A Word in Season: Praying for authorities (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

How do you think of the government that God has placed over you? Perhaps for many of us we're in what would be called a liberal democracy where we're not just entitled but even encouraged to engage with those who are in authority over us.

We're supposed to vote for them and then when we voted for them we observe them, we listen to them, we engage with them, we debate them and very often we engage in real criticism of them.

Especially in times when perhaps we think as so many do in these days that we know what is best and there's a lot of assault upon those who

God has placed over us. That can be particularly true in some societies where the discourse is so heavily politicised that we barely know what is accurate because it comes so freighted with human opinion from one extreme side or another.

But there are many others who don't have those privileges as we perceive them. They live in societies where government is oppressive, invasive, even persecuting or perhaps where government is weak and feeble and doesn't have a real grip upon the life of the country in a way that brings something of the benefit of the rule of law.

Under both sets of circumstances it's easy to become suspicious or disdainful or dismissive of the governments that the

Lord has placed over us. And it's important to remember that it is by God's appointment that those rulers are there.

But my point today is Paul's exhortation in 1st Timothy in chapter 2, the exhortation that he makes that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

Now not just then how do we think about those who govern us but how do we pray for them?

Do we pray for them? We're very quick to assess them, very quick to judge them, perhaps very quick to criticise or damn them.

This one or that one, they're either the saviour or they're a waste of space, they're worthless, they're pointless, they can't do anything, they're wrong about this, this, this and this.

But how much do we pray for them? How much do we pray that God would give them wisdom, that God would help them to govern wisely and well, that he would not only save them from their sins but equip them for the role that he himself has given to them knowing that they are accountable to God for the work that they have?

And what should be our goal in so praying? What should be our primary concern in our prayerful engagement with the civil authorities that the

Lord has established over us? It is ultimately that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

Now we may have and we may be entitled to have very strong opinions about how that quiet and peaceable life is best secured.

I'm not saying that we're not entitled to that but a kind of crass partisanship really has no place in the life of a

Christian or the life of the church. Our primary concern is essentially that we should be able to live in such a way as to get on with the business of being

God's people, to live in all godliness and reverence, to be able to live with the simple dignity of God's people, to live in an environment where we can be what we're supposed to be and to do what we're supposed to do.

And our prayers, our intercessions, our supplications, our thanksgivings ought ultimately to be directed to that end.

Our prayers for the kingdoms of men are ultimately terminating on the kingdom of God.

Our concerns for the life that we live now are really that we may live in a way that is fitting for the world which is to come.

Our concerns as citizens upon earth are that we might be able truly to live as citizens of heaven.

So let me encourage you, whatever your disappointments or expectations may be of the government that God has put over you, to make supplications and prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks for those who are in authority that you and I may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence.