The Most Dangerous Prayer in The Bible – What Paul Prayed For in Ephesians 1
Paul prayed one thing from a prison cell: that people would finally see.
By Tim Barber··Video·Updated
The Most Dangerous Prayer in the Bible: What Paul Actually Prayed For in Ephesians 1
Paul sat in a Roman prison cell, chained to a guard, and wrote nine verses that contain the most audacious claims about power in the entire New Testament. He asked God to open people’s eyes. Nine verses. Zero requests about circumstances.
A Prayer That Rewrites Everything
Ephesians 1:15-23 is one of the most theologically dense prayers in Scripture. Paul hears that the churches he helped start are thriving — their faith is genuine, their love is growing — and his response is to pray harder. Because for Paul, prayer was fuel for a fire already burning. He treated it as oxygen for spiritual growth.
What he asks God for is striking: “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” to know God personally. The Greek word is epignosis — relational, experiential knowing. And then he asks for the eyes of their hearts to be illuminated. An apocalypse prayer. A request for God to pull back the curtain on invisible realities.
Three Realities Paul Wants You to See
1. Hope
Biblical hope is a settled confidence in a future God has already set in motion. Paul draws on the Exodus — four hundred years of silence in Egypt, and God split the sea anyway. That’s the DNA of the hope he’s describing.
2. Identity
Most Christians read “the riches of his glorious inheritance” and assume it means our inheritance from God. Paul means the opposite. He’s echoing Deuteronomy, where God calls Israel his segullah — a king’s private treasure. The jewels kept in his own chamber. We are God’s treasured possession. That identity changes everything about how you approach God in prayer.
3. Power
Paul stacks four Greek words for power into a single sentence because one word can’t contain what he’s describing. And he says this power is aimed directly at those who believe. The same force that raised Jesus from the dead and enthroned him above every ruler, authority, and dominion in the cosmos.
Why This Prayer Is Dangerous
Paul then unfolds what this power looks like. He draws on Psalm 110, Psalm 8, and Daniel 7 to show that the crucified Jesus now sits on the throne of the universe. Every title Caesar claimed — kyrios (lord), soter (savior), divi filius (son of God) — Paul hands to a crucified Jew from Nazareth. While chained to one of Caesar’s soldiers.
And the place where this cosmic lordship shows up in the real world? The ekklesia. A political word Paul fills with resurrection. A living, breathing community where the kingship of Jesus is acknowledged and lived out in real time. They met in homes, shared meals across ethnic lines, pooled their resources, and prayed for boldness when they got arrested.
What This Means For You
This prayer is dangerous because once you see what Paul wants you to see, you can’t go back.
- You can’t go back to treating prayer like a crisis hotline.
- You can’t go back to approaching God as if you still need to earn your place.
A prisoner already told you: you are treasured, you carry resurrection power, and the hope you’ve been called into outlasts every circumstance you’ll ever face.
Want to start praying like Paul? I created a free resource to help — the Heaven on Earth Prayer Journal. It’s designed to help you pray from the identity Paul describes, with daily, weekly, and monthly prompts. Grab it free here.
📺 Watch the full video for the complete line-by-line walk through Ephesians 1:15-23 →
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