Praying Like Paul: The Gospel - Johnson University [PDF]

Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 726. 14 K. Stendahl,

63 downloads 19 Views 708KB Size

Recommend Stories


Praying the Gospel
Be who you needed when you were younger. Anonymous

Paul Johnson
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you. Walt Whitman

an interview with paul johnson
What we think, what we become. Buddha

Catalog | Johnson & Wales University
Ask yourself: What am I doing about the things that matter most in my life? Next

Catalog | Johnson & Wales University
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mahatma Gandhi

Johnson & Wales University - Catalog
It always seems impossible until it is done. Nelson Mandela

Catalog | Johnson & Wales University
Ask yourself: How can you change someone’s life for the better today? Next

Johnson & Wales University
Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. Unknown

Catalog | Johnson & Wales University
The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything. Anony

[PDF] The Power of a Praying Husband
If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. Lao Tzu

Idea Transcript


“Praying Like Paul: The Gospel” The Piedmont Lectures at Dallas Christian College Dr. Les Hardin Professor of New Testament Johnson University Florida Historically prayer has been taboo as a subject for serious academic study. Prayer is spiritual and mystical, not academic and technical. “Deep calls to deep,” the deep of our hearts to the deep of the Spirit, and is therefore unworthy of scrutiny. As a person who has made his life’s work about the intersection of spirituality studies and biblical studies, I’m puzzled by this. Why is it that prayer is largely absent from the work and writing of biblical scholars? Is it right to turn over the language of the great pray-ers of Scripture—men like Abraham, Jeremiah, Job, David, Jesus, Paul, and Peter—and subject their prayers to the most detailed criticism? Is it right to take something that is so personal, so intensely mine, and scrutinize it? Historically, the academic community has said, “No.” Perhaps it was because we inherited from the Enlightenment an assumption that there is no such thing as the supernatural. Modern biblical studies is absolutely plagued by this malady, and the assumption in most of the field’s literature is that there isn’t really anything spiritual going on in the text—it’s all just history (and some of it’s not even real).1 Perhaps it owed something to the influence Rudolf Bultmann, arguably the most influential biblical scholar of the last two centuries, who once remarked that “How a man prays concerns no other man, not even the historian.”2 Comments like this made the study of prayer seem like an illegitimate quest. Maybe it’s because we’ve traditionally spent our time on matters we thought were more important to the church’s theology. Consider the following two quotes, one by a New Testament scholar, one by an Old Testament scholar, both writing about the inherent bias against serious study of the discipline of prayer. Prayer, however, has not always been a matter of major concern among Christians—whether among scholars, clergy, or laity. It was virtually ignored by the framers of the church’s creeds, whose focus was on issues having to do with Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. It has often been treated in a perfunctory manner by biblical commentators and systematic theologians, who— while recognizing its presence in the materials dealt with—often seem to lack interest or enthusiasm for the topic, and so have frequently treated it in a rather superficial or routine manner. All-too-often, in fact, prayer has been considered somewhat illegitimate for scholarly study, since it is “too personal” to be an apt subject for critical or historical scrutiny, somewhat irrelevant to the church’s mission and proclamation, since it is “too otherworldly” to be helpful in addressing 1

For more on the marked disparity between academic study of the biblical text and its spiritual vitality, see Leslie T. Hardin, “Searching for a Transformative Hermeneutic,” in Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 5 (2012): 144-157, esp. 145-148. 2 Quoted in W. B. Hunter, “Prayer,” in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 727. These reasons for the lack of serious inquiry in the matter of prayer comes from Hunter’s article, 726-727.

the larger issues of social, political, or economic reform, and even somewhat unnecessary for evangelism, since it is “too quietistic” for the organization and activism necessary for outreach.3 Walter Brueggemann says it this way: It is evident in contemporary church practice, given rational assumptions and psychological sophistication, that much prayer in the church is reduced to an emotional exercise. This is evident in our propensity to “feel better” when we pray, and in the readiness to water down petitions so as not to ask in bold ways, when our modernity assumes that in fact there is no one listening anyway. 4 The study of prayer—serious, investigative, theological, historical, linguistic study—has largely been missing from the academy’s contribution to the piety of the local church. And it’s been missing from our study of Paul. We’ve opted to focus on Paul’s place in the GraecoRoman world, his presentation of the Gospel, and just what the proper interpretation is of phrases like “justification by faith” and “works of the law.” But when it comes to Paul’s prayer life, academic study is all we have. And I discovered something a few years ago when I was doing a long, serious, academic study of Paul’s prayers that I think will be helpful for us as we consider what it means to pray well. Paul: Prayers and Problems Paul was, above all things, a man of prayer and evangelism. These are the two aspects of his spirituality that stand out more than anything else. And yet, only one—Paul’s empirewide expansion of the Gospel to Gentiles—has received significant attention among Biblical scholars. Gordon Fee, one of our more clear-headed exegetes of The Apostle, sums it up well: “Indeed, most people’s understanding of Paul is limited either to Paul the missionary or to Paul the theologian. But what is clear from Paul’s letters is that he was a pray-er before he was a missioner or a thinker.”5 The deep well of Paul’s devotion to prayer has remained largely untapped. Several studies have been done regarding prayer-type language in Paul’s epistles. Notable among them is Gordon P. Wiles’ Paul’s Intercessory Prayers and David M. Stanley’s Boasting in the Lord: The Phenomenon of Prayer in Saint Paul.6 Written in the heyday of form criticism, Wiles spent his time focusing on classifying exactly what constitutes a prayer in Paul’s writings, and then showed how the prayer-type language in the epistles develops themes latent in the doctrine of the letters and binds them together as a whole. Stanley’s work focused more on how Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus contributed to a rich theology of Christ at work in his life, which 3

