“For this reason,” Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians, “I fall to my knees before the Father” (3:14). When people fall to their knees in the Bible, we tend to assume that the primary purpose of their prostration is prayer—and that was indeed part of what Paul was expressing here. But that’s not all that Paul seems to have been saying here. Kneeling is, in this text, more than a convenient posture for prayer. This is Paul’s moment of surrender in response to something that had inspired deep awe in his soul.
So what was it in this text that caused Paul to fall to his knees in prayerful awe? It wasn’t a miraculous vision, and it wasn’t a voice from heaven. It was something that may seem quite mundane to many of us. It was something that is experienced today by billions of people around the globe.
