Skip to main content

How Wide 2

              so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

 

            No, you’re not crazy. I wrote about this passage yesterday with one idea on my mind. As I posted it this morning, another idea that is probably more important than what I wrote yesterday came to mind. Let’s get dimensional. Length. Width. Height. Each of these is one-dimensional.  Put any two of them together and you have two dimensions and an area. All three together make up three dimensions and a volume.

            But here’s the problem. Paul mentions wide, long, high, and deep. The Greek word for height is ύψος (ypsos), and the word for depth is βάθος (bathus.)  It is from the latter that we get the term bathysphere. That’s the name of the round sub that was lowered into the ocean's depths in the 1930s. But while it makes sense for Paul to talk about width, length, and either height or depth, it doesn’t make sense for him to talk about both. The curious thing about the Greek word for depth is that it also means deep, thoroughly, thorough, background, and distance.

            When I skimmed along the surface of the subject of dimensions, I learned that the fourth dimension is time or duration. It might then be said that the depth to which he referred was a reference to the thoroughness of God’s love that goes the distance through all the other dimensions and beyond, into time: past, present, and future.

            There’s another application of at least some of these terms in our language. We talk about emotions as being deep, which suggests that not only does God’s love spread out over a large volume (length, width, height) but is also deeply personal and reaches our deep personhood.

            Admittedly, this is all just theorizing on my part, but at the very least we need to wonder why God, through Paul, wrote: “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more