Richard N. Longenecker, ed., Into God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), xi-xii. 4 Brueggemann, Great Prayers of the OT (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), xviii-xix. 5 Gordon Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 147. 6 The most notable among them are Gordon P. Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers: The Significance of the Intercessory Prayer Passages in the Letters of St. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); David M. Stanley, Boasting in the Lord: The Phenomenon of Prayer in Saint Paul (New York: Paulist Press, 1973).

led to a vibrant prayer life. But these works, like so many others about Paul and prayer, tend to focus more on the prayer-type language in the epistles rather than on Paul’s practice of prayer. We glean a few details from the biographical information about Paul in the New Testament. Paul learned to pray at an early age. His father was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), and as a Jew aspiring to live the priestly life7 his father would have passed on his piety to his son. It was the responsibility of every Jewish father to train his children in Godly precepts (Deut. 6:4-10), including Scripture, obedience to the Law, and prayer. He learned to begin and end the day praying the Shema (Deut. 4:4-6), followed by recitation of the Ten Commandments and the Amidah,8 a common set of eighteen formulaic prayers and blessings.9 Paul learned these things primarily in the home and in the synagogue, where the focus was on Scripture reading and prayer. Luke shows Paul praying in a number of venues and situations throughout Acts. We get our first glimpse of it in the story of his conversion. God told Ananias to find Paul, “for he is praying” (Acts 9:11). This prayer was accompanied by fasting, and David Stanley notes that prayer may have formed the most substantial link between his old life in Judaism and his new life in Christ.10 Paul and Silas spent a night in a Philippian jail praying. Silent prayer was not common in the ancient world,11 so their prayers were audible, and the other prisoners were listening (Acts 16:25). Paul prayed with the elders of the church in Ephesus (Acts 20:36) and the disciples in Tyre (Acts 21:4-6) prior to his last visit to Jerusalem. Once he got to Jerusalem he went to the Temple specifically to pray (Acts 22:17). On the island of Malta he healed Sergius Paulus through prayer, prompting the inhabitants of the island to flock to Paul (Acts 28:8-9). And while Luke doesn’t specifically mention it, there were doubtless many nights spent in prayer during Paul’s difficult sea voyage to Rome, a trip that was fraught with danger at every change of wind direction. This is the portrait that Luke gives of Paul the pray-er, praying at nearly every turn of the page, in a wide variety of contexts. One of the problems that we immediately encounter as we peruse the letters of Paul (and I will here consider all 13 of the named Pauline letters as genuine, and against my better judgment, leave out Hebrews) is that there are no recorded prayers. If we go to Paul’s letters looking for actual prayers addressed to God, we come away extremely disappointed. Looking for prayers in Paul’s letters is like looking for an Indiana basketball fan in Lexington, or an Eagles or Redskins fan in Dallas. We don’t have any of Paul’s actual prayers. The two primary sources 7

This is how Meeks describes the intention of Pharisaism. Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians (Yale: University Press, 1983), 97. 8 m.Berakhot 4:1; see also Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, Living Theology, ed. Tony Jones (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 155. 9 For a brief introduction to the Amidah, with the complete text of the prayer, see Brad H. Young, Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 147-155; C. W. Dugmore, The Influence of the Synagogue Upon the Divine Office (Oxford: University Press, 1944), 22-25, 114-127; D. Instone-Brewer, “The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim Before 70 CE,” in Journal of Theological Studies 54 (2003): 25-27. 10 David M. Stanley, Boasting in the Lord: The Phenomenon of Prayer in Saint Paul (New York: Paulist Press, 1973), 42. 11 Pieter W. van der Horst, “Silent Prayer in Antiquity,” Numen 41 (1994): 1-25. Silent prayer in the ancient world was used primarily to keep one’s enemies from hearing the petition (presumably because you were praying against your enemy).

