To come to a knowledge of the truth

“who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)

 

Everyone lives in prayer. With lamentations and grudges unrelated to the right object and method or form, they also replace prayer. Many people pray for selfish purposes. It is not easy to pray for others for a great cause. In this Bible text, Paul the apostle taught about prayer to Timothy. Paul urged him to do prayer of petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving for all people. In particular, Paul asked him to pray for kings and all those in authority. And this verse says the ultimate purpose of prayer is to ensure that everyone is saved by God.

 

Anyone who executes a pure prayer for oneself will pray also for others. But those who pray habitually with selfish passions won’t be able to pray properly for others. Prayer is for anyone, but not for anyone who can. Jesus told us not to keep on babbling like pagans in the prayer, in Matthew 6:7. A meaningless prayer of hitting the air is useless, and we do not need such a prayer.

Four kinds of words are written in 1 Timothy 2:1, ‘petitions δεήσεις’ ‘prayers προσευχάς’ ‘intercession

ἐντεύξεις’ and ‘thanksgiving εὐχαριστίας.’ The δέησις means the desperation of bondage, prodding and pushing, and the προσευχή stands for desire, wish the basic attitude of prayer. And the ἔντευξις means talking, seeing for mutual exchange of meeting, and the last εὐχαριστία signifies thanks, gratitude. If we practice prayer including all those in content and posture, it will be a prayer to God’s heart. But such prayer, which has no gratitude, sincerity, passion, and no breathing with God, is never useful.

Jesus prayed on the cross for His enemies, “Please forgive them.” But rather than praying for others, we are daily eager to ridicule, curse and mock them. We are not co-operative and co-prosperity with others, for we have lived almost to get used to criticizing the opposition. We are busy fighting for our own interests only, regardless of what happens to this country. Just before the Japanese invasion of Korea, ministers of Joseon deliberately argued against the idea based on partisan interests. The result was the invasion and crushing defeat of the Japanese. And the situation at the end of the Korean Empire was the same to that.

In this age of democracy, we don’t have king or man of high standing like the old days. But we have those who represent the country and work on behalf of the people. It is the democratic situation of this era that all the people are doing their jobs for each other. So we should pray for each other, regardless of whether it’s my family or colleagues. In particular, we should not neglect to pray for those who work on the front lines of politics for the nation. For that will be, after all, the prayer of great righteousness for myself, and what God wants us to do. In the end, God wants everyone to be saved.

We often exchange requests for prayers. Titles of the requests are usually the affairs of physical life concerning the health, business, promotion, employment, advancement, money problems, children, and etc. Of course, those are general things in our life. Nevertheless, those are also unreasonable issues from the point of view in Christian faith. We know this from Jesus’ teaching about prayer, He told us not to pray for food or clothing, but for the kingdom and righteousness of God. And He said that God then would solve other problems of physical life in a proper way. Despite what Jesus said, it seems that many people do not obey to pray following His lesson. Because they’re used to praying in the opposite way, as not familiar with the right prayer at all. Indeed, what a pity it is!

 

A good answer to “How to live, what do I live for?” comes from looking at God. So, prayer is a way of looking at God. Anyone can succeed only if they fulfill what God wants. What God wants from man is to be rescued and to know the truth. Those who believe in Jesus and know who He is can live in truth. We must work hard to tell the truth Christ has become a sacrifice for all the world.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Apr 26th 2020)