our respective faith struggles.

Today our chapter-a-day journey continues through Paul’s “Prison Letters” which were written while he was under house arrest in Rome. With time on his hands waiting for Caesar to hear his case, Paul took the opportunity to pen letters to the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers he’d established in his travels. With the exception of the personal letter to Philemon, the Prison Letters were written to address entire gatherings of people. As with the letter to the Colossians that we just finished on this chapter-a-day trek, Paul intended his letter to the Ephesians to be read to the entire gathering for the purposes of teaching and instruction. He also expected that the local gatherings in different locations would exchange letters once they were read so that all the different local gatherings would benefit from the teaching and instructions Paul wrote to each.

In today’s opening chapter, Paul establishes that he’s got some mind-blowing spiritual truths he wants to lay on the believers in Ephesus. He’s going to expand their minds and hearts to think about God’s plans and purposes for life on a cosmic spiritual level. As he’s introducing this, he states that his purpose in doing so is so that the believers might “know [God] better.”

Which immediately took my mind to my message yesterday. I observed in my message that Jesus perpetually uses the metaphor of marriage to describe the relationship He wants to have with His followers. Jesus described Himself as “the bridegroom” and we as His “bride.” Like a marriage, Wendy and I communicate in different ways at different times for different relational purposes. Despite the many years that we have been married, and despite the fact that Wendy knows me better than anyone, there are still opportunities to sit at the bar, have a gut-level conversation, and peel back another layer of the onion of our souls.

There is always an opportunity to know one another better.

In the quiet this morning, I simply find myself acknowledging that after almost 45 years of relationship with Jesus I still have opportunity to know Him better. Perhaps I should set an appointment to meet Jesus in the V-Dub Pub for a conversation before dinner tonight.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

Better Knowing

November 18, 2024 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 (NIV)

I was a bit surprised when I received the email. It wasn’t like my friend to share with me details about his job. We’ve been friends for over 40 years, and not just casual friends. We’ve walked intimately with one another through the best and the worst of each other’s lives. When we get a chance to talk and catch up, we tend to go deep immediately. It’s that kind of relationship.

He emailed me with details about a project he was he was going to deliver and said that it likely the most important event in his career. I immediately read the subtext of his words. His literal words were stating mostly facts, but the message of his email was more than that. He was freaking out. He was anxious, afraid and in desperate need of encouragement and affirmation.

I know my friend.

I grew up in the Christian religion. I learned the stories, practiced the rituals, regularly attended the services, and went through the process of becoming a member of my childhood church. But it wasn’t until I entered into a relationship with Jesus that my life truly changed. A relationship is a completely different thing. Relationships are dynamic, with desires, expectations, the give and take of communication, and the process of knowing and being known.

Even relationships had varying degrees of depth. I have casual relationships with a million people, but only a relatively small number go intimately deep. Even fewer continue to grow deeper as we continue to share one another’s life journeys.

Today we begin a relatively short trek through Paul’s letter to Jesus’ disciples in Ephesus. In today’s chapter, Paul sets the tone for his letter and he tells his readers that he’s praying for their relationship with Jesus, that they might “know him better.” That’s what relationships are like. You know some people better than others.

When it comes to Jesus, I’ve observed that many people seem to be where I was growing up. They are going through the motions of adherence to the religion, but I don’t observe or sense that there’s any actual relationship with God. In others, I observe and sense that there is a relationship with God, but it appears to be more of a casual relationship. You know, running into one another every couple of Sundays but otherwise not giving it much thought, time, or energy.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself feeling grateful for the number of deep and intimate relationships I have experienced, and continue to experience, on this life journey. That includes my relationship with Jesus which has only grown deeper over time.

By the way, I found myself mindfully checking in with my friend in the days prior to, and on the day of, his project delivery. He knocked it out of the park, as I knew he would and continued to assure him. Sometimes, we need a friend who knows us well enough to give us the encouragement and affirmation we need, and who we know cares for us enough to give it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Learning How to See

April 29, 2019 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 (NIV)

I’m back from a self-imposed exile on social media which I took in observance of the season of Lent. While technically that season was over on Easter Sunday, I’ve found myself slow to return. It’s been an interesting and challenging sabbatical, but more on that in the days and weeks ahead. I’m still processing.