for the life of Paul—his epistles and Acts—frustrate us on this. Acts is concerned mostly with Paul’s evangelistic activities and God’s maneuvering of Paul to preach the Gospel in Rome. Even though we’ve seen Paul praying on several occasions (Acts 9:9-11, 13:2-3, 16:25, 20:36, 21:5, 22:17, 28:8), Luke never records the text of Paul’s prayers. The problem with Paul’s epistles is just that—they’re epistles, not biographies or prayer journals. Just as most of us don’t record our most intimate prayers to God in our e-mails (nor have I included any in this lecture), Paul’s epistles don’t provide us with many details of his prayer life. In fact, it was against the conventions of letter-writing to include a prayer addressed to God in a formal letter.12 We have plenty of prayer-type language in Paul, even reports of prayer, but no prayers themselves.13 So our quest to learn to pray like Paul seems truncated a bit by the fact that we never see him praying. But our quest is not lost, for though we have no actual prayers, “what we have in Paul is rather a style of writing that is saturated by prayerful language.”14 And saturated it is, for in the epistles of Paul the terminology and vocabulary of prayer is overwhelming, rivaling the frequency of favored Pauline terms like “grace,” “Spirit,” and “in Christ.” Paul has more to say about prayer than almost any other topic. He viewed it as part of the normative experience and spirituality of every believer and a major component of his own evangelistic power. The vocabulary of prayer in Paul’s letters is quite diverse. Paul has some 16 different words for prayer that appear 105 times in these 13 canonical letters, rivaling his closest competitor Matthew—who has 8 terms that appear 30 times. In other words, when compared to his nearest competitor, Paul has twice as many words with three times as many occurrences. The vocabulary of Paul’s prayers is rich, deep, and rather impressive. He often called his readers simply to “prayer” (proseuchv) a term quite generic and readily understood by both Jews and Gentiles.15 He also prayed with “petitions” (dehvsiV) addressed to the Father (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 1:4, 4:6; 1 Thess. 3:10; 2 Tim. 1:3) and “requests” (ejnteuvxiV) like those addressed to a king16 (Rom. 8:27; 1 Tim. 2:1, 4:5). Paul even finds the freedom to “plead” with, “exhort” (parakalevw; 2 Cor. 12:8),17 and even “challenge” (aijtevw) the Father (Phil. 4:6; Col. 1:9). 18 Scholars from all stripes have long noted that even his wishes seem like prayers,19 so that a 12

Hunter, “Prayer,” 726; Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers, 6-7. A frustration noted by several major scholars in this area. Krister Stendahl, “Paul at Prayer,” Interpretation 34 (1980): 240, counsels that we do not have any formal prayers in Paul’s epistles, only prayer-type language. See Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers, 6-24; W. B. Hunter, “Prayer,” in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 726. 14 K. Stendahl, Meanings: the Bible as Document and Guide (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 151. 15 Hunter, “Prayer,” 730. 16 O. Bauernfeind, “tugchanō, ktl.,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 8:244. 17 This is frequently the term used to denote exhortation in the New Testament (parakaleō). 18 G. Stählin, “aiteō, ktl.,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:191-193. Stählin notes that this term has an overarching connotation of “demanding for one’s self,” and that Jesus never used this in his own prayers. Though the vocabulary is different (erōtaō), William David Spencer and Aida Besancon Spencer, The Prayer Life of Jesus: Shout of Agony, Revelation of Love, a Commentary (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 115-117, suggest that Jesus used it in the sense of “challenge.” 19 These “wish-prayers” are not Paul’s way of manipulating the future, but simple assertion, based on his knowledge of God and his promises, of what God already intends to do among his people. They serve both as 13

