Who can resist this marvellous, tumbling cataract of poetry that introduces us to the vast and intricate complexities of this world in which we live? Not many. Paul is playful, extragant and totally engaging as he tells us what is going on in this God-created, Christ-saved, Spirit-blessed world into which we have been born and are now growing up. This is no small, cramped world in which we live from hand to mouth. The horizons are vast. The heavens are high. The oceans are deep. We have elbow room to spare.
The sheer size, the staggering largeness, of the world into which God calls us, its multi-dimensional spaciousness, must not be reduced to dimensions that we are cosily comfortable with. Paul does his best to prevent us from reducing it. Sin shrinks our imaginations. Paul stretches us. He counters with holy poetry. If we calculate the nature of the world by what we can manage or explain, we end up living in a very small world. If we are going to grow to the mature stature of Christ, we need conditions favourable to it. We need room. The Ephesian letter gives us room, dimensions deep and wide. Ephesians plunges us into ocean deeps, and we come up gasping for air. This is going to take some getting used to.
Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.54
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