Ron Julian

The Prayers of Paul

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

In one sense, prayer is the simplest thing in the world. People have been talking to God from the beginning, without instruction and without method. We have praised Him, cursed Him, begged Him, and bargained with Him. We tell Him to send the rains, heal the sick, give us jobs, prove He exists, and explain Himself. We do this naturally, artlessly, because we feel like it. There is nothing complicated about such prayer.

The Bible, however, speaks of prayer in ways that are far from simple. The Lord’s Prayer, that model of brevity, has generated enough commentaries to fill libraries, and for good reason. Jesus and the other biblical authors saw prayer as more than just talking to God; prayer is an expression, a reflection, of our hearts. In the Bible, admonitions to pray are really admonitions to embrace the truth: about God, our neighbor, our world, ourselves. Do we know our real problem? Do we know who can fix it? Do we know what is truly valuable and worth having? If we do, then our prayers will reflect this.

The prayers of the apostle Paul are a wonderful example of Christian maturity expressed through prayer. In most of the letters he wrote, Paul included a prayer for his readers. Paul’s prayers are touching, profound, eloquent, and loving; in addition, however, they are a guide to us in our own journey of faith. Paul’s heart was fixed on the essential things, things which are true and important and indispensable. Paul’s prayers, then, become a mirror in which we can examine ourselves, asking whether our concerns are anywhere close to Paul’s.

In what follows I haven’t the space or inclination to make interpretive arguments concerning these passages. I want to paint with a broad brush, reminding us of the great truths contained in the prayers of Paul.

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What Sort of People?

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…? [2 Peter 3.10-12]

You and I are on a journey, and only two destinations are possible; we will either arrive at eternal life or eternal destruction. Whatever problems we think we have, whatever decisions we think we face, all merge into one problem, one decision: will we take the path to life or death?

We forget this easily, however, because the big issue is disguised as all the little issues we face every day. We can lose sight of the momentous nature of the choices we make throughout our lives. Sometimes our theology helps to blur our vision. “We are saved by faith,” we say, as if faith could be separated from the way we live our lives. But of course they cannot be separated. Peter clearly believed in no such separation; he showed this in the quote above. To him, the doctrine of the day of the Lord, the Christian belief that God will judge the world and make new heavens and a new earth, leads inexorably to an obvious question: “What sort of people ought you to be, in holy conduct and godliness?”

Of course, it is crucial that I don’t give the wrong picture. You and I are not saved because we are morally successful. Eternal life is not something we can earn or accomplish for ourselves. The gospel is, first of all, about God’s great mercy, how He has forgiven us for our many sins. I am not here to say, “Join me in sinless perfection.” I could never get away with it; I am a sinful, foolish man in many ways. (I know of many ways, and you all could probably show me more ways that I don’t know yet.) I am not saying that we must prove how good we are in order to get eternal life. I know I am not good enough, and I thank God that He is willing to save me anyway.

Yet, as Peter implies, there is a connection between what we believe and how we live. Saving faith and holy living are joined with an unbreakable bond; what we want and believe will inevitably show itself in how we act. We are still sinners, and our lives will show this clearly. But if we are regenerate children of God, our lives will show this as well. Some of us at McKenzie Study Center have been emphasizing this for some time: in Jack Crabtree’s groundbreaking paper “The Anatomy of Sainthood”; in Jack’s teaching on 1 John and Hebrews; in my teaching in James and Matthew; and in the book I expect to finish soon. I sometimes feel as if I teach on nothing else. Even so, it is still easy, perilously easy, to forget what is at stake, to lose sight of the life and death journey before us. And so I want to remind us all again: our faith is something that must be lived out. Today each one of us must take another momentous step in our journey toward life or away from it. My purpose is not to draw a roadmap for the holy way; I just want us to remember Peter’s question: What sort of people ought we to be?

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