Praying . . . Even for Our Leaders

^“1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— ² for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all 

godliness and holiness. ³ This is good, and pleases God our Savior…” -1 Timothy 2:1-3

Today, the United States will experience another “smooth transition of power” from one president to another. More often than not, it is from one party to another as is true this year. I have very good friends who think the new president will save western culture from destruction. I have other very good friends who believe he will push western culture over the cliff into the abyss of anarchy.  I’m not smart enough to know which of my friends will prove to be correct!

I am grateful, by the way, that I have friends on both sides of the question. That might mean I can influence both! None of those friends, by the way, knows who I voted for in November!

I am smart enough to know that through Paul, God asked me to use “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving” for “kings and all those in authority.” At some level I wonder if Paul might be saying, “When you have kings who see life differently than you (as was the case with Nero, the Emperor when Peter wrote these words) your best option is to pray for them!” After all, God has a bit of a track record in using “non-believing” rulers to advance His will. Remember Cyrus? I’m pretty sure he wasn’t “Sammy Sunday School” and yet because of him, our forefathers returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile. 

Shortly after the beginning of the 2017, I saw a post on Facebook that caught my attention. It was written by a fine young man who serves in ministry. Here’s some of what he said: “I must confess that I did not pray for you while you were in office. . . I must also confess that I greatly appreciate the loving and healthy marriage that you and your wife displayed for our nation.”

Those words were directed, via Facebook, to President Obama. The writer acknowledges that Mr. Obama will never see them, but “I just felt I needed to say it anyway.” He closes his post by noting that this didn’t mean he agreed with Mr. Obama’s policies – just that the Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders and he didn’t.

I private messaged this young man to commend him for what he wrote. 

More than a few people posted “thank you” sorts of statements, and also owned up to the fact that because they so seriously disagreed with President Obama’s politics, they also did not pray for him. They often committed to doing better.

One person, however, said this: “are we to pray for Satan in the flesh?” Nero was the Roman emperor when Paul wrote those words at the top of the page to Timothy. I’m pretty confident President Obama would have some serious catching up to do when it comes to comparing him to Nero. And the same would be true of Mr. Trump.

Here’s the deal. It doesn’t matter whether I voted for President Trump or not. God’s Word calls on me to pray for him. I should pray for him that his policies and actions would make it possible for us to live “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” That’s the same way I prayed for President Obama, and other presidents before him. Prayer has no D or R after it!

To pray for “kings and all those in authority” is a good thing, so good that it “pleases God our Savior.”

I hope we all can commit ourselves to be more diligent when it comes to praying for “kings and those in authority.” As the Facebook author above noted – that doesn’t mean we condone their policies but that we are committed to obeying what God has asked us to do.

Perspective

If social media posts are reflective of where our culture is at the moment, few texts in all of Scripture would be better than the words of 1 Peter 3:13-22 to encourage us. Social media – and many main stream media talking heads – suggest that 2016 was about the worst year in the history of mankind and, depending on how you voted in November, 2017 will either be the ultimate cure-all year or a downhill slide into the abyss of what started in 2016.

The hyperbole with which so many describe our current culture may be guilty of overlooking some rather important historical moments. Was 2016 really more difficult than 1861-65 – the years of the Civil War? Or 1941-45 – the years of World War II? And that is just looking at two moments in our own history. What about the persecution early Christians faced just for following Jesus? Or Christians in many parts of the Middle East today whose lives are put at risk simply by being Christian.

The text I mentioned from 1 Peter 3 suggests that “even if you should suffer,” that doesn’t mean you aren’t “blessed.” And beyond that Peter urges his readers – who most likely had far more difficult lives than I do, “do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled.” For Peter, the presence of “troubled times” is a reason “to sanctify Christ in our hearts.”

For much of my life, I heard all sorts of apologetics people quote verse 15 in a way that defended their tendencies to believe that presenting a dozen or so reasons some part of the Bible was true was what Peter encouraged his readers to do. Whether or not that approach is healthy or not is not for me to say, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t what Peter was talking about.

When, in the midst of “intimidation and trouble” if I am living a “sanctifying Christ in my heart” kind of life, it likely will cause people to ask questions. Apparently I am supposed to be cowered by the “intimidation and trouble” that those who don’t know Christ might bring my way. When I don’t respond that way – “I sanctify Christ in my life” - that will generate confusion, perhaps even questions.

The “ingredient” in life that will be so counter-intuitive to the fact that I should be cowered by evil is one word: hope. Hope is such a vital word in our experience of faith. The challenge with the word is that in our daily languages we use that word so casually. Go and buy a lottery ticket, the clerk might say, “Hope you win.” Of course your chances of winning are pretty slim. Back in December, after the final exam in a class I taught at Point University, I had an email from a student who did very little work all semester, failed the course project and final exam, and clearly was going to fail. His email contained this phrase, “I hope I am going to pass your class.”

If that’s what Peter means by “hope” then we are, quite frankly, hopeless and all the doom and gloom of social media posts would be appropriate. But that isn’t hope, as Scripture describes it. Hope is “confident assurance” that God keeps His promises. That is so certain, that the Holy Spirit Himself was given to us as “guarantee.” (Ephesians 1:13,14) Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the Temple (1 Kings 8:22ff) is deeply rooted in the idea that God keeps His Word!

As Paul nears the end of his life, he is still talking about “faith, hope, and love.” In 2 Timothy 1:12 he defines hope like this: “for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” 

If Paul could say that in view of the circumstances of his own life at the moment – then I’m pretty certain that I ought to be saying the same!

