1 Timothy 2:1 –
I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.
Paul is really getting into some touch subject very quickly in this letter to Timothy. The end of the chapter deals with women and reminded me of a “old” southern Baptist church we went to very early in my “return”. The preacher was the fire and brimstone type and out of the blue starting ranting on how women should not preach. It was odd since it did not tie into what he was saying and where he continued, but it always struck me since one of the best teachers I have listened to is Joyce Meyers. This is the chapter he was quoting as proof of a male dominant world.
Again this becomes a HUGE interpretation of the original Greek, as well as trying to gain context since it’s like only hearing one side of the conservation. Because of this I decided to focus on another very important aspect of this chapter and the importance of prayer. What is one of the keys here which we all tend to forget is to pray for others. Our lives become a whirlwind of stress and problems that our prayers become very self-centered. We lose sight of other peoples issues and turn into our own.
How do we fix that in our prayer life when our minds are consumed with ourselves? Paul answers this here, pray for others FIRST. I have to force myself to do this and still fail constantly. As the bill collector calls slow and the debts are being reduced, it becomes easier to turn out my focus. But even still a key to prayer is to turn out the focus immediately. Learn to do this in times of ease so when you get stressed, your focus will be serving others.
I am sure right now as you are reading this, people you know who need prayer are popping into your head. Time to stop and pray for those people, don’t wait till you are finished reading! I didn’t wait till this thought was done! Now this becomes very ominous when it says “pray for all people” since that would take forever. I think the structure should be first all people as a general group, then our specific leaders, then specific people who we know need intercession, give thanks and finally lift up your needs. Simple math which is difficult to implement, again force the prayers until they become habit.