While reading through the Pauline epistles again, it has been intriguing to see how often he speaks about prayer, and how he is praying for other believers. If a Christian ever wonders how he can be an effective and powerful Christian like Paul was, they need to emulate him in this.
We might think, if only I was as bold as Paul was, or if only I could preach like Paul did, or if only I could persevere like Paul did. Yes those are all great qualities that Paul had, but he likely would be the first one to say that it was his prayer life that really made him who and what he was.
Sure, he of course would also say that having the Spirit within and the like was vitally important, but I want to concentrate on his words on prayer here. The more you read his letters, the more you see how very important prayer was for him. This includes not just saying many prayers for others, but also asking for much prayer for himself.
Paul praying for others
As to praying for other believers, here are some of the key Pauline passages (out of many):
Romans 1:9-11 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—
Ephesians 1:15-17 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
Philippians 1:3-5 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
Colossians 1:8-10 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
1 Thessalonians 1:1-3 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Timothy 1:2-4 To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.
Philemon 3-5 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints,
Paul was always praying for other believers, and we should do the same.
Paul asking others to pray for him
And there are other times when he strongly covets the prayers of God’s people, such as in these verses:
Romans 15:29-31 I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints,
Philippians 1:18-20 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
Colossians 4:2-4 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.
1 Thessalonians 5:25Brothers, pray for us.
2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
If Paul needed to keep asking for prayer, how much more all of us?
A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayersby Carson, D. A. (Author)
Carson on prayer
Some years ago the North American New Testament scholar D. A. Carson released a helpful volume on Paul and prayer titled A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Baker, 1992). It was later reissued in a second edition, Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Baker, 2015).
It originated out of seven sermons he preached in Australia back in 1990. He begins his Introduction with this question: “What is the most urgent need in the church of the Western world today?” He looks at various possibilities, and then says this:
Clearly all of these things are important. I would not want anything I have said to be taken as disparagement of evangelism and worship, a diminishing of the importance of purity and integrity, a carelessness about disciplined Bible study. But there is a sense in which these urgent needs are merely symptomatic of a far more serious lack. The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better.
When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted. So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs—and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfillment. God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfills our aspirations. We think rather little of what He is like, what He expects of us, what He seeks in us. We are not captured by His holiness and His love; His thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities.
In the biblical view of things, a deeper knowledge of God brings with it massive improvement in the other areas mentioned: purity, integrity, evangelistic effectiveness, better study of Scripture, improved private and corporate worship, and much more. But if we seek these things without passionately desiring a deeper knowledge of God, we are selfishly running after God’s blessings without running after him. We are even worse than the man who wants his wife’s services—someone to come home to, someone to cook and clean, someone to sleep with—without ever making the effort really to know and love his wife and discover what she wants and needs; we are worse than such a man, I say, because God is more than any wife, more than the best of wives: he is perfect in his love, he has made us for himself, and we are answerable to him.
Even so, this is not a book that directly meets the challenge to know God better. Rather, it addresses one small but vital part of that challenge. One of the foundational steps in knowing God, and one of the basic demonstrations that we do know God, is prayer—spiritual, persistent, biblically minded prayer. Writing a century and a half ago, Robert Murray M’Cheyne declared, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.” But we have ignored this truism. We have learned to organize, build institutions, publish books, insert ourselves into the media, develop evangelistic strategies, and administer discipleship programs, but we have forgotten how to pray.
His book is well worth getting and studying closely.
Closing application
While I do not usually put much reliance on dreams, it is interesting what transpired. I began this piece yesterday. And over night I had a dream about prayer. It seems I was with various Christian leaders. They were praying for one leader in particular, someone whose theology and emphasis I was not all that keen on.
Yet he especially wanted me to pray for him. So I did that, praying something about how God would not necessarily grow his ministry or enhance his popularity, but that he would help him to further honour Christ and glorify God. That is about all I recall from the dream.
But I guess it reinforces the truth that all real believers will both pray for other believers as well as very much want the prayers of other Christians. That is certainly the lesson we get from reading the epistles of Paul. So let’s commit to doing this.
As we read in Samuel’s farewell address found in 1 Samuel 12:23, “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way.”
