(upbeat music) - Well, some of the best questions you all send to us come from the tensions that you see directly in scripture as you read through the Bible. And that leads to the question that we have today. Do we pray for the salvation of unbelievers directly, or do we pray for the evangelists who bring the gospel to those unbelievers?

It's an interesting Bible question on this Friday as we close out week number 489 on the podcast. Wow. The question today is from a listener named Tim. Hello, Pastor John. Can you tell me if we are commanded to pray for unbelievers? It seems like the prayers and the instruction on prayer in the New Testament are focused on praying for believers in context of evangelism.

I'm thinking of Colossians 4, verses three to four, and Ephesians 6, verses 18 to 20. In those places, Paul is seeking prayer for his bold preaching, not prayers for unbelievers themselves. Is this instructive for us? Are we to pray for unbelievers, or to pray for evangelists? How does the Bible instruct our priority here?

Yes, the Bible teaches us to pray for unbelievers, and particularly to pray for their salvation, but not only for their salvation, but also lots of blessings of other kinds that flow from salvation or lead to their salvation. But the question Tim asks is not uncommon, because Tim is right that ordinarily, Paul in particular, asks for prayer for his preaching more than he does ask prayer for those who are hearing his preaching.

Now, I'll come back at the end to why that might be the case, but that is the case, and that's why the question arises. I can remember maybe 40 years ago at a conference at Wheaton College where a person stood up in the audience and asked J.I. Packer point blank, "Give me one text where we're told to pray for unbelievers." And I'll tell you what he said in a minute when I get there, but this is not an unusual question.

Now, my reason for saying that the Bible does teach that we should pray for unbelievers is that there are at least five lines of evidence pointing more or less explicitly in this direction. So first, there's the Old Testament example. It may be surprising to you, it was to me, that it turns up, this example turns up in a psalm where righteous indignation, the righteous indignation of the psalmist is calling on God to vindicate him against his enemies.

But listen to what brought him to this point in Psalm 35, 11 to 14. "Malicious witnesses rise up. "They ask of me things I do not know. "They repay me evil for good. "My soul is bereft. "But I, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth. "I afflicted myself with fasting.

"I prayed with head bowed on my chest. "I went about as though I grieved for my friend "or my brother as one who laments his mother. "I bowed down in mourning." So the psalmist had prayed for his enemy until evidently God showed him that he's going to become an instrument of God's judgment.

That happens in the Psalms. So we've got an Old Testament example of praying for our adversaries. Second, there are Jesus' instructions. Matthew 5, 43, "You have heard that it was said, "you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. "But I say to you, love your enemies "and pray for those who persecute you." Same thing in Luke 6, 38, "Pray for those who abuse you." Not pray against them.

(laughs) It's not in precaritory prayers. This is pray for them. Pray for what they need. And what they need most is faith in Christ and eternal life. I think this is what the command of Jesus to bless means as well. Jesus said in Luke 6, 38, "Bless those who curse you." Well, what does bless mean?

Well, what does bless mean? It means pronounce a God-word wish of well-being on someone. Blessing is the hope that things will go well with someone. And then that hope is directed to God in longing and expressed to our enemy in words. That's the way blessings work, whether they're to believers or unbelievers.

You can see it in that famous blessing in number six. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you. So you're asking the Lord to do something, but you're speaking directly to a person. So this command to bless our enemies became a watchword in the early church.

It's amazing how frequent it is. So 1 Peter 3, 9, "Do not repay evil for evil "or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless." Romans 12, 14, "Bless those who persecute you. "Bless and do not curse them." Paul set an example of this in 1 Corinthians 4, 12.

He said, "When reviled, we bless. "When persecuted, we endure." Now, these blessings are prayers. They're prayers for unbelievers that God would cause things to go well for them, for their ultimate good, for their salvation. Then there's another kind of instruction. Jesus gave, and I think it indirectly tells us to pray for unbelievers.

And this is the answer that J.I. Packer gave. I remembered all these years later because I didn't expect him to go here at all. He went to the Lord's prayer. Prayed then like this, "Our Father in heaven, "hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Well, when it says, "Pray for the kingdom to come "and for God's will to be done as in heaven," that phrase, "as in heaven," means not just that God's sovereign will be done the way Judas did it.

That's not the way it's done in heaven, but that it would be done the way angels do it. And the angels do it full of joy, full of faith. So think of the Lord's prayer as a prayer for unbelievers to believe and obey and do the will of God the way the angels do it in heaven.

I thought that was a remarkable, insightful answer. I mean, there are a lot more direct answers. I'm not sure why he went there. Maybe that was just all that came to his mind at the time, but I thought it was remarkable. Here's the third line of evidence. There's Jesus' example, not just the instructions that we just saw, but his example.

While he's on the cross, he prays for his enemies. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them. "They don't know what they do." And then Stephen continued that same dying prayer as he was being stoned, Acts 7, 60. And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." That's amazing.

He prayed for his unbelieving killers. Fourth, fourth line of evidence. Paul's example, not only of blessing, which we just saw, those who persecute him, but also of explicitly praying for the salvation of his lost Jewish kinsmen in Romans 10.1. I think if somebody asked me in public, give me one example of the Bible teaching that we should pray for unbelievers, I'd say Romans 10.1.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. So I take this to mean that this was his steady prayer as he ministered in the Lord's name. Lord, save my brothers in Israel and make them my brothers in Christ. And the fifth line of evidence, Tim, when he asked the question, he pointed to Colossians 4 as a typical way that Paul asked for prayer, namely for the preachers and not the hearers.

And I commented that that is typical. That's right. Paul does that most often. He said this, this is Colossians 4. "Pray also for us that God may open to us a door "for the word to declare the mystery of Christ "on account of which I am in prison, "that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak." Same thing then in Ephesians 6.19, where he says, "Pray for me that words may be given to me "in the opening of my mouth boldly "to proclaim the mystery of the gospel." And we could add to this 2 Thessalonians 3.1, "Pray for us that the word of the Lord may run "and be glorified as happened among you." Now, none of these texts says explicitly that we are praying for the unbelievers, none of those last three that I quoted.

But when you think it through, what they're asking for is that Paul's word would be bold and clear and unhindered and triumphant and glorified. You can't avoid the fact this includes, Lord, grant converts to Paul's preaching. So I think Paul is indeed asking indirectly for prayer for unbelievers. And I suspect, this is my effort to answer the question why Paul spoke the way he did most often.

I suspect that one of the reasons Paul asks for prayer this way, namely for himself and his preaching, is that he is so keenly aware that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. He knows that it is God who raises dead people spiritually and brings them to faith.

And God gives them life and faith and eyes to see the glory of Christ by causing them to hear the word of God. Paul really wants us to keep in mind that God does not move around through the world bringing people to faith apart from the hearing of the gospel.

God has bound salvation to the news of Jesus Christ so that Christ gets glory for the faith. So let's always keep these things together, namely prayer for the salvation of unbelievers and prayer for the word to run and be glorified through more and more faith. - Amen, thank you, Pastor John.

And thank you for joining us today. As you try to wrestle to understand your Bible, send us the questions that you face. You can do that or search our growing archive of answers or subscribe to the podcast as we go along and hear episodes as we release them. You can do all that through desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

Well, how do I find my ministry calling? Will I find it internally like some impulse that will lead me to start a new thing or will my ministry calling come from the outside? Will it come from others telling me where I'm needed? This is a great question and it's up next time.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday for that. Have a great weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)