pray for all men Tanner Peake - march 9, 2013 1. Key Text a. First of all, then, I ask that requests, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be made for all people. Pray for kings and everyone who is in authority so that we can live a quiet and peaceful life in complete godliness and dignity. This is right and it pleases God our savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. There is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the human Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a payment to set all people free. This was a testimony that was given at the right time. I was appointed to be a preacher and apostle of this testimony I m telling the truth and I m not lying! I m a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-7, common english bible) b. This passage was a passage that comes from a letter written from Paul to his spiritual son Timothy, who at the time was overseeing the church in Ephesus. We have to remember, Timothy was put in charge of a congregation in an era when there was no church, no podcast, and no conference on how to do church. This letter is written by Paul mostly to address some chaos that had arisen out of the church in Ephesus.
c. Paul starts the letter, in chapter one of this book, by exhorting Timothy in the Lord. You see Paul s fine leadership and pastoral heart in specifically how he addresses Timothy, and generally how he addresses the issues of this specific church. He realizes that exhorting the young leader is the first step in remedying the broader problems this growing New Testament church faced. d. After exhorting Timothy, Paul jumps right into the conversation with a first of all... command. In the following verses Paul is going to address, implicitly and explicitly, the systematic need of mankind (or the universal problem of mankind) and then offer a series of systematic solutions. 2. Systematic Need a. Immediately after this introduction in 1 Timothy, Paul instructs Timothy, first of all, then, I ask that requests, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be made for all people... b. Implicit in this first of all... command given by Paul to Timothy is the backdrop of massive need needs within the church and needs outside this church. Paul, in this letter, is about to address many of these needs in this letter. c. Needs Within the Church i. From this text we can see that the church was having problems regarding the organization of their worship services. (Some things never change. This isn t that much different than our problems today organizing our church services or the various dynamics that precipitate in the course of conducting worship.)
ii. From what we know historically and from what Paul writes to Timothy, it is clear that the church was struggling with abuses of privilege, and the result was disorder. In fact, when you read this letter, you get a clear impression that Paul was trying to help Timothy organize the growing church in Ephesus. Consider, at this point they didn t have a church structure like we do. They didn t have church boards; didn t know yet about deacons; and didn t have official pastors and worship leaders in the capacity like many churches have today. iii. Today, we know the Church still suffers from many problems. If we really stop to think about it, many of the problems we have still come down to how we worship. The Church also faces opposition that is real. d. Needs Related to the Lost i. There are over 229,000 people born every day on our planet. Of these, every day over 55,000 are born to unevangelized peoples. What s an unevangelized people? They are people who have not yet heard about Jesus. A. Example: the home of most of the early Church was what is today Turkey. Rough estimates say that there are less than 4,000 Christians in this entire nation with a population of nearly 80 million. This country is virtually unreached. ii. We know that the goal of Christ, and later the ministry of Paul, was to see this lost and broken world reconciled back to relationship with Christ. Christ came to rescue sinners, a category we all fall into. Systematically, mankind since the fall has turned away from God.
iii. Many times we look at the many needs of humanity with a sense of sympathy. In this passage though, the focus is actually on Christ and what is good and acceptable to Him, not what is good and acceptable to us. When we talk about the needs related to the lost, we are first and foremost talking about God s desire to reconcile broken humanity. There is no need more compelling than the fact that systematically we, as humanity, have all turned away from God. Though poverty is rampant and social and political issues persist, the biggest need of humanity is our need to be restored in relationship with Jesus. 3. Systematic Prayer a. With this as the backdrop of this passage, Paul tells Timothy to pray. I believe that Paul even tells Timothy to pray systematically. The appropriate response to systematic need is systematic prayer. b. Prayer for the Church i. Remember, in the immediate context, Paul is addressing structural problems within the church in this letter. When you consider this, it really seems weird to say that prayer is the first fix to the church in Ephesus. Paul didn t say go through the newest Bible study program, and he didn t tell the church the first thing they need to do was repent. Paul didn t instruct the church to go buy the new organizational leadership book, or listen to the newest podcast about how to fix the messed up church of carnal Christianity. Paul will indeed, in a matter of time, jump into how to structure this new budding church, but I believe that Paul intentionally asked the church to do something that would prepare them perfectly for these new structures that needed to be
implemented. Paul told the people that their corporate worship services should include prayer, petitions, and thanksgiving. For who? For everybody. ii. When you pray for everybody as a corporate body, including praying for your leaders, you will find that your structures will work better, your grace for other peoples imperfections is higher, and transition is generally less abrupt. iii. When you pray for everybody as a corporate body, including those people on the other side of town who do church a little bit different, you don t have as much energy to judge them for their pet theologies. iv. When you pray for everybody as a corporate body, including those who aren t in your small group, you find that church operates a lot more gracefully. v. In a sense, corporate prayer not only is heard by God and valuable as a means for seeing change, we also see in this passage that Paul is saying that corporate prayer actually is a precursor to the basic structuring of the Church. Prayer for everybody, not just prayer for the emotionally stimulating subjects we see on the news, prepares us as the Church for the practical order that must come in a corporate Body. vi. Good and practical Church or governmental structure is definitely desired, and this book makes that abundantly clear. Paul isn t saying don t deal with your organizational problems. He is saying, don t think about dealing with your organizational problems until you as a corporate Body pray together for everybody, especially leadership.
