Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: After the apocalyptic vision of Chapter 2, Paul’s letter takes a sharp turn in Chapter 3, from dark and disturbing prophecy to encouraging prayers and instructions for the immediate time. The first verse (and following discussion) in today’s Scripture is a request for prayers from them, and the last verse/sentence is a prayer of Paul for them. Notice how Paul tells them to pray for something that God is already going to do. He and they pray for such matters as the rapid spread of the Gospel and for safety from evil men. But then he speaks of his confidence that God will guard them from “the evil one.” concrete statue praying with green moss - LEFT One form of prayer we often use is called “petitionary” or “intercessory.” We ask God to do something — for us or for someone else. Christ teaches us to do so: “Give us this day our daily bread” is a petitionary prayer for earthly sustenance. Often enough, though, we say prayers that are petitionary in form, but not in meaning, because we are asking for something that God has already promised to do, or something that we know is God’s will or intention. In fact, one of the first petitions in the Lord’s Prayer is “thy will be done.” God, of course, will do His will whether we ask for it or not! So we see, the purpose of such prayers is not to encourage God to do something, but rather to align us with God. We pray to be part of what he is doing. We want to align our hearts with Him. We humble our desires to reflect the will of God. We see some of this in today’s Scripture. God is going to spread His gospel at the speed He wants it spread; so when Paul instructs the church of Thessalonika to pray for the rapid spread and glorification of God’s Word, he is essentially asking them to pray that their hearts will be conformed to God’s intention. It is a prayer whose intent is to strengthen faith. But realize, there is true petitionary or intercessory prayer. In today’s verses, Paul asks to be rescued from wicked men, which may or may not occur. We can ask God to do things that we hope for. Nobody really knows how this works! Does God actually respond, or even change His mind, in response to prayers? Or has He already decided everything? This is a conundrum the human mind cannot solve; however, we do know that God has commanded us to make our needs known to Him, and thus, we obey. Petitionary prayer is an act of obedience. Extra Discussion on Grammatical Ambiguity Those interested in exegesis (the correct interpretation of Scripture) might notice the ambiguity in the term “love of God”; this is a problem with the Greek genitive case and has a famous example in the “pistis Christou” controversy. More simply stated, does “love of God” mean God’s love for us, or our love for God, or our love for others resembling God’s love for us? These are all perfectly good translations of the Greek. I think the best solution for these genitive ambiguities is to consider each possibility; for in every case I know about, all of the translations are helpful and theologically sound. So I advise you to take each of the meanings of “direct your hearts to the love of God” and think about it for a minute: 1) Paul prays that the Thessalonians may find and bask in the love God has for them; 2) Paul prays that the Thessalonians will love God in their hearts; 3) Paul prays that the Thessalonians will express the love they have received from God in their actions towards one another, and the world.