Pauls Prayers

The day after we got back from the USA, on saturday evening, catt and I were feeling pretty tired. She went to bed at 8.30 and I stayed up reading and praying a bit, but very tired. I was reading psalm 16, and then I get this thought to read Peter's speech in Acts 2. After this the thought comes to read Rev ch2, 3 times. The message to the first church, Ephesus was standing out. They were doing lots of good stuff, believing lots of good theology, and standing against evil. But Jesus says if you don't repent and find your first love I'm going to remove your lampstand - I think lampstand = a church, so that means remove the church altogether. This hits me as a 'type' of church today.

So I went to Ephesians and started reading the summaries. I know Ephesians is held alongside Romans as the great theological explanations of grace and holy living. The summary in my bible mentions 2 prayers and I felt prompted to look into these.

The first prayer is Eph 1:15-23. It begins with "for this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in Jesus, and love for the saints", so I look at the preceeding section. It basically says - they were saved. v13 says they heard the word, believed and received the Spirit as a seal. I sense that that is the link to the Acts 2 speech. I know there is no real link, but sense God saying, the point is, they were saved - thats it. Its weird that Paul says "since I heard" as he was there for 3 years I think? So there must have been lots of new believers or something??. Then he says he "keeps praying that God will give them then spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that they may know him better. WOW I thought. It just struck me that the first thing Paul prays after they are saved is for the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know God better. Then he prays that the eyes of their heart would be open to know the hope, inheritance and power that is in them.

The second prayer is Eph 3:14-19. It again begins with "for this reason", which is referring to the end of Ch2 (ch3v2-13 is a sidetrack). It says they are being built up to be Gods dwelling place. Because of that he kneels - so this is a big deal - and prays that God will cause Christ to dwell in their hearts, ie receive more of God's presence, and have power to grasp more of God's love. Obviously I've read all these thing 1000 times, but it just hits me that after these people get saved, the first things that Paul prays is that they get revelation etc to know God better, and know the hope, inheritance, power thats in them. Then to have more of the presence of God and grasp his love more. It skrikes me for 2 reasons - first that what he prays is exactly what Jesus said they needed to change in Rev 2 (in it Jesus only says love, but really the first things paul prays will lead to love). Secondly that this is so different to what we see now. Think about what he doesn't pray... Its as if in the first 3 chapters he's saying, "you're saved - thats great. Now what I want is for you to get the spirit of rev to know God better, and the hope, inheritance, power in you. By the way what actually happened to you was grace (ch2) and you're now in it with us jews, trying to be presence carriers, so what I really, really want is more of God's presence for you, and you to grasp God's love more." Ch2 is generally considered the main chapter, but I don't think it was to Paul. Ch2 is what has happened - but it happened whether they understood it or not. What Paul is really concerned about is in his prayers - and rev 2 is the proof.

I then start to think about Pauls other letters, and what he prayed to different churches...

Phil 1:9-11 "that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, SO THAT you may be able to descern what is best and may be pure and blameless ... filled with the fruit of righteousness..." Here Paul makes the connection between greater knowledge of, and love for/with God - and purity. I know all this is obvious, but don't you think its funny that this is what he prays. However in Phillipians he doesn't say anything like "I have heard ... for this reason I pray", so it is what it is and thats all.

Col 1:9-14 "for this reason ... we have not stopped ... asking God to fill you with knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom ..."
This prayer is quite different than for Ephesus, and I think its because of what preceeds "for this reason". V4 Paul says he's heard of their faith in Jesus and love for the saints (just like Ephesus)... V5 "the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven ..." Its as if Paul is acknowledging that what he prayed for Ephesus in the first prayer - the collosians have got it. I'm taking the phrase in V5 to be a 'tag-line' for the prayer for the Ephesians. By that I mean Paul is saying - you know what - you collosians are saved, but more than that, you have some of the spirit of rev to know God, his hope, inheritance and power - and out of that place you have grasped some of the love of God. Therefore I feel safe praying that you know that will of God for you. Paul never prayed that the Ephesian would know the will of God.

1 Thess 3:11-13 "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other..." I can't get quite as much from this, but in 1 Thess 1:3 Paul speaks of their work and labor prompted by love, inspired by hope. Its almost like they've got what he prayed for both the Ephesian and the Collosians - Spirit of rev to know God, hope, love, etc, and know, and are doing the will of God. So Paul simply says - let the love increase and overflow... and keep your heart pure.

I think there is a little progression going on here - with the Ephesians, Collosians and Thesselonians.

This experience was weird and wonderful for me. It started with me being tired at 9pm, but by 9.15 was alert and my heart was on fire - with this strange awareness that the Spirit was about to open up something to me. Minute by minute new things were jumping out, but I had no way of keeping up, remembering or writing everything down. 5 minutes later it was 1.15am - you know what I mean I'm sure...