Wordy Paul

One of my faults as both a writer and a conversationalist is that I tend to over-explain things and deal in circular run-on sentences. A recent marketing seminar I went to said the best communication occurs in sentences that are no more than eight-ten words. Wow, I have prepositions and superlative phrases that are eight words. Still, I am thankful that in creative writing that there are some freedoms to be verbose that composing a newsletter doesn't allow.

Now I hope lightning doesn't strike me for saying this, but I believe the apostle Paul had the same problem as me. Perhaps there's some lost in translation, but it seems his sentences go on forever! Many times I have to reread individual verses several times, break them apart, break them apart again, and then simplify them in my mind in order for them to make sense. Take today's verse I was introduced to at d365.org from Ephesians 1:17-19:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

What? Did I count right - 81 words? Well, rather than count them again, I'll just assume I'm right. Paul could have never sent text messages on a mobile phone or via Twitter. Not only is it long, but by the time you get to then end of the passage, you've forgotten what the beginning of the passage said. To combat this today. I took each phrase and simplified it as follows:

Paul's prayer is:

That God reveals wisdom to us

-so that we'll know-

HOPE,

HEAVEN, (the saints' inheritance, my paraphrase)

and

STRENGTH (God's power working in us).

There you go Paul, - you're welcome. 17 words not counting parentheticals. Still too many for the 8-10 recommended for newsletters and church publications, but we're getting closer.

In Paul's defense, though (and mine), when we serve a God as great and vast as ours is, I guess its ultimately impossible to define him in any amount of words, much less eight. It's like the stanza in the old hymn, "The Love of God...."

"Could we with ink the ocean fill

Or were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by
trade

To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole through stretched from
sky to sky."