The first chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians demonstrates well his ability to combine the general with the specific. Verses 3-14 carefully trawl through a travelogue of heavyweight theology adoption, grace, sacrifice, salvation, redemption, forgiveness and Christ's eschatological glory. But immediately following this condensed version of Christian theology, Paul bursts into a spontaneous prayer full of thanks for the Ephesian Christians themselves and of Paul's hopes for their continued growth in faith.

Indeed, Paul's enthusiasm apparently ran away with his pen. For in the Greek, verses 15-23 (with a brief gasp for breath after verse 21) tumble all together into one long, jumbled, exhausting and somewhat convoluted rush of words. The effect, however, serves to heighten the excitemen…