(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome to June, June 1st, a Thursday, our first Thursday episode in a long time, but now part of our new routine here on the podcast, at least for the season ahead. You can now expect ABJ episodes on Mondays and on Thursdays, two times a week.

No more sermon clip Wednesdays. John Piper's sermons are now being curated in a new podcast from Desiring God called Light and Truth, Light and Truth. So if you want your five days a week fill of John Piper sermons, old sermons and new sermons, subscribe to our new podcast, Light and Truth.

And I'm sure many of you already have. But on this Thursday episode, we're back in studio with Pastor John to field a question from Dustin in Indianapolis, Indiana. He writes this, "Pastor John, hello. "In light of 1 Timothy 2, verses one to four, "how are we to pray for unrighteous leaders?

"How about presidents and other politicians? "How do you do it? "And what specifically do you pray for?" - Let's read the text that Dustin is referring to so that we can be specific. It's 1 Timothy 2, one to four, I'll read. First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings, and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. So Paul is calling for Christians to pray for all people. We focus on the kings, but it says all people.

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all people. And then the kings and all those in high positions are a subset of all people. They are mentioned explicitly, I think, because they are especially relevant for the purpose of the prayer mentioned in the next clause. Namely that we may lead a life that's peaceful and quiet, godly, dignified in every way.

So I take the all people to mean that wherever we look in the world and see people who might in some way make decisions that have a bearing on the circumstances in which Christians live, we should give thanks, underline that, thanksgiving for all people, we should give thanks for whatever proper role they fill, and we should ask God to incline their thoughts and incline their wills toward those decisions which carve out a space of justice and peace and freedom that allow Christians and others to live out our faith without physical resistance and without tumults and lawlessness and mob rule and war.

That would include using their civil powers to restrain different forms of injustices. So there are two levels at which we pray for people in high positions. One is that they be saved. And Paul said in Romans 10, one, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." And he was referring to his Jewish kinsmen, whatever their rank, whether they're a high priest or a synagogue ruler or just an ordinary Jewish person, he's praying, "God, save my kinsmen." So that's what we do for all people who come into our mind, we ask God to save them, to show them the truth and beauty of Christ and to incline their hearts, to believe and embrace Christ as their savior and Lord and treasure.

Our hope as we pray this is that they will then, if they have any kind of authority at all, they will then see more clearly which decisions they have to make are just and peaceable and freedom loving so that some measure of freedom and justice and peace can be established so we can go about our lives without tumult or attack.

That's one level, salvation. The other level of prayer is for leaders, even if the first prayer is not answered right away, "God, you're sending me for their salvation," even if that's not going to happen right away, we keep on praying for them. Paul does not say to pray only for Christian leaders or only that leaders become Christian.

In fact, it seems to me that Paul assumes in this context that most of the leaders Timothy would be praying for are not Christians. They're mainly Roman officials at various levels, emperor, governors, military leaders, town justices, as well as some Jewish synagogue leaders and so on. They're virtually all unbelievers.

That's what he's mainly referring to. And the way we pray for unbelievers besides praying for their conversion is at the second level I'm talking about, namely the level of providence. At least that's one way to describe it. We know from Scripture, Proverbs 21.1, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord.

He turns it wherever he will." Now that's true of all kings, rulers, whether they're godly or not. So we pray that God in his all-governing providence over unbelievers and believers will incline the thoughts and the wills of non-Christian rulers to make decisions, even within their limited framework of right and wrong, that are just and freedom-producing and peace-producing so that those things that would enable Christians to proceed with their ordinary lives would hold sway.

And I think the way Paul calls for prayer for leaders contains a warning for us of how not to think about the role of rulers in relation to the Christian faith. In spite of what I said about praying for their conversion, which is what we do for all people, that's not what Paul focuses on in this text.

Paul is writing in a situation in which civil authorities are virtually all non-Christian. They may be ignorant of the Christian faith, they may be neutral, they may be hostile. So Paul's foremost thought is not that these prayers are prayers for Christian advocacy. I think this is crucial. He's not telling us to pray that civil authorities would become a conscious weapon of explicitly Christian promotion of the faith.

He's thinking about pagan rulers who remain pagan, but still are influenced by the providence of God to bring about in their limited, godless framework, some measure of justice and peace and freedom. Christians benefit from this, as others do, but this providence of God is not an example of Christians trying to turn state power into an explicit promoter of Christ's spiritual kingdom.

Now, the reason I mention that warning is because Jesus said to Pilate at his trial, this is John 18, 36, "My kingdom is not of this world. "If my kingdom were of this world, "my servants would have been fighting "that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, "but my kingdom is not from the world." In other words, Jesus was eager that Christians not look to civil authorities for the establishment of his kingdom on earth.

The way the state keeps the peace and the way Christ spreads his saving rule are radically different. So we don't pray that the state become an arm of the church. We don't pray as if the kingdom of God, the saving reign of Christ is of this world or that it would be advanced through an explicitly Christian use of the sword.

Rather, we pray that God would have mercy on us and on the world whom he aims for us to evangelize in this text and would cause the hearts of presidents and governors and mayors and legislators to make decisions that bring about justice and peace and freedom so that we can go about our lives of worship and godliness and love and evangelism and world missions.

- Amen. He has a good warning here about misreading this text as political advocacy. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor John, email us your question, go to askpastorjohn.com. That's our online home, and you can send us an email through that website, askpastorjohn.com.

Next week, we have two questions about pastoring. Can single men pastor? That's on Monday. Can single men pastor? And then how much should pastors make? That's Thursday. I'm your host Tony Rehnke. Pastor John and I will see you next week. Have a great weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)