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Author
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Topic: The Whole Family
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epouraniois
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posted
I had spent around some 5 or 6 hours studying the middle aspect of the central prayer in Ephesians (3:14-21) last night, and wanted to take pause to share something of import, in my view anyways.
FAMILY
Eph 3:15
Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named
Family is the word I want to look at. It is the Greek word patria'. In the English we easily think Family has to do with the whole family, the house, the the business, the helpers, the servants, just all of it, but not so in the Greek. This has to do with the PATER, the Father here includes the Husband and the Mother, and the children, but not the servants. Kindred only. Kindred to the Father.
G3965, πατριά, patria, pat-ree-ah' - As if feminine of a derivative of G3962; paternal descent, that is, (concretely) a group of families or a whole race (nation): - family, kindred, lineage.
What we come to realize here, is that this speaks to a much closer relationship than the English word 'family'. (When we look up derivatives we learn some truths, and we also learn by looking up the first occurrences of use, for God is not going to throw us a curve ball at a words first use).
This should be translated here, not the whole family, but 'every family'. And the word 'pas' here (whole) shows that this is right, in Acts 3. 25 we find the same expression, it is translated every family;
Act 3:25 Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds ( all the families) of the earth be blessed.
Note the dispensational difference, as far as the dispensation of promise was concerned, and the Kingdom was concerned, it went no farther than the families of the earth. But in the dispensation of the mystery here in Ephesians, which takes in a much wider sphere, and where people have a hope of going to heaven instead of coming back to this earth, then he says, Of whom every family in heaven and earth is named, not just the families of the earth. Now there is a dispensational difference.
And this is a good place for those who sneer at right division and dispensational differences might do well to explain these differences without going into dispensational realms. The dispensation of the mystery covers a lot more ground than the dispensation of promise. Our hope is in the heavenlies. Our citizenship is in the heavenlies. The heavenlies is where we look for this glorious appearing, which is the hope of of the believer.
Those of the kingdom will not be present for that great event. They will never see the glory of this great appearing, or manifestation of the Christ in the heavenlies. That just won't be part of their program.
Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”, reminds us then, that there are families of the earth, and that above these we are like reminded that there are thrones, and dominions, and powers, and principalities associated with this heavenly sphere. So then, in these two verses we see there is this heavenly viewpoint. There are families in the earth, and they are to be blessed in the earth according to the covenant that God made with Abraham, and not with the promises that God made with the dispensation of the mystery.
If you wish to study this prayer in more depth, look at the words, and order (logic) of the three pillars given: “strengthened”...“comprehend”...“knowledge”, being strengthened from verses 1-4.
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