wish-type statement to the Corinthians that God “will keep you strong to the end” (1 Cor. 1:7-9) comes across as “I pray that God will keep you strong.” Paul will not let prayer degenerate into simple asking, though, as if God were a spiritual vending machine. The language of “thanksgiving” (eujcaristiva) is the most frequent of all the prayer vocabulary in Paul’s epistles. He thanks God often for his converts (1 Cor. 1:4; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2-3; Eph. 1:16; Phil. 1:3; 2 Tim. 1:3) and for the grace of God in Christ (2 Cor. 9:15; cf. 1 Cor. 15:57), and challenges his readers to do the same (Eph. 5:4; Col. 1:12, 2:7, 3:15, 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:18). If the vocabulary is any indication, Paul prays a lot, and he uses all the words he can get his hands on. So the language Paul used for prayer was rich and varied, diverse and yet highly nuanced, and it revealed that Paul’s relationship with the Father was, like that of Jesus, very intimate. He could both praise the Father in blessing and present his honest, heartfelt requests to his King as a trusted friend. I suspect that, given what Paul teaches about prayer and his profound allegiance to the Lord Jesus, that his prayers were intense but respectful. The “confidence” (pepoivqhsiV) Paul found to preach Christ (sixteen times this word is used in the NT to describe Paul’s preaching) also led to a confidence or “boldness” (parrhsiva) before the Father (Eph. 3:12), to a freedom in prayer that was honest and intimate, yet respectful. So while there aren’t any actual prayers in his epistles, Paul talks about prayer in such a way, and with such frequency, that we are able to trace the outline of his prayer life. While we may only be able to trace the shadows, those shadows silhouetted against a clear backdrop reveal the form and shape of what was taking place outside the letters. Interlude That was a rather lengthy introduction. And now that we’ve set the stage for Paul’s praying—how frequent it was, how diverse the vocabulary, and the prominence prayer had in Paul’s life—I want to now come back around to what I really want to talk about, and that’s the theme of Paul’s prayers. The major focus of Paul’s prayers—from what Luke tells of his praying in Acts, to the reports he gives about prayer, to the doxologies he writes and the requests he makes—is without question the advancement of the Gospel. Praying the Gospel In one of the most influential essays ever written on this subject, Krister Stendahl pointed out that Paul’s prayers were intricately bound up with his mission. Paul was a pray-er and an evangelist, and like the pedals on a really good road bike, these two aspects of Paul’s spirituality—prayer and proclamation—worked in tandem to propel him down the road to share the Gospel with the Roman world. Paul couldn’t live the life of an Apostle without preaching, for proclamation was one of the chief functions of those designated “apostles” by Jesus (cf. Mark 3:14; Acts 6:2-4). And like Jesus who got up early to inquire about the next phases of his preaching ministry (Mark 1:35-39), so Paul made it a habit of his own spirituality to work in partnership with the Spirit about the next phases of his own preaching. So it’s this

confident reminders to his readers and prayers to God that he will indeed fulfill those promises. See also similar statements in 2 Cor. 9:11, 13:11, 16:22; Rom. 16:20; Phil. 4:19. For a fuller discussion of the wish-type prayers in Paul’s epistles, see Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers, 22-107.

aspect of Paul’s prayers—praying about, for, and toward the Gospel—that I want to explore for the next few moments. A. Praying for Others Paul prayed fervently for his converts and the congregations under his care. In several places he mentions that he and his companions “remember you in our prayers,” with no mention of specific content (Eph. 1:16; cf. Rom. 1:10; Eph. 3:14; Phil. 1:4; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2; 2 Thess. 1:12). In a very real way Paul felt the connection between himself and these converts through the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 5:4; Col. 2:5), so that even when he was physically absent from them the connection was not severed (1 Cor. 5:4; Col. 2:5). When Paul prays for others, his prayers are focused squarely on the gospel, not on material goods, blessings, or even good health. What he asked God for most was their continued growth in the gospel. I want to simply read through a sampling of texts that show Paul’s concern in prayer for their growth in the gospel. (I’m tempted to name these like an enumerated blog: “12 Ways Paul Prays about the Gospel … And You’ll Never Guess What Happens Next!”) Notice the ways that Paul’s prayers focus on the Gospel. 

1 Thess. 3:10: Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.



2 Thess. 1:11-12: we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this 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.



Colossians 1:10-13: since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.



Eph. 3:16-17: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.



2 Cor. 13:9: our prayer is that you may be fully matured.20 This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.



Philemon 6: I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ.

The Gospel growth Paul hoped for in his disciples was tied to knowledge, wisdom, and their insight into the vast nature of God’s grace. 

Ephesians 1:17-19: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.



Col. 1:9: we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.

For the Philippians, Paul prayed that they would “grow in knowledge and depth of insight.” But what he asked for was no esoteric head-knowledge. For Paul, it involved the ability to flesh out God’s will in holy living once it was understood properly: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:9-10). In return, Paul expected his disciples to devote themselves to praying for one another. They were to “keep on praying for the saints” (Eph. 6:18), knowing that others were praying for them (2 Cor. 9:14). Whether it was for knowledge, insight, or intercession for Paul or one another, he expected them to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17) and to “devote themselves to prayer” (Col. 4:2; cf. Rom. 12:12). So when Paul prayed for others, his focus was less on well-being and material prosperity and more focused on the advancement of the Gospel in their lives, through knowledge of the Lord Jesus, insight about how to live out the Gospel in a hostile world, and having opportunities to share Christ with those who don’t know him. B. Praying for Himself This Gospel focus doesn’t just show up when he prays for others, though. Even when Paul prays for himself, his prayers focus on the Gospel rather than personal wants or needs. Most of Paul’s personal desires in prayer were related to his travel itinerary and his most 20