So, at the beginning of a New Year – 2017 – that will have all sorts of challenges and moments of uncertainty, maybe Peter’s advice to early believers should be our resolutions. Let’s live in a way that causes non-believers to ask us “how do you do that?” Then, with gentleness and reverence, we can tell them about our hope in Christ.

Rescued and Transferred!

Earlier this week I was privileged to give a devotion at the Point University trustees meeting. Several people asked me for a copy so here it is.

Back in late September, my family and I went to the Greek Festival held annually at the Cathedral of the Annunciation up on the northside of Atlanta. It is one of those events that once you go, you know you will go back.

A part of the appeal of the festival is that you can get a guided tour of the cathedral itself, which has some of the most profoundly beautiful mosaic art I’ve ever seen. That art reminds you that there is design and purpose in creation and when art connects with that design and purpose, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

But there’s more to the Greek festival than that – though in some ways that would be enough. You get to see a picture of the culture of another country – especially in the form of music and dance – that gives you opportunity to reflect on the much needed reminder in our day and time that “God is no respecter of persons”  (Acts 15:6-21). 

Of course if you go to the Greek festival, you get to eat Greek food – Mediterranean food! I actually saved my receipts from our trip to the festival this year because every time I go for my annual physical, my doctor says I need to lose a few pounds and get my blood pressure a little lower. Of course she then goes into a diatribe and what foods I should and should not eat. She always says “Eat more Mediterranean!” I don’t know if she doesn’t realize feta and goat cheeses are often served with Greek food, red meat makes for delicious gyros, and Greek desserts – think about baklava – are to die for.  But I felt like I was on a medical mission since my annual physical was the Friday before we went on Sunday afternoon.

Like nearly all festivals, there are vendors who sell “stuff” that is somehow connected to the nature of the festival. This one is no different. It was pretty hot that Sunday afternoon and most of the vendors were in this massive building on the cathedral grounds that was air conditioned. I gave in to my wife and daughters and went to walk around the shopping areas.

For a while now, I have been collecting crosses – and you can step down to my office and see some of that collection hanging on the walls of my office. Walking around the area where the vendors were set up, I saw an interesting cross – made of olive wood and etched on it were the Greek words for the Lord’s Prayer. Of course the vendor instantly told me it was from olive wood that had grown in Palestine – which instantly doubled the cost of the cross! And I had never seen a cross like it – the Greek text of the Lord’s Prayer.

So, forty dollars later, I was walking around the Greek festival with that cross in a bag. That Monday morning, I brought it to my office and was trying to find a place to hang it. Every morning now, when I come into my office and walk to my desk chair – I am confronted with that cross and the Greek text of the Lord’s Prayer. I typically stop and read that prayer several times a day. The fact that N.T. Wright says – correctly I think – that the Lord’s Prayer should have the same formative influence in the lives of followers of Jesus that the ten commandments had on Israel, makes me think I am doing something that could make me more of  “a kingdom person doing kingdom things” – which is my goal in life.  (As a side note – it is sad that we evangelicals are probably better known for wanting to put the ten commandments in our courthouses than we are wanting “his kingdom to come, on earth, as it is in heaven.”)

I tell you all of that to be able to tell you this: One morning while standing eye-ball-to-eye-ball with that cross and reading the Lord’s prayer – I realized that when Jesus told us to pray “deliver us from evil” Matthew has him using precisely the same word that Paul uses in Colossians 1:13, 14 when he says “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (ESV)

The fact that I’ve been teaching for you all at Point in the area biblical studies and theology for 41 years and just discovered that, perhaps should be a matter of concern for you. However, it confirms what I regularly say in my biblical interpretation classes – “the great thing about learning to study the Bible well is that you will never run out of something new to learn.” As William Willimon says, “the Bible is a thick book.”

“Deliver us from evil” alongside of “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

So what? Is this merely a little story about a sometimes Greek-nerd professor who discovered something new? Not at all.

In the psalms – over sixty times – the translators of the Hebrew Psalms in to Greek (LXX) this word is used to remind Israel that deliverance comes not by natural law to which both “the gods” and mortals are subject – but rather by the “creating and sustaining word of Yahweh for whom the salvation of the people and the individual is a part of His creative actin in the salvation history commenced by Him.” He is, after all, the one who spoke of a Lamb – actually the Lamb – that was slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)

Most of the usage of this word in the New Testament is found in Paul’s writings (and in Matthew’s Lord’s Prayer text; Luke’s quote of Zechariah in 1:74) – and every single time God is the subject of the verb. It is God who rescues, every time.

In Colossians – note that Paul says “has rescued” not “will rescue.” “Has transferred us” not “will transfer us.” Paul believes that the fact that Jesus came into the world, lived, died, was buried, raised, ascended into heaven, and will one day reappear in glory means that everything has changed. Now, Period. Eternally.

He is calling us to live in the power of that change and realize that already God has rescued us. And it isn’t just rescue – it is transfer. So we celebrate with John the apostle who said “Beloved, now (already) we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we will be, but we will be like him for we will see him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2) It’s a done deal. 

In Luke’s story of Jesus cleansing the ten lepers, (17:11-19) – that’s the story of ten lepers, only one of whom came back to say thanks – we often get so wrapped up in the one who came back to say thanks that we ignore what may be the real point of the story. Jesus didn’t do anything except say “Go to the priest . . .” The point is, he expected them to act “as if they were clean” – and sure enough they were.

I am trying to remind myself every day that I have been rescued and transferred. And, I am trying to remind myself to live “as if that is true” despite the challenges that surround me. If we can find a way to do that here – I believe we will discover an even greater priest who will declare us to be clean!