Charles Ellicott Commentary Ephesians 3:13

"Wherefore I ask that ye may not faint at my tribulations for you, which are your glory." — Ephesians 3:13 (ASV)

Wherefore I desire...—This verse is parenthetical—a reflection suggested by the greatness of the trust and the littleness of the minister dwelt upon in Ephesians 3:8-12, and inserted as a warning to the Ephesians not to be disheartened by his present “tribulation”—his imprisonment—as if it were a failure of his mission. (See this idea more fully worked out in Philippians 1:12-29.)

“To faint” (as in 2 Corinthians 4:1, 16; Galatians 6:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:13) is “to play the coward,” as “thinking it (see 1 Peter 4:12–13) a strange thing” that trouble should fall on him or them. It might well seem strange when, for four years at least, at Caesarea and Rome, the marvellous activity of St. Paul’s apostolic career was apparently cut short.

At my tribulations for you, which is your glory.—There is a particular beauty in the thought suggested by the words “which is your glory.” The suffering, triumphantly endured and actually turned to the furtherance of the gospel, is certainly a “glory,” in the proof which it gives of the power of the truth and the grace of Christ.

But the more obvious idea would have been to comfort the Ephesians by the declaration that St. Paul’s tribulations were for himself a cause, not of pain, but of joy and glory—as is, in fact, done in Colossians 1:24, and in the celebrated passage, 2 Corinthians 11:23–31. Here, however, instead of doing so, St. Paul pursues the same line of thought as in 1 Corinthians 4:10—there half ironically, here seriously—that, while the suffering falls on himself, the glory passes to the Church, for which he suffers, and in which he is content to sink himself. Therefore, he urges the Ephesians to find encouragement and glory for themselves, instead of a cause for “fainting,” in the afflictions endured on their behalf and overcome in Christ. As he identifies himself with them, so he would have them take what might be his glory to be their own.