Paul asked people to pray for him.
Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak (Colossians 4:2-4).
Why?
Two reasons:
- Paul believed that prayer works.
- Paul believed that more prayer works.
What can we learn?
- We should pray.
- We should pray for others.
- We should ask others to pray for us.
Why?
- Because prayer works.
- Because more prayer works.
3 comments:
"More prayer works" is an assumption about the reason Paul wanted more prayer.
If prayer is designed to align our will with God's and to make us aware of our dependence on him, then "more prayer" is just a way of spreading the blessing, not upping the pressure for a good outcome.
Am I way off?
Thanks Jason.
I don't think prayer is simply to align our will with God's. I do think it does that, but the Bible speaks of prayer of actually bringing about things that would not happen otherwise.
As for the assumption, why else would Paul ask them to pray if he did not believe that their prayers for him would open doors and help him speak with clarity? That prayer was not going to align the Colossians will with God. It was going to bring about something in Paul's life.
And I am sure that Paul was praying for himself, but he believed that more people praying would be beneficial to his work of the ministry.
Fair enough, but I feel that at some point prayer (in your paradigm) easily becomes us trying to convince God to be good...
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