Ephesians Part 28 (Wonderful Work of Salvation)

INTRO: We have been looking at the second reason why Paul prays on a regular basis for the Ephesian believers. It was that the eyes of their understanding might be opened. I mentioned that the word understanding is the Greek word dianoia which is a thinking through. It is to pull some past information out of the storage part and rethink it or think upon it. Someone asked what the difference was between this word and meditation. I checked through the NT. The word to meditate in any form is found only twice in the NT (Lk. 21:14; 1 Ti. 4:15) and in those references I think it is not the best translation for both refer more to care than to meditation. Now the Greek language of the NT is so precise in its descriptions of the mind and its actions that it distinguishes between that which is generated as ideas and thoughts which come from the process of thinking and thoughts which are a regurgitation of something already stored in the nous of the mind. The regurgitation of something already processed and stored in the mind is called, as I understand it, dianoia. In all the Greek words for the workings of the mind, and there are many, dianoia probably fits best of all the OT concept of meditation.