#9. Romans 1:8-9 – Paul’s Prayer, Part 3
Part I: Introductions
First, indeed, I am thanking my God through Jesus Christ concerning all of you, that your faith is being announced in the whole world. For God is my Witness, to Whom I am offering divine service in my spirit in the evangel of His Son, how unintermittingly I am making mention of you always in my prayers…
Some may not initially like the conclusion from the previous article (being that prayer is not merely some ‘action’ by which you gain experience points at church, but a form of communication that occurs in spirit.) The reason they may not like this is because it means that prayer is sourced in God, and not in ourselves. We did not ‘make’ our own spirit. Thus we do not really have a say in the form of communication that our spirit is built for. It would be like denying that your mouth shouldn’t be used for speaking, or your hand for writing, or your eye for seeing. The spirit’s functional communicative skill is prayer.
Why do many dislike this revelation? Because the more they dwell on it, the more they are forced to come to the realization that ‘prayer,’ in the religious manner by which they have previously considered it and used it, does not align with Scripture, and, more often than not, is abusive to their spirit, just as taking pills can be abusive to the body. They don’t like the idea that they themselves are the relative cause of spiritual abuse (not toward others, but upon themselves,) and are more concerned with protecting themselves than appreciating God’s truth. I will explain what I mean by this in this article, and more.
God communicates with men through His word. Men communicate with God through prayer. God is always paying attention to every prayer of man. Man, however, does not always pay attention to His word. This makes man, more often than not, feel inadequate and weak (two qualities which few enjoy being charged with,) and as such, man reasons that God does not pay attention to every prayer, in order to justify their own inability to heed His replies.
Here’s the thing, though: everyone has a spirit, so everyone prays in some capacity, whether they’re aware of it or not. Some actively pray to other gods, some actively refuse to pray, and this leaves the few believers to rest in the spirit that is praying continually, as Paul clarifies that he does in the above verse. As we learn more about the truth that Paul teaches in this letter, we will see how unintermittent prayer truly fits in perfectly here with divine service.
In Hebrew, the word for ‘pray’ is pll. It is rooted in “MEDIATION.” No, not meditation, but mediation. It is an act of mediating between two parties – like a bridge crossing two cliffs over a bottomless ravine. When the prefix eth is added to the word pll, it becomes ethpll. No, it’s not easy to read in English, and it reads far easier in Hebrew. Nonetheless, the Hebrew elements of the word are ‘SELF-MEDIATION,’ making the more complete word, ‘prayer.’
What does this indicate? Well, for Israel, back in the day, this was a temporary substitute for mediation between man and God. Usually, it was the priest’s job to mediate between an Israelite and Yahweh. The ‘priest’ was the ‘mediator.’ When this was not possible, or if it were not the time for the priest to mediate, Yahweh had imposed a self-mediation, which would serve as a bridge between Him and His chosen nation.
Man did not ‘come up’ with this. Man didn’t ‘figure out’ prayer – it was an ideal that God wove into the spirit of man, making them in His Image and Likeness (Gen. 1:26-27.) This is, by the way, part of why Paul thanked God for the faith of the Roman saints, for their faith is also sourced in God, as God is faithful (Rom. 3:3, 1 Cor. 10:13.)
The argument that many believe sustains the ‘God doesn’t hear our prayer’ claim is that nothing happens. Nothing happens, so who cares? A short while ago I was praising George Carlin for his awareness of today’s deception, but here I must criticize his work a bit. His ‘proof’ that God is not real or caring is found in one of his comedy specials, where he ends a hilarious bit on religion by unfortunately revealing his own lack of understanding, claiming, “If there is a God, may He strike me dead! See? Nothing happened!”
This kind of logic from man is, simply, illogical. However, it’s even worse when you consider the opposing logical extreme, being that “prayer moves the hand that moves the world.” This is the claim that prayer (usually from a ‘good’ person) immediately begets a beneficial reply from God (so, for example, if a good Christian person said, ‘I need this to happen, please God’ and they were really super duper sincere about it, then God would grant it on principle.) Unfortunately, this portrays God as an almighty genie, not a God.
Here’s another way of considering this: there are a million Christians who love the Baltimore Orioles. They root for the Orioles to win, praying for them to win their fourth world series, and cheer as loudly as they can in any stadium for their team. Yet there are also a million Christians who love the New York Yankees. They root for the Yankees to win, praying for them to win their twenty eighth world series, and cheer as loudly as they can in any stadium for their team.
So… what’s the glitch? Does God just ‘love’ Yankee fans more than Oriole fans? Does He prefer the Yankees? Did Oriole fans piss Him off with too many tear-jerking requests or something?
Let’s put this to rest: no. There is no partiality with God (Rom. 2:11.) He did not say, “Whomest thouest rooteth for, dear Christian, is whometh I will giveth the victory.” This, history has proven, is impossible, for there are good people rooting for every baseball team. If it were true, and God had to adhere to every Christian’s prayer, then there would be chaos, not compliance.
This is a difficult pill for many to swallow. Most have been told in their upbringing or by their favorite preacher that there is power in prayer, and to manifest that power is the object of prayer. Billy Graham, for example, says that “True prayer is a way of life, not just for use in cases of emergency. Make it a habit, and when the need arises you will be in practice.” This, in layman’s terms, is spiritual gobbeldy-gook. It is true that there is power in prayer, but prayer isn’t a generator. You don’t “build up” power in prayer over time! You don’t plan for moments when you ‘need prayer’ to get you out of something! Jesus didn’t “save up” His prayer power to 99% to try and escape the crucifixion – He just prayed. And there was power in that.
