Pray without Ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

George Muller had an inspiring prayer life, asking God daily to send food and other provisions for his orphanages. He also prayed for individuals. In November 1844, when he was thirty-nine, he began to pray for the conversion of five individuals, children of some friends. The first was converted after eighteen months (in 1846). The second was converted five years later (in 1851). The third then was converted after about six more years (in 1856). Muller died forty-one years later in 1897, but he had prayed for the remaining two every day for those forty-one years, which meant that he had prayed for them for almost fifty-two years. A few years later they believed in Jesus. Praying without ceasing, we might say. 

 

There is a story told of a group of ministers who were discussing this text and they found it very difficult to explain. A maid came into the room and one of the ministers decided to ask her if she prayed without ceasing. They were surprised when she said that she did, so they asked her to explain. She replied by saying that when she washed herself in the morning, she prayed that she would be cleansed by the blood of Christ. When she dressed herself, she prayed that God would clothe her with the garments of salvation. When she had her meals, she asked God to feed her with the Bread of Life. She mentioned a number of ways in which she prayed inwardly while doing something outwardly. 

 

I suppose we could say of this verse that it shows that there is no atlas with places where prayer should not take happen and that there is no diary with dates or hours where prayer should not occur. Do you like going for a walk? Then listen to Andrew Bonar: ‘God has this week been impressing much upon me the way of redeeming time for prayer by learning to pray while walking or going from place to place.’ What did he pray for? No doubt different things at different times. In 1867, he records in his diary that he asked God for a calm faith, burning love, deep peace, bright hope, true compassion for souls and a glowing zeal for God’s glory.

 

Spurgeon noticed that there is a difficult command in the preceding verse when Paul tells the readers to ‘rejoice always’ (5:16). He then suggested that the solution to that difficulty is in the next verse, ‘pray without ceasing,’ which you may think is to answer one difficulty with another. Spurgeon then pointed out that there is a difficult command following our verse (in 5:18), which is to give thanks in all circumstances, and there is not much difference in meaning between ‘without ceasing’ and ‘in all circumstances’. Spurgeon then pointed out that ‘Those three texts are three companion pictures, representing the life of a true Christian, the central sketch is the connecting link between those on either side.’

 

Paul’s concern

Paul mentions prayer several times in this letter. In 1:2, he says that he and Timothy and Silas pray constantly for the Thessalonian saints; in 2:13, he says that they constantly thank God for the way the Word of God was working in the lives of the Thessalonian believers; and in 3:10, he says that they pray earnestly night and day that they may meet up with those believers and benefit them. We can see from those references that the three men prayed repeatedly for the Thessalonians. It is not too surprising that Paul should instruct the Thessalonians to pray like them. 

 

Why would they have prayed in such a way for the Thessalonians? There are several reasons. First, they were a young church, having been in existence for only a few months. 

Second, they were a young church undergoing persecution from the city officials and from the Jews. Indeed Paul and his two friends had been forced to leave Thessalonica because of the strength of the opposition there to the gospel. But the bonds between them were strong.

 

Third, we know that Paul wrote the letter in response to what Timothy had discovered about how the church was getting on without Paul, Silas, and him. There was both good and not-so-good matters to pray about. 

 

From the good point of view, the church in Thessalonica had engaged in what can only be described as an astonishing method of evangelism in which they had covered the whole area of modern-day Greece in a few weeks, as described in chapter one. No doubt, Paul and his companions prayed earnestly for ongoing gospel success to follow. A second good feature was their ongoing sanctification, which was of a high standard, and is mentioned several times in the letter by Paul.

 

From the not-so-good point of view, Timothy had discovered at least two problem issues in the church in Thessalonica. One was a doctrinal misunderstanding and the other was misbehaviour. The doctrinal understanding concerned aspects of the second coming and what would happen to dead believers when Jesus returned. The misbehaviour was a tendency in some of the Thessalonians to idleness. The two issues may have been connected; after all, what was the point of working, if Jesus was about to appear? What would we do if we came across doctrinal misunderstanding and ethical misbehaviour in a church? Would we have said that both those areas were serious enough to pray about as well as deal with them in other ways?

 

Did God answer prayer for those areas at once? Would ongoing earnest prayer bring a rapid solution to the errors? All we need to do is ask why Paul sent another letter to the church in Thessalonica. In 2 Thessalonians, we find that the two issues have continued, indeed may have got worse, because in 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul has to deal with other errors connected to the second coming of Jesus and in 2 Thessalonians 3 he has to enlarge on the problem of idleness and says that it has increased to such an extent that those guilty of it should be disciplined.  

