Tuesday Prayer: 43

This is my 43rd 'Tuesday Prayer' post. As I was thinking about what to post on, which quote to offer to you, I was struck by the level of dissent, war, anarchy and violence in our world. Thus, I offer a quote, a prayer, a bible passage. Paul writes in 1 Timothy, verses 1-4;

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"

This is a bold prayer. It is a bold prayer for those who are in positions of power, even as they hold little power compared to God. It is a prayer for those who have the authority to change things - and yet don't - identifying with them even as it asks something from God for them.

The second part of this passage is a theological challenge. Regardless of the 'universal' implications, the emphasis is on Jesus, this 'God our Saviour', and the radical challenge contained in the phrase 'the knowledge of the truth'. To pray for those in power is simultaneously to live faithfully in the way the world is, and to long for the way the world should be. This is the challenge of prayerful Christian discipleship. Do you agree?

___________________

Don't forget to check out the previous posts in the series, featuring quotes from Tom Wright, John Wimber, Richard Foster and Don Carson, the great J. C. Ryle and theologians Alister McGrath and James K. A. Smith. Since then, I've shared quotes from Justin Welby, E.M. Bounds, Vineyard Pastor Ken Wilson, C. S. Lewis,  Norwegian O'Hallesby, Paul Miller, John Piper. Recently, we've heard Matthew Henry, Charles Finney, Andrew Murray, Tim Chester, Vaughan Roberts, Oliver O'Donovan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and John Bunyan. Then we got rather retro, with quotes from Church Fathers John Chrysostom and Tertullian, before returning to more recent thinkers with Rowan Williams, Mike Reeves and Peter Jackson and Chris Wright and Andrew Case, R. C. Sproul, and (representing a slight change of tack) the Westminster Confession. Recently we considered Karl Barth, and Donald Macleod, Mary Prokes,  J. C. Ryle (again!), Andrew Murray,  Martyn Lloyd Jones, Hudson Taylor, recently about Ffald-y-Brenin,  some of my own words, and my friend Nick Parish, Joyce Huggett. and the C of E.