Praying for Your Enemies
By Pastor Johnny 3/6/2022
By Pastor Johnny 3/6/2022
In the 3rd century, the church (as always, it seems) was divided. One would think that they would have been united since the Romans under Diocletian were: destroying churches, burning sacred books, and imprisoning the clergy. Yet, they were not!
On the one side were fanatics who said that the truly faithful would not only submit to Roman persecution but would turn themselves in. These fanatics even believed that it was sinful to hide or flee from the Romans. On the other side were those who said that flight and hiding were the believers responsibility because anything else involved oneself and the Government in the “shedding of blood.” In other words, deliberately handing oneself over to the authorities or seeking martyrdom for some special spiritual reward was essentially suicide. Those against the ones voluntarily throwing themselves at the Romans as criminals even had a “custom” interpretation of Paul’s admonition about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:27—let those who bound not seek to be loosed and those who are free not seek to be bound.
Bishops like Cyprian (3rd century) and Ignatius of Antioch (2nd century) were not above hiding and leading the church from the underground, but Cyprian was beheaded at Carthage and Ignatius was torn apart by wild beasts in the Colosseum on the order of the Emperor Trajan (in the early 2nd century). Needless to say, wiser minds in the church recognized that even though one shouldn’t expedite one’s demise, martyrdom might be a consequence of following the Lord as opposed to Caesar. Charles Williams, a theologian, Bible translator, and fantasy novelist (similar to C. S. Lewis), summed up the resolution of this controversy by pointing to 1 John’s admonitions to love one another and that anyone who doesn’t love his spiritual brothers and sisters was not living according to the Lord. Williams concluded, summarizing many church fathers, “Schism was the worst sin, for schism was bound to nullify the justice from which it might arise. However right a man’s ideas, they were bound to go wrong if he nourished them by himself.” (Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2002—original 1939), p. 38)
In today’s world, it is not so much the church which is divided, since those who do not want schism in the church tend to steer away from partisan politics. But there is a schism in society which has contaminated some churches. Mask mandates, vaccination requirements, and even the Ukraine invasion are highly polarizing. On the one side, there are those who consider mask mandates and vaccination requirements to be an assault on freedom, but believe the Ukraine invasion to be insignificant for keeping America First (an interesting name because it was also the name of Charles Lindbergh’s and Henry Ford’s organization that argued against the U.S. fighting against Hitler in World War II). On the other side are those who consider mask mandates and vaccination requirements to be a public health issue politically and a necessity for expressing God’s love for others spiritually. And, while not all agree on how to stop the evil attempt to destroy freedom by means of military destruction, those on this side believe that evil has to be confronted at one point or another.
So, the question becomes one of both trying to avoid schism in the church and how to properly pray about the situation. On the one hand, praying for success in the Russian invasion would not be acceptable to myself and many. On the other hand, praying for President Biden to “man up” and throw more of our young people’s lives into a foreign war would not be acceptable to many others (and I’m not pleased about that idea either). Do we pray for Putin’s assassination like Senator Graham seems to have suggested? It would certainly be an easy way out, but it seems to go against Jesus’ teachings. He taught, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Do we pray for Russia’s economy to fail? It seems like that’s the only way Russia is likely to see the futility of its war, but how many innocents will be harmed as part of that strategy? (The military calls it “collateral damage,” meaning unintended damage to those not directly involved.)
It really gets complicated when we try to pray for secular leaders who support abortion, discrimination, fraud, genocide, sexual sin, torture, unprovoked war, and more. Yet, what did Paul command Timothy during a corrupt Roman regime? 1 Timothy 2:1-4 reads (using the Wycliffe version for the English readers): “2 Therefore I beseech first of all things, that beseechings, prayers, askings, doing of thankings, be made for all men, 2 for kings and all that be set in highness, that we lead a quiet and a peaceable life, in all piety and chastity. [my emphasis—pj] 3 For this thing is good and accepted before God, our Saviour, 4 that will that all men be made safe, and that they come to the knowing of truth.”
If you look closely at verse 4 of 1 Timothy 2, we see that it is God’s will for all men to be made safe so that they can come to the full truth of Jesus’ saving grace. Neither civilians dying in bombings nor soldiers killed in fighting contribute to God’s will. So, it’s pretty clear that we are to pray for peace. Of course, God also wills for humans to have free will even when they use it wrong, and war is a result of the free will. If we just pray for peace and for the war to be over quickly, humanity may not have learned its lessons enough to prevent a frequent succession of other wars.