 

We may wonder why such dedicated prayer did not bring about fast results in Thessalonica. One answer is obvious. Prayer is a feature of spiritual warfare, and it takes place in the spheres where the devil tries to destroy the spiritual life of the church because he has identified areas of spiritual weakness. Paul reminded the Ephesians that we wrestle against the powers of darkness ‘in the heavenlies’, in the spiritual realm.  Praying without ceasing does not remove problems immediately and may not do so for a long time. But we have to pray.

 

Can the Lord’s Prayer help us?

In this section of the address, I will mention some general principles about prayer which always remain true, so therefore they are in the category of ‘praying without ceasing.’ 

 

The first is that prayer must be according to the revealed will of God, done in a manner for which there is biblical authority. It is fair to say that the essential features of prayer are in the Lord’s Prayer because Jesus gave them in response to a request from his disciples to teach them to pray. 

 

In the Lord’s Prayer, we have the principles concerning how a believer should pray, especially when together with other believers, because the pronouns I, my, and me do not appear in it. I suspect Paul has communal prayer in mind when he urges the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing.

 

In that prayer, there are three sections which we can call God’s purpose, our needs, and a hearty doxology. In the purpose section, there is a common relationship (our Father), a common reverence (he is in heaven, reigning), and a common recognition (his kingdom will come), with each of them expressing love for God. In the needs section, there are requests for a common provision (food), common pardon (forgiveness) and common protection (from temptations by the devil), with each of them expressing brotherly love. The doxology is a wonderful affirmation.

 

Does thinking about those three areas help us continue in prayer? Take God’s purpose. We can ask him to add to his family through the preaching of the gospel and the witness of his church, we can ask that his name be honoured in certain places where it currently is not, and we can pray for his kingdom to come in lots of places where it is absent or declining. 

 

Take our needs. Praying about each other’s food. Do you know any Christians that might be hungry? If we do, we are instructed by Jesus to pray that such a need will be met. Take our need of forgiveness, note that it is not just for personal forgiveness. We know that every Christian needs a fresh sense of pardon. We can let our minds run round the people in the congregation and ask God to give that fresh sense of forgiveness to each of them. Do you know any Christians who will experience temptation today? As far as I know they all will. We can safely assume that all of them will be, which means that we can pray for them about today’s spiritual battles. 

 

Why should prayer close with a doxology? Because it expresses our confidence in God. Imagine listening to the next budget. What would you think if the opposition speaker closed by saying to the Chancellor, ‘You can do it for thine is the Bank of England and thine is the power to raise taxes and thy authority extends to the whole kingdom!’ Much lower than saying to God that his is the kingdom, the power and the glory. But the prospect of him doing what the Lord’s Prayer says can help us pray without ceasing. Prayer is an opportunity for imploring God to show that he is God. 

 

The requirements to pray without ceasing is a reminder that we can use other forms of prayer in addition to verbal petitions. We can use sighs and groans, tears, longings that words cannot describe. In fact, they may be more powerful. It would take a while for us to pray through the telephone directory, and the effort may not be as effective as weeping over the indifference of our society. The case may be that this detail of sighing and weeping means that we pray a lot more than we realise.

 

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The falling of a tear,

The upward glancing of an eye,

When none but God is near.

 

Some challenges

One challenge from this description is that it is a statement that reinforces clearly our weaknesses and our helplessness. When is the time that we can do without prayer? There is no such time.

 

A second challenge from this phrase is that we should love the company of God. We spend time with those we love and converse with them. Prayer is conversation with the Most High about our needs and his ability to meet them.

 

Connected to the above point is the fact that the phrase is also a challenge to live in a familial frame of mind at all times. Prayer is an expression of family gladness, of family sharing, of family concern, and it is expressed in the presence of the Father. 

 

A third challenge from the phrase is to see how much God can give in his answers to prayer. If God answered one prayer every five minutes, and we prayed for three hours a day for forty years, we would have received 525,600 answers to prayer. Even if he answered one prayer every hour, we would have received 43,800 answers, which would be the same for praying for food as Jesus asked us to do.

 

A fourth challenge from this phrase is that prayer requires determination. We all have our intentions, but more than mere hoping is required. Petitions reveal our desires and our aims. Think of McCheyne’s prayer, ‘Lord, make me as holy as it is possible for a pardoned sinner to be.’

 

The meaning of the verse is not that we should do nothing but pray, but that we should do nothing without praying.