Ephesians 3:14 · World English Bible
Ephesians 3:14 Meaning For This Cause
For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
What does Ephesians 3:14 mean?
Prayer bends the body because the body belongs to the Father as much as the mind does. Kneeling is the whole person admitting that someone greater is present, and the posture often teaches the heart what the heart was slow to accept.
From the Catholic reading below.
Ephesians 3:14 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Catholic
CATHOLIC
Catholic
Prayer bends the body because the body belongs to the Father as much as the mind does. Kneeling is the whole person admitting that someone greater is present, and the posture often teaches the heart what the heart was slow to accept.
The cause is what came just before: outsiders brought into one household with no second-class seating. Seeing that, the natural response is intercession, asking for people who are not in the room. Christian prayer reaches the Father because it goes through Jesus Christ, his Son by nature, and the baptized are adopted into that same place.
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Catholic lens
Live Ephesians 3:14 today
- Pray or sit still in a posture you would not choose: kneeling on the floor, hands open, phone in another room. Let the position go first and see if the rest of you follows.
- Ask someone close to you who they are worried about, then carry that person in your mind through the day. Pray for a stranger you will never meet because of it.
- In the moment you want to argue your way to the last word, stop and physically change something: stand up, step outside, put your hands down. Let the body break the momentum your pride wants to keep.
What does my body already know about God that my head keeps arguing with?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
Bowing and sitting are not decorations around the practice, they are the practice. The body is put in a certain shape and the mind slowly learns what that shape means.
Hinduism
Touching the feet of an elder or teacher is a bodily sentence, said with the spine rather than the mouth: you are greater than me and I am glad of it.
Buddhism
In loving kindness practice you hold people in mind one by one, including those far away and those you will never meet. The heart is widened on purpose, toward the absent.
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