1 Timothy 2:1-5
The Importance of Prayer

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

New Revised Standard Version

The relationship between Paul and Timothy was almost a father and son relationship, certainly in the way that Paul was "raising" Timothy to follow in his footsteps in missionary work. This letter is one of what must have been multitudes of instructions and advice that Paul had given this young preacher.

So, when Paul tells Timothy that this instruction is "first of all", meaning that this guidance has the greatest importance, we know this must be critical to any follower. What Paul is instructing us to do is to pray!

Not only are we to pray, but we specifically are to pray for other people -- lots of other people, friends, enemies, strangers, and leaders. There is a Russian saying that goes, "What men usually ask for when they pray to God is that two and two may not make four," and that cynical viewpoint reflects a common selfish focus in prayers. We pray for ourselves and we pray for those close to us, and both are appropriate if balanced. But the balance comes from praying within our place in God's world, not only from within "our world."

Paul gives us interesting insights in the four words he used for prayer. "Supplications" refer to specific needs; "prayers" are of more general nature in reverently approaching God; "intercessions" is an unusual Greek word used only here in the New Testament, derived from the word for "interview," giving us a sense of our closeness to God; and "thanksgivings" reminds us to see and acknowledge all that God has done. William MacDonald summarizes this verse by writing "in praying for all men, we should be humble, worshipful, trustful, and thankful."

Paul tells Timothy that these prayers for others have the effect of bringing us into "a quiet and peaceable life," and we can understand that prayer works in many ways in bringing about this life. Some of those ways are God's answers to prayers in guiding and changing the world. While there are some theologies that believe the world must decline into greater evil until Jesus comes to set up His eternal kingdom, but Paul's theology and expectation is the opposite. Indeed, when we consider that Paul wrote to pray for "kings" at the time of Nero, who had already burned Rome and blamed the Christians for the crime, we see that God has brought about many places in our world where we can live our Christian life in "godliness and dignity."

We know, too, that prayer changes us. We may find that our situations defy our desire to live peacefully and quietly, but it is our choice to live in godliness and dignity, and it is our choice to let God's love fill us so that God's power brings about that godliness in us.