The word Paul uses here has more a sense of maturation than perfection. See See W. Bauer, W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker, “katartisis,” Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2000), 526.

fervent petition in prayer was connected to his evangelistic ministry of preaching the Gospel. 21 The Spirit was orchestrating Paul’s travels, sometimes allowing him to stay where he was (Acts 18:9-10), and at other times preparing open doors into untapped locations (1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12). After Paul articulated his desire to preach the Gospel in Rome (indeed, he prayed for it; Rom. 1:10-13; 15:23-32), the Spirit of God made the way possible, though not in ways that Paul had envisioned (i.e., as a prisoner). While Paul was afraid for his life in Jerusalem, the Spirit reassured him that he would preach in Rome (Acts 23:11), and appeared to him during a fierce storm on the way to reassure him of his safety (Acts 27:23). These intense experiences, sometimes visionary, seem always to have been bathed in prayer for the appropriate direction for his travels. Prayer (with fasting) was the occasion for the Spirit to set aside Paul and Barnabas for evangelistic mission in the first place (Acts 13:2-3) and it seems that Paul leaned on the Spirit, in prayer, to direct him in his journeys to preach the Gospel. Paul didn’t always get his way, though. Sometimes the Spirit prevented Paul from doing ministry in particular locations. At one point Paul wanted to do mission work in Bithynia, but was instead directed by the Spirit toward Macedonia (Acts 16:6-10). Twice he told the Romans that he had been prevented from coming to them (Rom. 1:13, 15:22). In neither of these contexts are his enemies in view, but only Christ Jesus, suggesting that it was the Spirit of Christ who was preventing him from going one place, directing him toward another. Even when he prays for deliverance and safety, a prayer that looks selfish on the surface, we find that the ultimate goal is for the advancement and proclamation of the Gospel. 

2 Thess. 3:1: brothers and sisters, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you.



Colossians 4:3-4: And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.



Eph. 6:19-20: Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

He fully expected that the prayers of the saints would be answered on his behalf: 

Phil. 1:20: I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Once again we find Paul praying the Gospel, and this time it’s not just for others. What he prays for himself is not tied to material goods, his well-being, or even his own happiness. Paul is concerned that he represent Jesus well and to advance the Kingdom, and he’s asking for help 21

244.

Stendahl’s discussion of this aspect of Paul’s prayer life is most fascinating. See his “Paul at Prayer,” 242-

to do that. Here his two overarching passions—prayer and evangelism—converge for a common purpose: the advancement of the Gospel. C. Prayer and Vision It’s long been noted that Paul was a visionary, a mystic, a man of ecstatic spiritual experiences, and I would not be a good student of the New Testament if I simply swept those experiences under the rug and ignored them. There was an attempt a few generations ago to understand Paul purely on mystical terms,22 and the church continues to remain polarized about whether or not Paul’s ecstatic experiences (primarily visions, dreams, and speaking in tongues) were unique to Paul as Apostle to the Gentiles or normative for all of us in the 21 st century.23 But once again, even Paul’s ecstatic prayer experiences are intertwined with the advancement of the Gospel. Paul’s first vision of the risen Jesus (whether a conversion story or a “prophetic call” story24) ends with a pronouncement about Paul’s role in the advancement of the Gospel. Paul is told by Jesus that he appeared to him “to appoint you as servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:16-18). Jesus then told Paul to go to Damascus, where he would be told “all that you have been assigned to do” (Acts 22:10). When he arrived, Jesus then confirmed Paul’s calling through Ananias: “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before all the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). So Paul’s first visionary experience of the risen Jesus was bound up with his call to preach the Gospel. Every subsequent ecstatic experience Paul has in the book of Acts runs on this theme. The audible voice of the Holy Spirit in the worship of the Antioch church said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). In a very strange sequence, Luke says that the Spirit of Jesus would not allow Paul to go to Bithynia, as he wanted, but instead appeared to him in a dream to convince him to go instead to Macedonia, knowing that God had called him to preach the gospel there (Acts 16:6-10). After some serious opposition in Corinth, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision saying, “Keep on speaking, and do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). In his speech to the Ephesian elders, Paul notes that the Holy Spirit warns him at every turn that hardship is around the corner. Even these spiritual utterances make Paul all the more bold to complete his task—“the task of testifying to the Gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:23-24). In the final movement of the book of Acts, Jesus stands near Paul and says, “As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify about me in Rome” (Acts 23:11). These are Jesus’ final words in the Book of Acts, and Paul’s 22

