Hold the Rope: Praying for Gospel Advance
This post by Chris Anderson is from Gospel Meditations for Prayer (Day 19: “Pray for Gospel Advance”).
“Brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored.” (2 Thessalonians 3:1)
Prayer was the very heartbeat of the apostle Paul’s ministry. He trumpeted the need for prayer for Christians and churches over forty times in his epistles. He prayed often for others, and he occasionally asked others to pray for him. When he did request prayer, he urged Christians to pray for gospel advance.
Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians to a suffering, persecuted church, and he wrote it from a tough new missionary outpost in a city called Corinth. “Brothers, pray for us” (3:1). He had been so discouraged during his time at Corinth that the Lord Himself appeared to Paul to encourage him (Acts 18:9–10). He described his church-planting ministry in Corinth as one characterized by weakness, fear, and much trembling (1 Corinthians 2:3). Faced with such an enormous task, Paul wrote an inspired missionary prayer letter and asked fellow Christians to pray.
We must pray with Christians, as peers.
I love that Paul—the great apostle—wasn’t above asking for prayer. He called the Thessalonian Christians “brothers” and asked for their help. If he needed prayer support, how much more do we? There is no bravado in prayer. There is no feigned independence. Rather, we humble ourselves before God and each other. “Brothers, pray for us.”
We must pray for gospel advance.
Paul’s request evidenced a gospel-centered ambition. He wanted the word of God to “run.” The gospel is pictured as an athlete exerting himself to make up ground. We’re praying for speed, for freedom, and for lack of hindrances. We’re praying for traction—that the gospel will have great effect in people’s lives, that the turf on which it runs will be ready for it. We’re praying for hearts. We’re praying that the word of God will be honored. We’re praying for God to work in our church, then repeat that work abroad.
We must pray for the protection of gospel ministers.
Where there is advancement of the gospel, there will be opposition. Ministry isn’t safe. Where there are open doors, there are many adversaries (1 Corinthians 16:9). Where there is progress, there will be pushback. Count on it. So Paul, as self-forgetful as he was, asked the church to pray for the safety of him and his missionary team (1 Thessalonians 3:2)—not merely for their sake, but for the future advance of the gospel among the unsaved.
Where there is advancement of the gospel, there will be opposition.
How we must pray, then, for those on the front lines! Pray for physical safety from persecutors. Pray for spiritual safety from Satan, from the world, and from our own flesh—perhaps the worst enemy of all.
When the Baptists in England were preparing to send missionaries to India in the eighteenth century, Andrew Fuller described the opportunity thus: “There is a gold mine in India; but it seems as deep as the center of the earth; who will venture to explore it?”
The answer came from William Carey, now regarded as the father of modern missions. “I will go down,” he said, “if you will hold the rope.” As we think of those risking their lives for gospel advance, we must hold the ropes, especially through prayer.
Christ, we pray for the advance of the gospel. We pray that it will run and be honored, and we do so because we know that we are utterly dependent on You to convict, to draw, and to save. We pray with a sense of discontentment, longing that more would come to know Your great salvation, and dissatisfied because so many are strangers to Your love and grandeur. We are astonished by Your grace. We are ambitious for Your glory. So we ask, Lord, that Your gospel will run, tirelessly, around the world. Win, Lord Jesus! For the sake of Your name. Amen.
Explore the whole book!
Our need for God’s grace is an ever-present reality, and so then is our need for prayer! Out of their experiences of Bible study, and sin, and confession, and anxiety, and dependence, the authors of Gospel Meditations for Prayer present 31 expositions of Scripture to inform and inspire Christians about the privilege of communing with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