So, here’s how I suggest we pray for “kings” and “all that be set in highness.” We ask God to give them wisdom—wisdom to see the consequences of their actions, wisdom to see the futility in other actions, wisdom to see what is best for the people they lead in specific and the world in general, and wisdom to change their minds even when it may not be the best for them individually. We ask God to give them vision to see the power and purpose of God, even if they are not yet believers and to renew their relationship with God if they are believers.
We may never have the chance to speak truth to power as Daniel did on several occasions but especially in Daniel 4. He foretells Nebuchadnezzar’s folly when he interprets the dream of the large tree that is cut down and left out in the field to experience dew like the wild beasts. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful sovereign in the world at that point, but when Nebuchadnezzar became too big to acknowledge God, he went crazy and lived like a wild animal for a time. No matter how powerful or how evil a ruler may be, remember that God was able to shake up Nebuchadnezzar and that He can shake up Putin, Xi, Biden, Johnson, Trudeau, Zelensky, Modi, or Kim, as well.
Of course, if we’re praying for peace, we also need to pray for peace within ourselves and those around us. War doesn’t merely affect the combatants; it affects the victims and it affects the observers. We cannot help but be impacted emotionally, economically, politically, socially, and spiritually. And here’s where the old church history lesson I cited at the beginning comes full circle. The worst thing we can do whether facing literal wars or political-cultural wars is to divide the church fellowship over what we think. When we follow Paul’s admonition in Philippians 2, we put the feelings and needs of others ahead of ourselves. Schism nullifies our effectiveness at sharing grace.
So, we need to pray and ask the Lord to show us where we need to learn the lessons to be learned in this awful time, to show us where we need to change and where we can meet people’s needs. We need to ask the Lord to give us the peace and confidence that He can treat any world leader as He treated Nebuchadnezzar—up, down, and back up. When we remember that God is in charge, even when it doesn’t seem so, we don’t have to be afraid, even of nuclear war. None of us would ever want to experience nuclear war, but we should know that if it occurs, God isn’t going to forget about us.
On the one side were fanatics who said that the truly faithful would not only submit to Roman persecution but would turn themselves in. These fanatics even believed that it was sinful to hide or flee from the Romans. On the other side were those who said that flight and hiding were the believers responsibility because anything else involved oneself and the Government in the “shedding of blood.” In other words, deliberately handing oneself over to the authorities or seeking martyrdom for some special spiritual reward was essentially suicide. Those against the ones voluntarily throwing themselves at the Romans as criminals even had a “custom” interpretation of Paul’s admonition about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:27—let those who bound not seek to be loosed and those who are free not seek to be bound.
Bishops like Cyprian (3rd century) and Ignatius of Antioch (2nd century) were not above hiding and leading the church from the underground, but Cyprian was beheaded at Carthage and Ignatius was torn apart by wild beasts in the Colosseum on the order of the Emperor Trajan (in the early 2nd century). Needless to say, wiser minds in the church recognized that even though one shouldn’t expedite one’s demise, martyrdom might be a consequence of following the Lord as opposed to Caesar. Charles Williams, a theologian, Bible translator, and fantasy novelist (similar to C. S. Lewis), summed up the resolution of this controversy by pointing to 1 John’s admonitions to love one another and that anyone who doesn’t love his spiritual brothers and sisters was not living according to the Lord. Williams concluded, summarizing many church fathers, “Schism was the worst sin, for schism was bound to nullify the justice from which it might arise. However right a man’s ideas, they were bound to go wrong if he nourished them by himself.” (Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2002—original 1939), p. 38)
In today’s world, it is not so much the church which is divided, since those who do not want schism in the church tend to steer away from partisan politics. But there is a schism in society which has contaminated some churches. Mask mandates, vaccination requirements, and even the Ukraine invasion are highly polarizing. On the one side, there are those who consider mask mandates and vaccination requirements to be an assault on freedom, but believe the Ukraine invasion to be insignificant for keeping America First (an interesting name because it was also the name of Charles Lindbergh’s and Henry Ford’s organization that argued against the U.S. fighting against Hitler in World War II). On the other side are those who consider mask mandates and vaccination requirements to be a public health issue politically and a necessity for expressing God’s love for others spiritually. And, while not all agree on how to stop the evil attempt to destroy freedom by means of military destruction, those on this side believe that evil has to be confronted at one point or another.
