It is said that we deserve and get the leaders we pray for, and the Bible in 1 Timothy 2 and 3 agrees with this.
By Don Cassselman Sept, 11, 20161 Tim 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties {and} prayers, petitions {and} thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Tim 2:8 Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension. 1 Tim 3:14 I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, {I write} so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.In writing to his protege Timothy, the leader of a church, Paul gives him instructions about leading that church or any church. Remember that Timothy himself was not a graduate of an orthodox school as Paul was and he did not know all the ways to handle himself and others in God’s house. Paul was the apostle and Timothy the distant local leader.
Paul’s instruction is clear that in the church the most important thing is public prayer including praise and requests for communal needs. We know that most of the apostolic epistles are directed to individual salvation and spiritual growth but here we see more general group type instructions for the organized group of believers. Paul teaches that the whole group of believers as members of the local community are to be God’s special people and as such they need exemplary leaders and necessary orders of service. Prayer is the first thing that needs to be attended to.
Perhaps before he wrote to Timothy Paul had read this verse in Jeremiah and was advocating the same principle in church life.
Jeremiah 29:7 'Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.'For Jeremiah was writing to a very discouraged and biased group of people who hated those nations who had enslaved them and the cities where they had to live. They were forced to live under enemy governors and leaders whom they despised and yet God’s word to them through the prophet was to pray for peace for those same leaders and their cities because that would mean their peace too. Jeremiah did not tell them to take their harps down from the weeping willow trees and start singing the joyful songs of Zion, but his advice was almost the equivalent. Now Timothy must learn and practice the same word from God.
Prayer is not random or selfish, it is rightfully assumed to be directed to the God who can answer it, and it is purposeful, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life, a purpose that will never be realized if our civil leaders are always misleading us. So there is a definite cause and effect in praying for kings and other leaders. But why do we seldom if ever hear that kind of prayer modeled in our church services? The word modeled is used to emphasize the fact that most people in their private prayers follow the prayer models that they hear in church.
The Greek local society that Timothy had grown up in was governed by local officials with very little oversight by Roman soldiers because the Romans were quite willing to allow them to have this authority as long as they acknowledged and honored Rome. Likewise they were quite willing to allow the local religions to be followed as long as the Roman gods were honored and those local oracles were praying for Rome, as opposed to being silent or praying against Rome. Those local priests or witches were well aware that the moment Rome thought they were not worthwhile, that is if they did not make the right offerings for Rome to their oracle, then they would be eliminated as not needed by Rome.
Today we expect our politicians and government leaders to honor the Christian Church, to stand up for it, but is it not understandable that these leaders, most of whom are humanists, will expect something of us? Of course believers have citizenship in Heaven, and we ought to obey God rather than men, but in this life we are in this world, and so is the Church organization. Paul says our first committment to the world is to pray for its leaders and in that way to have influence over it so we can have peace and tranquility.
This truth should startle us into putting all leaders, saved and unsaved, into first place in our public prayers so that the Church will have some expectation of tranquility in our world and have opportunity to evangelize them. Read the text in Timothy again. If we neglect this exhortation then none of our congregation will understand that believers make good community leaders, Nor will they understand that the second rate ones who are otherwise elected can be influenced to make better decisions if we pray for them.
If we don’t pray for good men to stand for leadership evil men will be chosen; if we don’t pray for those who are chosen then we cannot expect them to be for our church, and we will get what we did not pray for. Since it is true that not praying for leaders means that those we think of as good will not be elected, so when the others are elected thinking that we did not care, that they will feel no urge to do anything good for either Christians or the Christian Church. And the eternal law of cause and effect says that we do not deserve anything from them either.
Let us listen to Paul’s advice to Timothy about church life and pray for more than our own needs and our own people, pray for the king or president and all those leaders under him, and definitely include our own elders and deacons that Paul continues on to mention in Chapter 3. How should we pray for them? That they will come to know the Saviour, but in any case that they will fear God. Solomon said that is the essence of wisdom and we want our leaders to make wise decisions for us.
Pray that they will fear the results of ungodly decisions as well as the punishment for sin, that they will uphold His holy laws, and other similar prayers. We can ask humility for them, not abasement but the humility to see themselves as God or others see them. We should ask that they see themselves as servants, that others are equally as honorable as they are. Pray as Jesus taught us that they not be led into temptation and that they be delivered from evil. But pray for them in public prayer. Praying for kings and leaders is right and it will be rewarded.
Matt 6:9 "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.']If Paul got his precedent for seeking to be a good citizen from Jeremiah, for God’s word through that prophet to the people who had been carried away captive was inspired to him, then we can understand why he exhorted prayer as a first-of-all for seeking the national good of the country wherever you live. Although it was hard for those captives to even think of doing anything good for their captors God reminded them that it was definitely for their good.
Mordechai is another illustration from the time of the Bablylonian captivity. Have you ever wondered why a good upright observant Jew like he was would actively seek to get his young virgin niece involved in the government of that oppressive rotten culture? Surely he could have found a more worthy Jewish husband for her and not given such a treasure to the rotten oppressor, heathen outsider that he was? But no, he obeyed Jeremiah knowing that at least for the present if there was peace in Babylon his people would be the avenue by which it came.
And that that principle works even today we have good evidence in how today’s Jewish people live and have influence everywhere they live. They are citizens and vote if they have those privileges, but even as despised refugees they obey Jeremiah and the Lord and all the rabbis who still teach this verse. Moreover when this attitude of responsible citizenship is contrasted with Islamic teaching and practice we see a vast difference.
In history we have two different examples of how this principle has affected dispersed people. The first group was evangelical and strict being very afraid that the world around them would mold their children into its form, so they taught extreme separation from the ruling citizenry and they were persecuted for it. The Bible does very strongly teach separation, that we are not to love the world or anything of it. Moses stressed this separation too all through the book of Deuteronomy, but Israel disobeyed and became like those around them. We however, are to be transformed and not conformed.
Menno Simons as well as the Doukabors did not teach, and perhaps did not understand that they could live in the world without being of it, and so they moved to a place where they could renounce all participation in the culture of the country. But that did not contribute to peace. They did not have peace there for they had contravened the intent of Jeremiah’s exhortation.
However there has been agreement among the Rabbis of scattered Israel that Jeremiah was right and they have taught that having a good influence on local governments and culture is right and will help them to prosper. These same leaders also taught their people to maintain their own Jewishness, but to live by the laws of the land. But the exiles in the Ukraine were not subject to the rules of the place where they were and the rules did not protect them or keep them in peace, in contrast to the Jewish exiles who submitted themselves to the local and national laws and had its protection and peace.
Let us pray for all leaders.