Do you remember the “Magic Eye” art that was a trending fad for about 10 seconds back in the 1980’s. It was a generated mixture of colors that originally feels like a computer generated Jackson Pollock painting, but if you “looked at it right” a three dimensional object would suddenly become visible to you. Once you “learned how to see it” you couldn’t stop seeing the hidden three-dimensional images while others around you struggled to do so. I have fond memories of watching my mother stare forever at a magic eye image “trying to see it” while her entire family tried to teach her “how to do it” (all at the same time). She never saw it.

I’ve had a similar experience in recent weeks with the concept of the four levels that I introduced in a message a few months and and talked about in my mid-Lent podcast. It seems I can’t stop seeing it, and today’s chapter is a great example.

The opening of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a preamble focused on introducing a Level Four (eternal) perspective to everything. Paul touches on the eternal past where we were chosen to be in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” It moves to the eternal future and “times fulfillment” when Christ will “bring unity to all things.” Paul goes on to pray that the believers will have the “eyes of your heart enlightened” (like suddenly being able to see a “Magic Eye” image) in order that they might know three Level Four realities:

Hope to which we are called
Riches of His glorious inheritance in his holy people
His incomparably great power for us who believe.

In the quiet this morning I look back over my journey and realize that much of it has been spent focused on seeing and experiencing life through my Level One to Three lenses while Spirit has been gently trying to open the eyes of my heart to see Level Four reality in all the other levels of my journey. Like my mother with the Magic Eye image, I’ve been slow to see it, but now I’m finding myself looking at my entire journey, past, present, and future, differently.

I’m praying Paul’s prayer this morning for more of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that I might continually know Him better. While I’m at it, I’m praying the same for you, too.

Have a great week, my friend.

Chapter-a-Day

Heaven, Quantum Theory, and the Wonder of it All

April 18, 2014 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3 (NIV)

Earlier this week I was reading about new discoveries in the scientific community relating to physics. Wendy and I have enjoyed long conversations through the years about our faith and science. I credit Wendy with introducing me to the writings and works of Madeleine L’Engle, whose fiction and non-fiction writings both explore the intersection of these two disciplines which have famously warred with one another through the centuries. Wendy and I don’t feel tremendous conflict between the two. Faith that denies science is foolish, as is science that denies its inherent faith. For Wendy and me, our creative imaginations find all sorts of fascinating correlations that complement both.

What I read earlier this week dealt with the theory of relativity and time. It explored the idea of parallel realities and time existing in different dimensions. The possibilities are mind blowing, and it makes me shake my head in gleeful wonder. Despite all that we’ve learned throughout history, I sense that we have only scratched the surface of the depth and complexity that our Creator wove into all creation. As for things existing at once in different dimensions, that’s already hinted at in God’s story.

The verse above from Paul’s letter to the Jesus followers in Ephesus is one of my favorites to chew on in the same vein with which I chew on my rudimentary understanding of relativity and quantum theory. We live on this earth in the moment, our lives bound by the realities of flawed humanity, sickness, conflict, tragedy, and monotony. At the same moment, according to this verse, we have been (past tense) blessed in heavenly realms (is this what science would call another dimension in another or outside of our present time?) with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We exist simultaneously in different realities, bound in earthly time and blessed in spiritual eternity. Talk about mind blowing.

Today, as I write this, we are celebrating Good Friday when Jesus was beaten and crucified. For those of faith, we believe that on the cross and in the empty tomb that was to follow on Sunday morning, there was a fundamental shift in both the earthly and spiritual dimensions which forever altered our present earthly reality and the reality of our standing in the spiritual dimension/realm that exists beyond time. While I do not claim to understand it all, I have faith in the glimpse of it I have been given, and once again I shake my head in the wonder of it all.