So, the question becomes one of both trying to avoid schism in the church and how to properly pray about the situation. On the one hand, praying for success in the Russian invasion would not be acceptable to myself and many. On the other hand, praying for President Biden to “man up” and throw more of our young people’s lives into a foreign war would not be acceptable to many others (and I’m not pleased about that idea either). Do we pray for Putin’s assassination like Senator Graham seems to have suggested? It would certainly be an easy way out, but it seems to go against Jesus’ teachings. He taught, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Do we pray for Russia’s economy to fail? It seems like that’s the only way Russia is likely to see the futility of its war, but how many innocents will be harmed as part of that strategy? (The military calls it “collateral damage,” meaning unintended damage to those not directly involved.)
It really gets complicated when we try to pray for secular leaders who support abortion, discrimination, fraud, genocide, sexual sin, torture, unprovoked war, and more. Yet, what did Paul command Timothy during a corrupt Roman regime? 1 Timothy 2:1-4 reads (using the Wycliffe version for the English readers): “2 Therefore I beseech first of all things, that beseechings, prayers, askings, doing of thankings, be made for all men, 2 for kings and all that be set in highness, that we lead a quiet and a peaceable life, in all piety and chastity. [my emphasis—pj] 3 For this thing is good and accepted before God, our Saviour, 4 that will that all men be made safe, and that they come to the knowing of truth.”
If you look closely at verse 4 of 1 Timothy 2, we see that it is God’s will for all men to be made safe so that they can come to the full truth of Jesus’ saving grace. Neither civilians dying in bombings nor soldiers killed in fighting contribute to God’s will. So, it’s pretty clear that we are to pray for peace. Of course, God also wills for humans to have free will even when they use it wrong, and war is a result of the free will. If we just pray for peace and for the war to be over quickly, humanity may not have learned its lessons enough to prevent a frequent succession of other wars.
So, here’s how I suggest we pray for “kings” and “all that be set in highness.” We ask God to give them wisdom—wisdom to see the consequences of their actions, wisdom to see the futility in other actions, wisdom to see what is best for the people they lead in specific and the world in general, and wisdom to change their minds even when it may not be the best for them individually. We ask God to give them vision to see the power and purpose of God, even if they are not yet believers and to renew their relationship with God if they are believers.
We may never have the chance to speak truth to power as Daniel did on several occasions but especially in Daniel 4. He foretells Nebuchadnezzar’s folly when he interprets the dream of the large tree that is cut down and left out in the field to experience dew like the wild beasts. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful sovereign in the world at that point, but when Nebuchadnezzar became too big to acknowledge God, he went crazy and lived like a wild animal for a time. No matter how powerful or how evil a ruler may be, remember that God was able to shake up Nebuchadnezzar and that He can shake up Putin, Xi, Biden, Johnson, Trudeau, Zelensky, Modi, or Kim, as well.
Of course, if we’re praying for peace, we also need to pray for peace within ourselves and those around us. War doesn’t merely affect the combatants; it affects the victims and it affects the observers. We cannot help but be impacted emotionally, economically, politically, socially, and spiritually. And here’s where the old church history lesson I cited at the beginning comes full circle. The worst thing we can do whether facing literal wars or political-cultural wars is to divide the church fellowship over what we think. When we follow Paul’s admonition in Philippians 2, we put the feelings and needs of others ahead of ourselves. Schism nullifies our effectiveness at sharing grace.
So, we need to pray and ask the Lord to show us where we need to learn the lessons to be learned in this awful time, to show us where we need to change and where we can meet people’s needs. We need to ask the Lord to give us the peace and confidence that He can treat any world leader as He treated Nebuchadnezzar—up, down, and back up. When we remember that God is in charge, even when it doesn’t seem so, we don’t have to be afraid, even of nuclear war. None of us would ever want to experience nuclear war, but we should know that if it occurs, God isn’t going to forget about us.