vii. What happens if corporate prayer for everybody, especially leadership, was intended by God to be the precursor to good Church government? What if prayer actually not only affects the governors, but prepares the hearts of the governed and makes their hearts more receptive to leadership? viii. I wonder how many church splits may have been averted had the Church just taken this first of all literally and began to pray for everyone, even the people who liked the different color of carpet. c. Prayer for the Lost i. But in this passage, we know that Paul isn t just telling the church to pray corporately for everybody simply because he wanted the people to have their hearts in the right place. Paul actually believed that based on the widespread need of humanity, prayer was appropriate. ii. Prayer should be for everybody, not just those who are Christians. What does this mean? Does this mean we should find a global phonebook and pray for each person name by name? iii. I don t believe this is catching the point of what Paul is saying. Rather, I believe Paul is saying pray for everybody rich or poor, for those in every religion, for those in every place. Prayer should be directed at every conceivable classification of people that exists. iv. Systematic prayer, such as praying for every nation, or for every unreached people group, or for every person you can think of, is something that I believe is actually found within Scripture.
v. Paul says pray for everybody, but then gives special attention to prayer for governing authorities. Why? Doesn t this seem a bit random in this context? I believe that it is only random if you don t pull back and see the broader picture. Paul is saying, pray for everybody because there is a massive need both within the Church and in the world. But pray specifically for the people in charge. People in charge have the ability to impact many people. (This goes for the Church and the world.) Because of this, pray for them because if we are going to see needs addressed, it will likely start from these people. 4. Systematic Godliness a. Paul explains why praying for government is so important in this instruction to Timothy. Paul says pray for authority so that you can live a tranquil and quiet life in ALL godliness and dignity. Paul isn t talking about praying for your government so that you can get a bigger tax return. (But oh man, I believe we should fast for this!) Paul is saying pray that you can live in a peaceful context so that believers have the ability to effectively influence the world around them unhindered. b. All godliness is a reference to living in the way that God intended, even in His image. Can authority effect our ability to be godly? No. But can governmental or other authority try to suppress the effect of our godliness. Poor governments can thwart the Gospel going forth. c. I sometimes wonder what systematic godliness and dignity within the Body of Christ would look like? In our nation, we have universal freedom to practice our religion with almost no discrimination from the
government. We have a window in our nation today to live out our faith unhindered. I pray for the day that in this greenhouse of America the Church s godliness would affect the lost in our nation and the nations of the world. d. There are nations on the earth where the government is oppressive and where Christians godliness and dignity are being superficially dulled by tyrants. In these nations, many times there are only a handful of committed Christians living out their faith with all godliness and dignity. e. Nonetheless, in both open and closed nations, God is calling believers to godliness and dignity. I believe that a prayer that should consume the Church is for open doors for the Gospel to be proclaimed, or in other words, for the Church s godliness and dignity to be illuminated in the proclamation of Jesus. 5. Systematic Salvation a. I believe when the Church systematically or universally is living out the dignity and godliness that is congruent to our callings as children of God, we will actually see God s desire for the lost filled. b. We know that Christ is not slow in His promise of returning, but desiring ALL to come to repentance. I love this. God wants universal salvation. Of course, we know this is why Jesus came. c. I believe that God wants to see an unprecedented harvest in our day and age. The world is hungry for hope, for truth, and for some kind of higher power in their lives. Our job as believers is to pray corporately for all people, and specifically for those in authority. Our first task is to pray! Our second
task is for us to live out dignity and godliness in taking the truth of the Gospel to those who need to hear about Christ. When we begin to pray, and go, I believe we will see entire nations transformed for the glory of God. d. We know that there is a massive need globally. We have problems within the Church. There are massive problems in the world that surrounds us. This verse says that our first response to these many problems is prayer. Prayer for who? Everybody. But even more specifically, prayer for those in authority. Individuals in authority serve broader influential structures, and these broader influential structures serve to create an atmosphere for the Gospel to go forth. The Gospel going forth serves God s heart that all would come to repentance. Praying for all people, especially for those in authority, is praying for God s kingdom to come with a high level of specificity.
Additional NOTES
Additional NOTES
2013 Every Home for Christ 640 Chapel Hills Dr. Colorado Springs, CO 80920 719-260-8888 www.ehc.org H160S0313