In the works of A. Schweitzer, A. Deissmann, and J. Schneider. See the comments made by P. T. O’Brien, “Mysticism,” in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 623-624. 23 See Bonnie Bowman Thurston, “‘Caught Up to the Third Heavens’ and ‘Helped by the Spirit’: Paul and the Mystery of Prayer,” in Stone-Campbell Journal 11 (2008), 223-233. 24 So Bonnie Bowman Thurston, “Paul on the Damascus Road,” in Lexington Theological Quarterly 38 (2003): 227-240.

subsequent vision of an angel confirmed for both him and the men sailing with him that he would, in fact, preach the gospel before Caesar, and not die on the open sea (Acts 27:23-25). Of course, simply by mentioning visions and ecstatic spiritual experiences I’ve pulled the pin on two theological hand grenades: speaking in tongues and Paul’s being “caught up into the third heavens.” I need to say something about these, and yet I’m cautious about the impending destruction. So let me (in this explosive metaphor) dispense of them quickly so that nobody gets hurt. All of you want me to give a definitive answer on this matter, either to settle some kind of curiosity, to pigeon-hole me on one side of the debate or the other, or to evoke me as an authority against one of your professors in defense of your own position. This debate hasn’t been very clean, and I’ve long said that if a man jumps into a pig-pen with a bar of soap, pigs won’t get clean; he’ll get dirty. It is not my purpose to settle this hog trough here, so I will be very brief. Paul believed speaking in tongues was a legitimate form of prayer, and he spoke in tongues more than anyone in the tongues-crazed Corinthian church (1 Cor. 14:18). But he flatly denied its use as a self-promoting, spirituality-authenticating form of prayer. For Paul, speaking in tongues didn’t make you more spiritual (which countered the major perspective in Corinth). For Paul, the most important thing in the Corinthians’ gathering was the proclamation of the Gospel: “So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God” (1 Cor. 14:23-25). For Paul, speaking in tongues wasn’t about proving you had some super-spiritual gift. It was about preaching the Gospel, particularly to those who didn’t speak the native language. I think it was Karl Barth who once quipped that Paul’s comment about knowing a man who was “caught up into the third heavens” had made an interpreter out of everyone who ever read the New Testament, and there is no shortage of theories on exactly what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. Paul doesn’t say. The force of his rhetoric is to remind the Corinthians that bragging and boasting about spiritual visions is not the way of the Spirit. The Judaism of Paul’s day knew of three rabbis who were purportedly caught up into heaven, and none of their stories ended well. Two of them died, one apostatized, and nowhere in the Jewish literature are their testimonies recorded.25 It seems (and this is Paul’s argument) that those who are actually caught up into the presence of God are explicitly commanded to keep their mouths SHUT! So we’re never gonna know exactly what Paul’s vision entailed. What we can note here, though, is that even this vision is in some ways about the gospel of the grace of God: “my grace is sufficient” (2 Cor. 12:9). Paul’s prayers—from those he prays for his converts, to his personal requests, to his doxologies (which we haven’t had time to cover), to his visionary apostolic experiences—always center around the Gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus. In every circumstance, for every purpose, in every way, Paul prays the Gospel. 25

b.Hagigah 14b tells of three rabbis who were, in Paul’s words, “caught up into the third heavens.” Ben ‘Azzai looked at God and died. Ben Zoma caught a glimpse of God and became demented. Aher became apostate after his vision. Only Rabbi Akiva is also said to have entered heaven, but his experience post-dates Paul, and all that is said of him is that “R. Akiva departed unhurt.” See G. F. Moore, Judaism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 1:413.

