Apostolic Prayer Priorities

If you’ve ever wondered why we make it a point to pray for our nation’s President, our state Governor, and other elected officials, today you have your answer. The Apostle Paul tells us to. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life…” One of the kings Paul was writing about was Nero, notorious ruler of the Roman Empire. So, clearly Paul is not saying, “Pray for those officials with whom you agree, who belong to your party or worldview” but “Pray for all who are in high positions.” So we do, almost every week, in the Prayer of the Church.
Why should we do that? Paul answers that question, and answers it well. A peaceful and quiet life, he says, “is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Paul’s reasoning makes sense. Good leaders provide stable civil government. A stable civil government allows Christians to live and work without harassment. The uncommon peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire opened many doors for Paul to carry out his ministry throughout the Mediterranean region, even as today, American Christians are, for the most part, free to live as followers of Jesus, the Son of God. Praying for our leaders is in the best interest of the Gospel, though we might not have thought about it that way to begin with.
One of the things that I find endlessly fascinating about prayer is that it has that quality to it. What you started out praying for may not be where you end up. What you asked for at the beginning may not be what you end up getting. If you think of prayer mostly as “asking God for things,” then this might seem pretty frustrating. But there’s a lot more to prayer than that.
Paul begins this section of his letter to Timothy by saying that it is of “first importance” that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,” including kings and authorities. Each of the four words used here gives a different perspective on prayer for us to think about. First of all, Paul urges supplications to be made. In that word you can hear another: supply. A supplication is indeed a request for God to supply us with specific needs. But when we make these requests in faith, we make them with an openness to the way that God is going to answer that request. In other words, what we ask for may not be what we get, but faith enables us to see that what God supplies is always best. To give you a personal example, when I became the pastor here at St. Paul’s, I prayed and prayed every day that our house in Twinsburg would sell, so we could move up here as a family and purchase a new home. As months went by, my prayers started to become more questions than comments, until the day that it became clear that we were to move in next door to the church. That’s not what I was originally praying for. That wasn’t the ‘order of operations’ I had in mind. But God supplied what was best, and months of prayer helped me to receive His better gift.
Next, Paul urges that prayers be made for all people. Prayer is a pretty generic word, but it is worth reminding ourselves that prayer is simply speaking to God in words and thoughts. It is nothing more complicated than that. If you can talk, you can pray. If you can think, you can pray. The idea is, you are communicating with your heavenly Father. But here’s the thing: a life of prayer is more about relationship than it is outcomes. A life of prayer is more about relationship than it is outcomes. If someone close to you suddenly stops speaking to you, there’s a problem, right? Relationships depend on communication. Faithful prayer should be more like checking in with a beloved friend, but too often we come making demands, saying give me this, give me that, do it my way, on my timetable, or I’m gonna get mad. It has been said that prayer ought to seek the face of God more than it seeks His hand, and I believe that that is when prayer is most meaningful, when the focus is not “God, give me something,” but just “God.”
Paul also urges that intercessions be made for all people. An intercession is a prayer that you offer on behalf of someone else, and therefore it is a very Christ-like way to pray. It is one of the great privileges of discipleship that we are allowed to approach the throne of God in order to “plead the case” of people we care about. This too is reflected in our weekly Prayer of the Church, as we intercede for those with all manner of special needs.
Lastly, Paul urges that thanksgivings be made for all people—to say “thank you” to God in our words and thoughts. Forgive me for sounding pessimistic, but this type of prayer is the one probably said the least. Remember when Jesus healed ten lepers, and only one came back to say “thank you?” One in ten might just be the ratio that He is used to in this respect.
However, the serious Christian knows that we could never adequately thank our Lord for all He has done for us. He’s better than the best friend we could possibly have. We could never pay back what we owe Him for what he did on the cross. He deserves our never-ending thanks for all He has done. And even though eternal life in His light and peace is the greatest blessing, He still gives other gifts of grace every day. Giving thanks to Him will always be part of our prayers, because the gifts that Jesus gives last forever.
One last thought, and in a way, we’re going back to the beginning. Paul, remember, urged that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. He continues, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all…”
Here again is Paul’s progression of thought: Praying for those in authority contributes to stable civil government. A stable civil government allows Christians to bring Jesus into everyday life. This is a good thing, because God wants everyone to be saved and to come to know the truth. And the truth is that Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all of us. Since God wants everyone to be saved by this message, then it follows that our prayers will center on what God wants. We will pray a lifetime’s worth of prayers of repentance leading to the forgiveness of our own sins in Jesus. We will pray that the message of Jesus will break into places where it is not welcome, and we will pray for the safety of those who are not afraid to stand for Jesus in those locations. We will pray for the people we know who still hold Jesus and His gifts at arms’ length, bringing the Holy Spirit to bear on their hearts and minds. And we will pray that the message of Jesus goes out into our community, and the more we pray this in faith, the more we will understand that we are the ones called to take it there.