Making Prayer a Priority in the Church

If you were an experienced church leader giving a series of key guidance on congregational care and leadership to another less experienced church leader, as in an older pastor writing to a younger pastor for instance, what guidance would you mention first?

• Taking good care of your older members?
• Grounding your teens and children in the Word?
• Preaching biblical, expositional sermons?
• Emphasizing regular gospel outreach?
• Developing a purposeful discipleship strategy?
• Maintaining your personal life and relationships?
• Guarding against false teachers and divisive influencers?
• Something else?

When Paul wrote a letter giving key guidance to Timothy concerning proper church care and leadership (1 Tim 3:15), he emphasized all these things, yet he emphasized something else before all – the priority of corporate prayer. Does that surprise you?

Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.

1 Timothy 2:1-20

After giving some personal guidance to Timothy in the opening segment of this letter (1 Tim 1:1-17), with this statement Paul shifts his attention (“I exhort…that”) to guidance for the church, and he prefaces this guidance with “first of all.” With this initial tag, Paul intends one of two things, either (a) to mark this advice as the first in a sequence or (b) to mark this advice as the most important advice in the sequence. Paul predominantly uses first elsewhere in his NT letters to signify the first in a sequence of things.[1] Here, though, he adds “of all,” which is the only time he pairs these words together, indicating that while this is the first in a sequence of guidance he’s about to give, it may also be the most important or significant. For one reason or another, he gave it priority for a reason.

What was Paul’s reason for giving this advice “first of all?” He hints at the answer with therefore, pointing back to what he said before:

This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

1 Timothy 1:18-20

And what did he say before? That Timothy should view his ministry as a spiritual military campaign against the influence of false teaching. This influence was hostile and powerful enough to harm and infiltrate the church through people whom the church accepts as true believers. Paul names two such men, Hymenaeus and Alexander, who had harmed the church in this way. He says more about these bad influencers in another subsequent letter, too:

Their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some.

2 Timothy 2:17-18

Due to the length of time between 1 and 2 Timothy (likely about 2-3 yrs.), we should note the residual impact of wrong teaching in the church. That Paul describes this influence as a cancer (or gangrene or ulcers which spread destructively through the body), should also heighten our concern.

So, Paul gave a series of strategic advice to Timothy for how to care for and lead a church forward against the attacks and threats of damaging and divisive ideas, and the first strategic advice Paul gave was to pray. In particular, Paul emphasizes the priority of praying together as a church, not just alone.

In the following segment of his letter, Paul expands his teaching on church prayer as follows (1 Tim 2:1-10):

• He calls for all kinds of prayer (1 Tim 2:1).
• He encourages prayer for all kinds of people (“all men”).
• He offers several compelling motivations for prayer (1 Tim. 2:2-7).
• He gives specific instructions for men (1 Tim. 2:8).
• He gives specific instructions for women (1 Tim. 2:9-10).

With all this attention that Paul gives to prayer “first of all,” we should ask whether we give prayer this primary place as a church.

• Do we believe as a church that praying together truly makes a difference?
• Do we pray together as though we are counteracting the harmful spiritual influence of false teaching and whatever spiritual challenges will come our way?

A church that prays together stays together. For a church to go forward, its members must go forward together on their knees.  

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[1] George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1992), 113–114.