There are three letters in the New Testament that begin, after a brief introduction, with this exact phrase:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These three letters are 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter. (And as it happens, this blessing is in verse 1:3 of each of these letters.)

The Greek word translated “Blessed” in these verses is actually eulogētos (Strong’s #2128). It means more than just to praise in a general way; the literal translation is “well-spoken of.” So you could translate this phrase as,

“Let God be well-spoken of!”

And of course, eulogētos is the Greek word from which we get our English word, “eulogy.”

So in these verses Peter and Paul are not saying we should just bless God by praising Him in a general way; rather, we should be able to “speak well” of Him to others, even to “eulogize” Him, by speaking forth all the blessings He has given us in His Son, Jesus Christ.

In my family, when our Dad passed away about 10 years ago, we asked his dear friend and co-worker, John, to give one of the eulogies for him; this was the last manager Dad had at the life insurance agency he worked for. (Dad loved his job selling insurance and didn’t officially retire until he was well into his 80’s, so John was a good deal younger than he was.) In his eulogy, John didn’t just say our Dad was a great guy whom he liked; rather, he gave a wonderful, very moving account of how our Dad, with whom he had worked for about 15 years, had affected his life and career, as well as that of many others; that was so much more meaningful, and touched us all very much.

It is very good for us, as the believers in Christ, to proclaim, “Praise the Lord!,” and to declare how good and wonderful He is. But eventually, if that is all we can say, and perhaps also thank Him for giving His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, then our blessing of God is very short; we are not able to “eulogize” Him to others as we should.

That is certainly not what we see in these three letters in the New Testament. Rather, after declaring “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the writers of these letters, Paul of the first two and Peter of the third, go on to speak in a very specific manner of how God has blessed us in so many different ways so we can enter into His full salvation.

In the same way, we as the believers in Christ today should also be able to speak in a detailed way of the manifold, glorious, immeasurable blessings we have received from our heavenly Father in Christ. This, however, requires us to spend time in the Scriptures, reading and even studying them, to learn of all these blessings. And as we do that, we will begin to see the relationship between these three letters, because they each show us from a different angle how our heavenly Father has blessed us.

And that is what we will consider in the next Note in this series.

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—  20 September 2025 —