I’ve mentioned before that one of the advantages of going slowly through entire books of the Bible in my quiet times is that I am forced to wrestle with passages that I would really prefer to skip over, or at least put off dealing with. One of those passages is this:
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. (1 Timothy 2:1-6).
It would easy – far too easy – for me to just skim over these verses, nod and keep on going. Yep, pray for civic leaders. There’s far too many to list them individually, so I’ll just throw up a general prayer for God to bless the people in government, and leave it at that. If I want to get fancy, I can break things down into a few categories: God bless the President, God bless the members of Congress, God bless the Governor and all the judges, etc. But maybe that’s not what the Holy Spirit intended.
When I start to dig a little deeper into this passage, one of the first things that stands out is the word “thanksgiving.” So right at the beginning, that raises some questions. Can I really give thanks for an elected leader whom I oppose? Who I think is wrong on nearly every issue? Who might even be pursuing policies that are immoral?
That’s tough. One thing that I know right off I can do, however, is recognize, in humility, that my knowledge of that leader and their actions is, necessarily, incomplete. I simply don’t have time to stay on top of everything someone else does every day in their full time job. And, although I may not like to admit it, I also have to recognize that I don’t actually know whether any of that person’s opponents would have done a better job. I have my opinion of course, but only God knows for sure. That doesn’t get me very far toward actual thankfulness, but at least it reminds me that I don’t know everything. That’s a start.
Let’s back up a step. The goal of this command is, “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” Order, in other words, is what I’m supposed to be aiming at. Disorder, whether in the form of crime, or of revolution, or of invasion, is what I should be praying that the government leaders and authorities will be successful in preventing. Which pretty strongly implies that this, the prevention of disorder, is the reason God has given us a government in the first place. That idea fits together pretty well with the statement in Romans 13:1-5 that the ruler is God’s servant to reward goodness and punish the wicked.
I have to say that I’m not completely comfortable with the idea that the primary purpose of government is to preserve order. For one thing, it contradicts the political theory I was taught in school. In American thinking, governments are traditionally thought to exist in order to protect the rights of the people. Their authority to do so comes, in the famous words of Thomas Jefferson, “from the consent of the governed.” When I was growing up, this was basic American Civics 101. This implies, of course, that government leaders are the servants of the people. (That’s the theory, anyway. Most of us recognize that elected officials frequently only pay attention to that portion of the people who voted for them, and many of them seem to act like they are mainly servants of their big campaign donors.) But God says in Romans 13:4 that the rulers are his servants. Even if they don’t act like it.
Now, protecting the rights of the people is clearly a good thing. It’s a significant part of carrying out God’s command to act justly, which is repeated over and over again throughout Scripture. (Micah 6:8 being just one example.) Nevertheless, the focus of our prayers for the rulers is not that we would have the freedom to exercise our many important rights, but that we will be able to “live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
The reason for this priority comes in the very next sentence: “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” We are to pray that our government leaders will govern in such a way that we can live peaceful lives, for the specific purpose that people will have a chance to hear the gospel and come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Which means that I need to get my eyes off of myself and my rights, and look instead to how I can best serve my Father. I am not trying to build heaven on earth; I am helping to prepare the ground for the day when Jesus brings heaven to earth.
In other words, I need to look at government from the perspective of heaven. The primary purpose of a government – any government – is not to protect my rights, it’s to create and maintain the kind of social environment where God’s kingdom can most readily advance. That’s not a perspective that I’m used to, and I suspect that not many of you reading this are used to it either. This is not just different from traditional American political theory, it is directly opposed to every human idea of what government should be and do.
This is the point where a radical mind shift is required. The protection of human and civil rights, the welfare of the people, safety, prosperity, peace, all the things that we use to judge our governments, are good and desirable, but they are not valid as ends in themselves. They matter because they are the means to an even greater good, which is that all people come to a saving knowledge of the truth. God’s great purpose for human government, in other words, is not any worldly good at all.
This does not at all imply a withdrawal from worldly politics, as some Christians have advocated. It implies just the opposite, in fact, because worldly politics has eternal consequences. And the political platform I should be supporting is, “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” That is why God is pleased by a society in which the followers of Jesus can live “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
I should also point out that the Scripture here doesn’t say here we should pray for the rulers to use their power to spread the gospel or to enforce Christian practices and behavior. The purpose of government, according to this passage, is to keep the peace.1 Actually advancing God’s kingdom is our job. We are the ones who can bear witness to Jesus.
This is absolutely a subversive message, and one that undermines all earthly claims to power. Prayers for rulers and governmental leaders have, as their ultimate purpose, the advancement of God’s kingdom. Beginning with that premise changes nearly everything about the way I view government. Antonio Gramsci, the well-known Italian Marxist, taught his followers to view absolutely everything in life as political. Followers of Christ, on the other hand, should instead see everything as theological. My first priority – the first priority of every follower of Jesus – is to advance God’s kingdom. Which starts with his rule over me, in my obedience, but then extends outward to everyone I influence.
Paul goes on further, and ends the paragraph by connecting what he’s been saying with his own ministry:
And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles (1 Timothy 2:7).
The message of reconciliation with God was the focus of Paul’s entire life and ministry (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Praying for rulers was a critical part of that ministry. It should be a critical part of mine as well. Not as a traditional formula, as I’ve seen in some churches, or just on rare occasions, as I have been in the habit of doing, but continual, fervent prayer with the firm expectation that God will answer. It’s not just something good that I should probably do once in a while; it’s a vital, strategic part of advancing God’s kingdom. Prayer warfare.
Paul doesn’t say anything in this passage about political advocacy, petitioning rulers or working to get the right candidates elected in local elections, even though many cities in the Roman Empire had elected rulers that could, potentially, have been influenced that way. (Note that he also does not tell Timothy not to do these things.) But he calls for prayers for the rulers, whoever they are and however they gained their office. Which suggests that doing the former without the latter is wasted effort, or worse.
And it certainly makes no sense to work hard and pray fervently that the right people will be elected to office, then fail to pray for those who are elected. And yet, that seems to be a very common pattern. It’s as though we believe that good government depends mainly on getting the right people into office, rather than on God’s influence over leaders. That’s practical atheism. Scripture says, “In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him.” (Proverbs 21:1). If we really believe this is true, we should pray on that basis. That means focusing our prayer, not on policies that will make our lives more or less pleasant, but on God’s business. We must pray that our leaders will keep the peace, so that the spread of the gospel will not be hindered. If I’m praying in Jesus’ name, after all, I need to be praying for his interests, not my own.
And now I can come back to my original question about prayers of thanksgiving. Even if I disagree with a leader or their policies, to the extent that I am able to live a peaceful, quiet life of godliness and holiness, I have cause to give thanks to God. Every step in the direction, even small ones, should result in thanksgiving once we recognize that it means God is at work answering my prayers.
Paul wrote to the believers in Rome:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2).
Part of that mind transformation, I think, needs to be in the way I understand the role of government and my interaction with governmental authorities. I am not, in the end, seeking what I think is best for the country; I’m serving a king. A king who wants to do, and is able to do, much more to benefit the people than I could possibly imagine. The country will pass away. The Constitution, the great traditions, the institutions of government, are only temporary. The kingdom will last forever. I’m working for forever.
1. And it doesn’t change anything to point out that, at the time this letter was written, the followers of Jesus did not have access to political power. Paul is telling them to pray, not to legislate. And in any case, if the Holy Spirit had wanted to inspire further Scripture after government of the Roman Empire became officially Christian in the 4th century, he could certainly have done so.