18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
19Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
Final Greetings
21Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. 22I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you.
23Peace to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.
Dig Deeper
Quite often when one team beats another team in what is considered an upset win, people will claim that they are lucky, not giving them any credit for the win. In fact, I recall a few years ago when the Wisconsin Badger’s men basketball team went on a run in the NCAA tournament that took them all the way to the Final Four. After every win they had, some announcer or commentator would basically imply that they had gotten lucky and that was why they won. It’s funny, though, how teams seem to got lucky a lot more when they work really hard. I used to always tell my basketball teams that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. The point is that hard work and effort creates what many people call luck.
In a similar manner, many people claim that prayer doesn’t really do much. When people claim that their prayers have been answered, it is really, say the critics, that they have experienced a coincidence. That may be, but it is sure funny how it seems that a lot more coincidences happen for people when they pray consistently and faithfully, and when they don’t, the coincidences seem to dry up pretty quickly. Just as it appears that hard work has much more to do with success, unexpected or otherwise, than luck does, so it appears that prayer has much more to do with God moving than just mere coincidence. Paul obviously felt prayer was rather important and not just some nice spiritual activity to keep people feeling good about God. He opened this letter praying for his readers, now as he closes this letter, he urges them to live lives that are characterized by prayer, as well as to pray for him and his ministry. Paul knows that if all Christians will do this faithfully, a whole lot more ‘coincidences’ will happen.
In his closing summation Paul now turns to prayer. We should not take his call to prayer as though it is another piece of the Christian armor. Paul sets prayer apart from the other aspects of the Christian armor, although he connects it to them by his repetition of the "Spirit" from verse 17 in verse 18. His intent is that prayer is part of the demeanor that those who put on the armor of God will have. To truly utilize the armor that God have provided us with, we must discipline ourselves to pray on all occasions. A well disciplined Christian soldier is one who continually prays in the Spirit and constantly remains alert. There are three important aspects that we can learn about Paul’s view of Christian prayer in verse 18. First, we should constantly be in an attitude and mindset of prayer as we pray on all occasions. Second, our prayer is to be intense, as Paul calls for believers to be alert. Christian prayer is not a spur of the moment thing that is done without thinking, but is the response of someone who is prepared and aware of all that is going on around them. Third, prayer is unlimited, as Paul says to keep on praying for all the saints. The spiritual battle goes far beyond our individual lives, and so should our prayer. All believers are in the spiritual battle as our brothers and sisters in arms, and so our prayers must go beyond our narrow individualism and cover the entire body of Christ.
This all reminds us that prayer is to be well thought out and is a discipline that requires hard work and great effort. Many of us reduce prayer to something that is comfortable and easy, but that is not the picture of prayer that Paul paints or that the gospel writers portrayed in the life of Christ. Recently, a sister in Christ told me that she thought she was doing well in her prayer life because she had managed to squeeze it in every day for the last several weeks. I’m glad that she’s praying everyday but she still has a ways to go in having a proper understanding of prayer. Prayer is not something that can be reduced to a few forced moments of sleepy stupor in the morning or a few snatched minutes of drowsy reflection at the end of the day. It is a discipline. Prayer is a time when we step into the reality of God’s realm. It becomes holy ground, the place in which heaven and earth overlap and intersect. We must learn to treat prayer as the powerful weapon that it is and begin to base our lives around it as something that really works because we are communicating with God in His realm rather than checking off thirty minutes a day on our Christian time clocks.
Paul also exhorts them to pray not only for one another but also for him. Paul is not so arrogant to think that he could ever reach a point in his life where he was such a servant of God that he was beyond prayer. Specifically he desires prayer so that words will be given him whenever he opens his mouth, a typical biblical expression used when a particularly important utterance is coming forth. The words he has in mind are those that make known the mystery of the gospel. A more helpful understanding of Paul’s point, when we keep in mind the first century meaning of "mystery," would be, "make known the revelation that the gospel contains." Overall, Paul asks for their prayers that he make speak fearlessly, a word that could also mean "boldly" or "brazenly." Paul gives them one more reminder, that he is an ambassador in chains. This is not something of which he is ashamed, nor should they be ashamed of him and the fact that he is in chains. Paul believes that he is right where Christ wants him to be, so he should be declaring the gospel with great boldness.
We don’t know much about Tychicus, although he is also mentioned in Acts 20:4, where we learn that he was from Asia and went with Paul on the trip to take the collection from the Gentile churches to the church in Jerusalem. He is also mentioned in Colossians 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:12, and Titus 3:12. Paul, here tells his reader that Tychicus is a dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, that will tell them how he was dong in prison. It appears that he is the one in whom faith was put to deliver Colossians, Philemon, and the letter of Ephesians to their original recipients.
Paul ends the letter by praying for them the peace, love, and faith that come from God. Paul specifically extends these aspects of the Christian life to the brothers, that is, those that were members of the local congregations to whom Paul was writing. Paul, as he always does, wants them to think beyond just their local congregations, though, as he extends grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with undying love. The undying love, is the eternal love that will last beyond this present age and be the primary characteristic of God’s people in the age to come. Paul began this letter by wishing them grace and peace, and so, he ends the letter on the same note that he began.
Devotional Thought
Paul stresses the importance of prayer in the life of the Christian. How is your prayer life right now? Is it something that you squeeze in as a responsibility as though you’re punching a time clock? Or do you view it is an invaluable discipline of your Christian faith that allows you to connect with God in His reality and dimension?
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