Ephesians 3:13-16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore Since by my ministry you have been called to the fellowship of the gospel; I desire that ye faint not Be not discouraged or disheartened; at my tribulations for preaching the gospel to you, which is your glory A cause of glorying and rejoicing to you, inasmuch as hereby it appears how much God regards you, in that he not only sends his apostles to preach the gospel to you, but to do this notwithstanding the great variety of extreme sufferings to which they are hereby exposed. For this cause That ye may not faint, either on account of my sufferings or your own, and that the great work in which I am engaged may more successfully be carried on, and the purposes of these my sufferings maybe answered in your consolation and the divine glory; I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ I present my sincere and ardent supplications before him. Or rather, the apostle here returns to the subject which he began in Ephesians 3:1, (where see the note,) the intervening verses coming in by way of parenthesis. Of whom The Father; the whole family of angels in heaven Saints in paradise, and believers on earth, is named Are acknowledged by him as his children, a more honourable title than children of Abraham; and acknowledge their dependance upon, and relation to him. Or, in the family here spoken of, all rational beings in heaven and earth may be considered as included, because they derive their being from him, and are supported by him. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory The immense fulness of his glorious wisdom, power, mercy, and love; to be strengthened with might Or mightily strengthened, that is, endowed with courage, fortitude, and power, to withstand all your spiritual enemies, to do with cheerfulness, and suffer with patience, his whole will; by his Spirit the great source of all power and might, grace and goodness; in the inner man The soul.