The second-longest sentence in the Bible is one of my favorites. The longest sentence, technically, is the genealogy of Jesus from Luke chapter 3, a run-on sentence of “the son of . . . the son of . . . the son of . . .” that spans 16 verses and includes dozens of names you probably can’t pronounce. The second-longest sentence, at least in the original Greek of the New Testament, is Paul’s epic praise party in Ephesians 1:3-14.

The English version of the Bible that I use breaks up this sentence into eight separate sentences to avoid the red pens of English teachers everywhere, the ones who cringe when authors add too many commas and subordinate clauses. But the apostle Paul wasn’t ashamed to go on and on about all the good things he had to say about God.

Since these devotions, unfortunately, have a word limit, I literally can’t fit Paul’s words into the rest of this message. However, I can give you a glimpse of how it starts: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). 

If you want to learn more about “every spiritual blessing”—how you are chosen, holy, blameless, predestined, adopted, graced, redeemed, forgiven, included, saved, marked, filled, and more—find a Bible. See what inspired the man who saw the risen Jesus to ignore the conventions of grammar and run on in praise of his God.