This reinforces that prayer is sourced in God. The power of prayer is ours to discover, not ours to produce. Yet it also opens the gateway to another objection: if God is answering every prayer, and if God is operating things according to His will alone, then… why pray at all? Why persevere if nothing you communicate will ‘change’ anything? Why ask for things that God already determined whether you would receive or not?
This is the big question that many in the Christian faith will ask. To them, this is a silver bullet question that proves that we are the ones that make prayer, and we are the ones that sustain prayer. The question is their defense, because they don’t want you to answer it, and any answer you can provide will not satisfy them. To them, their question is stronger than God’s declaration concerning Himself.
God’s
word is not directly speaking to those that would rather reason and question
based off of limited information instead of hear what He has to say. In truth,
God does not only hear the prayer, but the prayer is a part of His
plan beforehand. When speaking of the restoration of Israel’s holy land,
God, through Ezekiel, says this (36:37)–
Thus says my Lord Yahweh: This also shall I be
inquired of by the house of Israel to do for them: I shall increase them with
humanity like a flock of sheep.
So God plans for the prayer to be asked! Why, pray tell, should the all-knowing God’s understanding of when a prayer will be asked, be foreknown with His chosen people, but not with anyone else? If He did not know that you would request something at a specific point in time, then wouldn’t that make Him the opposite of all-knowing?
In the words of A.E. Knoch, the prayer itself is a part of His planning. God knows that Israel would outline requests for the restoration of their holy land in the Day of Jehovah, because He will put it into their hearts to ask. He’s not ‘all-knowing’ otherwise.
And, really, think about the question that’s asked for longer than four minutes, please. This is one of those questions that, admittedly, really upsets me, for it is the first of many that highlights whether or not an individual actually cares about anything beyond themselves.
For example, I’ve told many people, “You communicate with your tongue by speaking! Now, God made you to speak the way you do, and planned for it before you were made!” This is a rational declaration, for God Himself proclaims the same thing in Genesis 1, and it’s not an unusual belief. So, many people respond with, “Oh, yeah, I totally understand that. I didn’t create my own mouth, or the larynx, or the tongue. God made all of those things, and crafted my life experiences to give or limit my communicative skills in this manner.” Which is a solid, fair reply!
Yet I tell many Bible teachers that “You communicate with your spirit by praying! Now, God made you to pray the way you do, and planned for it before you were made!” This is a rational declaration, for it is the exact same principle as previously stated. Yet teachers that do not respect the word of God or Scriptural truth reply with, “What? That’s totally ridiculous and makes praying pointless! If He already knows the prayer, then what the heck am I praying for??”
Goodness gracious! If this is your response, then you must, as a teacher, go back to the first question, and exclude yourself from the “solid, fair reply,” and instead say, “What? That’s totally ridiculous and makes speaking pointless! If He already knows what I’ll say, then what the heck am I speaking for??”
This is the first example of cognitive dissonance that we can pinpoint on false teachings and doctrines. For those who do not know, “cognitive dissonance” is when you are inconsistent in your belief system or logical thought. This is a perfect example, for you cannot say “God made this form of communication” and then simultaneously say, “God did not plan for how or when you would utilize this form of communication.” It’s nonsense to conclude that the Creator wouldn’t know the purpose for which He created His creatures.
This
takes me back to that “prayer of God” statement I made earlier in this
sub-series. The KJV, in Luke 6:12, says,
And it came to pass in those days,
that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to
God.
The Concordant Version,
then, is unique in that it properly translates the prepositions
in the original Greek (almost always consistently, and we’ll deal with
exceptions whenever we see them.) Just as the words ‘of’ and ‘to’ in English
are clearly different and separate terms which denote their own
meanings, so also the Greek language has its own ‘of’ and ‘to,’ and
should be considered as such. Most versions interpret these
prepositions, instead of translate them. Here’s the same verse, in a translation,
as opposed to an interpretation:
Now it occurred in these days that He came out into
the mountain to pray, and throughout the night He was in the prayer of God.
There are a wealth of corrections in the verse that we can consider, but, of course, we’ll focus on of God. If the phrase here were “to God,” then the Greek word would be theo. But this is not the case. The Greek word used here is theou, which is of. The suffix here is different. This is a clear grammatical distinction that is made, and to ignore it would be foolhardy. He says of, which can denote a quality and a source. No Christian scholar would argue against the quality of Jesus’ prayer, but some argue against the source, which is a problem.
This ignorance to prepositions will be a recurring point throughout this study. For as much as I’ve written about “prayer,” and for as much as I’ll write about the big words like “faith,” “salvation,” “conciliation,” and more, it should not be understated that the small, connective words are just as crucial as the big words. No sane gymnast will tell you that the joint muscles are less valuable than the rest. No sane mechanic will tell you that the “smaller air paths within the engine aren’t as important.” The small word is just as critical as the large – God makes sweeping declarations in His word, but it is in the still, small voice, the tissue that binds the larger words, that makes everything cohesive.
Now – even if you just won’t accept
that ‘of’ is the word here – even if you are firm on clinging to
your own grammatical standards invented off the cuff, simply because you don’t
like what the written text says – you still cannot tell me with a
straight face that God isn’t the Source of prayer. This verse I just
pointed at is by no means the only verse that proclaims that God is the Source
of all things. For example, here’s 2 Cor. 5:18–
Yet all is out of God.
Here is another, 1 Cor. 8:6–
…nevertheless, for us there is one God, out of Whom all is…
Here’s my favorite, Rom. 11:36–
Out of God, and through God,
and into God is all.
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