Praying with Paul The academic study of Paul’s prayers doesn’t have to remain a dry and dusty endeavor, a quest imbued with ivory-tower egg-headedness, recorded in lectures, journals, and monographs that very few people care to read. We’ve done the linguistic and critical study of Paul’s prayers, and we’ve learned something that helps us know how to better and more effectively pray. I want to spend the last few moments of our time here thinking about what all of this means for us. Now that we can see clearly what Paul prayed about the most, it’s easy to hold his example up as a template against which we can judge the character of our own praying. And I’m afraid the results aren’t all that encouraging. In the tradition of Origen—who wrote one of the best and simplest books on prayer the church has ever seen—I will center my thoughts loosely around two key questions: “Whom do I ask?” ands “What do I ask for?”26 A. Who Do We Ask? First, Paul helps us answer the practical, yet theological question, “To whom do I pray?” For Old Testament Jews the answer was pretty simple: Yahweh, the one true God. But with the advent of Jesus Christ, God’s son, whom the Scriptures tell us is himself God and the very nature of God (John 1:1, 18; Col. 1:15; Phil. 2:6), we sometimes wonder exactly which personage in the Trinity we should address our prayers to. Paul addressed prayers to the Father, as Jesus did, but also taught that both the Son and the Spirit intercede on our behalf (Rom. 8:26, 34). In the book of Acts both the Father (Acts 4:24, 8:24, 10:2, 16:25) and Jesus (Acts 7:59) are addressed in prayer. Paul is comfortable, in imitation of his Lord, addressing God as “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). There are several occasions in the Old Testament when God is compared to a father, reckoned as a parent to Israel. He is described as a father, compared to a father, even given the attributes of a father (Deut. 32:6; 2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10; 28:6; Ps. 68:5; 89:26; Isa. 63:16; Jer. 3:4, 19; Mal. 1:6; 2:10). But there’s not a single time in the Old Testament when God is directly addressed this way, and this familiarity with which Paul and Jesus addressed God was quite out of the ordinary for the average first-century Jew. We have all inherited the belief that this word means, “Daddy.” 27 But serious research has born out that while this term denotes an air of intimacy and familiarity, it still connotes a great deal of respect, and was NOT the normal address of small children for their male biological progenitors. 28 Yet, this understanding pervades, and I’m afraid it’s too late. The horse is out of

26

Origen, On Prayer 1.1-2. Quoted in Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works, trans. Rowan A. Greer, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 81-84. Origen’s book was focused on the “what and how we ought to pray, and what we should say to God in prayer, and what times are more appropriate than others, for prayer.” 27 Owing quite naturally to J. Jeremias, who thought this term derived from the language of small children. His work legitimized an understanding of the term as something akin to “Daddy.” See his The Prayers of Jesus, 5765; New Testament Theology, 62-68). 28 Contrary to popular opinion, “Abba” is not the equivalent of “daddy.” It is the respectful term Jesus used to address God (Mk. 14:36), and while it was familiar, it was intensely respectful. The seminal article is James Barr, “Abba Isn’t ‘Daddy’,” in Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988): 28-47. See also corroborating comments by J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 22-24. Stendahl, “Paul at Prayer,” 245, n. 13

the barn, Pandora’s box has been opened, and as you know, once you cook the Jell-O, it’s nearly impossible to put it back in that little box it came in! Paul felt the familiarity to address God as “Abba, Father.” But he also understood that God was in control, that this was God’s Kingdom, and that like Jesus, he must be subservient to the Great King. One thing that stands out: the Spirit is never addressed in prayer. While I agree with Felicity Houghton that the lines of distinction often bleed over in prayer,29 I am still more comfortable, because of the biblical evidence, imitating both Jesus and Paul in directing my prayers toward the Father. It provides continuity with the Scriptures (both Old and New Testaments), the example set for us by Jesus, and the experience of the apostles. B. What Do We Pray For? Paul’s example also helps us know what to pray for. Decades’ worth of statistical analysis by well-respected research groups is confirming two things about American church-goers and our prayers. The first is that we pray a lot! Four out of five of us pray every day, and most of us more than once. But here’s the second thing, and the aspect of these studies that deserves some attention. What we pray for is generally selfish. We pray for our jobs, our family, our careers, our success, and our personal health. Even when we pray for others it tends to come out selfishly: the majority of us pray for the health and success of a close family member, rather than people who have no connection to us. Now some of this is to be expected. How can I pray fervently for people I don’t know? But it does help corroborate what we know about ourselves intuitively and from Scripture—I know it to be true in my life, and you know it to be true in yours—we tend to treat God like a personal vending machine. Put in our religious duties, push the right faith buttons, and expect to receive whatever we ask for. Some of the things we pray for are right in line with Paul’s example. We often pray for someone to come to Christ and place their faith in the living, risen Jesus. Paul prayed that the eyes of the Ephesians’ hearts might be opened to know the inglorious riches of Christ (Eph. 1:18-19). We pray for the sick to get well, and this is not out of line with Paul’s experience with Epaphroditus, who fell ill and almost died for the cause of the Gospel (Phil. 2:25-30). Even as I was writing this particular section of the lecture I got an e-mail informing me that my former Greek teacher, his wife, and his daughter had been involved in a serious car accident. I stopped what I was doing and prayed for all of them—for healing, for wellness, and for his continued work in contending at the Father’s side for the sake of the Gospel. But many of the things we pray about are simply shamed by Paul’s example.

cautions that “the romantic interpretation of Abba as an endearing term for God, with the informal and familial connotation of ‘Dad’ rather than ‘Father,’ is presumably without firm foundation.” 29 Felicity B. Houghton, “Personal Experience of Prayer I” in Teach Us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990): 300-301: “But who does the talking? Paradoxically, I have learnt from the Word and in my own experience that it is I who do it, and yet it is not I. It is Another. We pray, and yet when we do so truly, it is ‘in the Holy Spirit’ (Jude 20). . . . Prayer is therefore a mysterious co-operation between us and the Holy Spirit.” (pp. 300-301).



