This week week’s theme is “The Mystery of the Gospel Revealed” from Ephesians 3:1-21.

Mathematics is an important subject containing multitudes. You can start with one plus one equals two

and keep going until you’re an unkempt professor staring at a giant wall of numbers and symbols that

look like gibberish to most of us. I used to joke that you know math is getting serious when letters start

showing up with the numbers. Even the brilliant and talented Barbie once admitted that math class was

tough.

In 1939, George Dantzig was a doctoral student in mathematics and arrived late to class and saw two

problems on the blackboard. Assuming they were homework, he dutifully wrote them down and

although they “seemed to be a little harder than usual,” he completed the assignment within a few

days. What he didn’t realize was that they were in fact not homework, but examples of two famous

unsolved statistical problems. Well, they were unsolved up until Dantzig did his homework.

In the hands of the right person, what previously seemed impossible can be accomplished.

This grace was given to me - the least of all the saints - to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable

riches of the Messiah, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages

in God who created all things. (Ephesians 3:8-9 HCSB)

The riches of Jesus are truly incalculable, but here Paul has helped solve a mystery and helps us

understand it better.

…I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the

saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love

that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19 HCSB)

Catch that part at the end. Paul prays that we could know the Messiah’s love, but that this love

surpasses knowledge. My understanding is that we can fully experience God’s love even if we cannot

fully understand it. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I can experience and embrace what I don’t

completely understand.

Like the other students (and professor) in George Dantzig’s class, we may not fully understand the

question, but that doesn’t mean nobody can answer it.

By Mark Stuart



Mark is the husband of Laura, father of Shelby and Jacob, and father-in-law of Bailey.