While a serious, life-threatening illness garnered his intercession for Epaphroditus, he wouldn’t pray for every splinter and hangnail his associates incurred. He told Timothy, “Take a little wine for your stomach” (1 Tim. 5:23).



I sat in a prayer circle once and listened to an upper-middle-class lady ask for God’s help in finding her and her children a new home in the area—one that had at least three trees in the back yard and an open field that backed up to the house. Paul’s prayers, by contrast, were for basic necessities to continue preaching: “If we have food and coverings, we will be content” (1 Tim. 6:8).



Many Americans pray for the President—as long as it’s the guy they voted for who’s in office—while simultaneously reserving the right to vilify the guy on the other side. Paul urged that prayers be offered for kings and all those in authority, and when he said that, the guy in office [Nero] was the worst persecutor the church had ever seen (1 Tim. 2:12).



We frequently pray for someone to repent and see the error of his ways, and rightly so. But Paul knew there was a time to hand willful sinners like Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan (1 Tim. 1:19-20), a process that was always accompanied by prayer (1 Cor. 5:3-6).



We pray for a better job. Paul prayed for opportunities and ability to preach the Gospel.

In short, Paul’s prayers grow out of a serious concern for the Kingdom of God, just as they did for Jesus. In imitation of his Lord, Paul abandoned his own life and prayed, like Jesus did, for Kingdom things rather than his own creaturely comforts. This kind of prayer isn’t easy. If I learn anything from Paul’s experiences, it’s that this kind of prayer is very difficult. Paul struggled in prayer and made no bones with the Roman church that their partnership with him in prayer would be a struggle (Rom. 15:30-32). In one of his most vivid metaphors he compares prayer to Greco-Roman-style wrestling as he and the Father contend with one another for the proper course of his ministry (Col. 4:12).30 It’s difficult to pray this way. It’s difficult to put your own hopes, dreams, and desires on hold in lieu of what the Father wants—particularly if what the Father wants is in contradiction to your hopes and dreams. And in a nation and culture that is constantly inundated with the message that we can make our dreams come true, that we can have whatever we want, and that it’s noble to overcome every obstacle … well, abandoning your happiness to struggle in prayer over the Gospel simply doesn’t fit the American religious paradigm. Can you imagine how the church might be different if we began praying the Gospel? Can you imagine what kind of impact we might have on this world and this community if we began weeding out of our prayers all the selfish, “I” language and began asking God what He wants for this place and begging him for the strength to accomplish it? 30

E. Stauffer, “agōn, ktl.,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:134-140.

But what does it look like? That’s the real question. What does this kind of prayer look like? Well, instead of praying for that specific job that I want just because it will advance my career and get me a larger paycheck and a bigger house, perhaps I need to ask God to provide me a job that allows me to have more time for reflection, study, and prayer. Instead of praying, “God help so and so to get better” (which is completely okay to pray!), we couple that prayer with, “but no matter what, help that person to trust you so completely that the nurses and doctors are amazed at her faith and begin to inquire how she can be so peaceful.” (See? That’s Kingdom advancement!) Perhaps instead of praying that God would “grow our church” by the numbers, we pray that our members are faithful to God and stand firm for what is written in Scripture, no matter how much it puts us at odds with our culture. (And I promise you, if you do that, your faith will be contagious … and the church will grow!) And instead of praying that our children play well during a game, perhaps we begin praying that they would handle themselves at all times, win or lose, in a manner that Christ Jesus would be proud of. I have never prayed for my children to be successful. My prayers for them are ALWAYS that they would love Jesus till their dying day, that they would surround themselves with people who will build them up in that goal, and that they would be faithful students of Scripture. Paul’s example doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pray for others, that we shouldn’t pray for their healing, or for their well-being, or for peace. I’m not saying that. We should pray for those things. But I am saying that so many of our prayers tend to be skewed in the direction of peace, prosperity, health, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for their own sake, and not for the sake of the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We would all do well to imitate Paul a little more in our prayers by praying the Gospel, and for Gospel-related things rather than personal-benefit creature comforts. For it’s not just the example of Paul that we’ll be imitating, but that of the Lord Jesus: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done On Earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

Smile Life

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile

Get in touch

© Copyright 2015 - 2024 PDFFOX.COM - All rights reserved.