Paul at Prayer
Crump on Pauline Prayer
You might be wondering why I've been reading this relatively unknown book on New Testament petitionary prayer, at such a slow pace, and writing about it. It comes from two convictions. Firstly, I think that on the whole Christians I know (myself included) are pretty woeful at the practice of prayer, despite it being one of the most fundamental and core constituents of Christian practice. Secondly, I think that when we carefully read the New Testament on prayer, what we find is surprising and continually raises disturbing questions about the dissonance between our prayer practices and what we find in Scripture.
That continues in Crump's next three chapters! He begins with a chapter essentially devoted to Romans 8:26-27 which in his opinion "comprises the heart and soul, the sine qua non, of Paul's theology of Christian prayer". [198]. What startled me about Crump's reading is that it's the Spirit who groans in v26, not us. So often I've heard this passage interpreted as the Spirit essentially translating and interpreting our wordless groans in to articulate speech to the Father, but that is not Crump's reading at all.
The tension that underlies 8:26-27 is eschatological now-not-yetness, characterised by groaning: Creation's, Ours, and the Spirit's. But Creation's groaning precedes rebirth, our groaning follows (spiritual) rebirth. Our personal experience of eschatological tension creates an unease in us, in this world. And the Spirit's groaning is coordinated, conditioned, and occasioned by our constant incapacity to pray for what we ought.
I kind of love and kind of hate this. We do not know what to pray for and yet we pray. We are caught in an impossible situation. Jesus and Paul are both teaching us to pray that the Father's will be done, but we cannot, precisely because we so little know what the Father's will is, and we don't know whether he will answer any particular petition with yes, no, or wait, even when we pray things that we can generally expect to be what God wants.1 And so we struggle.
Prayer is the focal point of brilliant illumination as well as bleakest darkness, the schoolroom where we finally comprehend that we have never known anything at all.2
And at the same time, the Spirit who knows exactly what to pray, is always praying for us. Blessed redemption! But if both of these are true, we're back to that thorny problem - why bother praying? Paul doesn't think that's the right conclusion. He's always praying. Crump suggests four reasons from Romans 8 to continue in petitionary prayer:
The Spirit compels us to pray, leading us into the Father's presence to enjoy all adoption's benefits3
It teaches us, as obedient children, to trust the Father's wisdom and love, whether answers are yes, no, or not now.
Learning to authentically pray "thy will be done" conforms us to the life of Jesus. We are actively engaged in self-surrender.
Romans 8 isn't over-determinative. Yes, the Spirit always intercedes according to the Father's will. But this doesn't tell us the extent of the Father's will. Crump does not had a full-blown determinist view of divine sovereignty, he thinks there is room for genuine changing of God's interventions in history in response to prayer.
If that's the heart of Paul's prayer theology, in the subsequent chapter Crump turns to look at petitionary prayer in Paul's own writings, examining exhortations to pray, Paul's prayers for himself, his requests for others to pray for him, and his intercessory prayers for others.
From the exhortations, Crump finds six characteristic traits:
All prayer, but especially petition and intercession, "is invariably linked with thanksgiving and/or joy"4
"Prayer is a chief indicator of Christian perseverance". The faithful persevere in prayer, so keep praying. How? Why? Because it's the ongoing commitment of belief to the Father's goodness, despite circumstances suggesting otherwise. There are, however, no suggestions that persistent prayer somehow results in more positive replies.
Paul's emphasis on watchfulness and alertness relate both to prayer, and persistence in godliness.
"The Spirit's influence is to become all pervasive in the Christian life."5
The model of Christ's life and teaching remains the model of Christian practice and prayer.
Paul is convinced that prayer 'works', in the sense of having an effect on the world around us through God's intervention.
Eph 6:18 is a particularly relevant passage - Paul believes that one person's intercession for another person "genuinely assists in the spiritual success" of that person.
Can prayer change the will of God so that he does something he wouldn't otherwise do? Crump defers his own answer. It's... tricky, isn't it? Because the interaction of (i) a God who exists outside time, and yet (ii) acts in and in relation to time, (iii) along with genuine freewill, and (iv) divine sovereignty, threatens to unravel us into paradox or confusion or absurdity. Here's another way to spin the problem : would you pray for something that it wasn't God's will for you to pray for? How would you know?
Okay, now that I've made your head explode, how does Paul pray for himself? Paul rarely tells us, except for five texts: Rom 1:10, 9:3, 10:1, 2 Cor 12:8-9, and 1 Th 3:10-11. And even here when he prays for himself, he is mostly praying for others. Crump spends a good deal of time reflecting on 2 Cor 12, and the thorn in the flesh. Neither repetition nor passion secure a positive answer to Paul's request that it be removed. God says no. Why? Because in God's wisdom it remains better for Paul to have this evil thing in his life. Paul insists that through this, both the thorn and the praying for its removal and the answer, he learnt something about God's sufficiency to sustain him, God's divine power manifested in Paul's weakness. A lesson he could not have learned any other way.
Paul requests prayer eight times specifically. Each time for delivery from persecution or in persecution. These requests engage other believers as intercessors for Paul, even as he intercedes for them, so that the struggle for the cause of the gospel is common. Such requests focus on his ministry, not his own person. And yet Paul operates knowing that what is effective for the gospel may or may not be personally 'good' for him. Crump concludes this chapter by considering Paul's desires and prayers to deliver the collection to the Jerusalem church, avoid hostility in Jerusalem, and then travel to Rome and then Spain. None of that was answered as he sought. Our view of God's goodness and sovereignty needs to be big enough to hold that in view.
Well, if you have survived this far in this very long three-chapter overview, well done. The remaining material covers Paul's intercessory prayers, which are examined also in Carson's book which makes a different kind of reading. Crump draws a few points here.
"Paul consistently prays for the church in conjunction with his correspondence... Intercessory prayer occupies the heart of this apostolic activity.”6 His prayers overflow with the same content as his exhortations. So, too, Paul's concern for his charges is overwhelmingly their spiritual and moral flourishing, because of the overriding shadow of eschatology. In light of the Lord's coming, what matters? That authentic faith flourish, blossom, produce fruit, and last until the end.
Let me close with a final paragraph from a mini-chapter:
The struggle is not met in prayer; rather, prayer becomes an answer to the struggle met in life. Petition and intercession provide a way for groaning to be transformed into worship, for despair to give birth to hope, for frustration to melt into peace, and for earthly failure to metamorphose into spiritual victory.7
Leaning in here, really, to the ‘two wills of God’ idea. That there is God’s sovereign will (what he ordains and causes to happen, which is everything), and God’s preceptive will (what he tells us that we ought to do). Murder is always a violation of God’s preceptive will, by definition, but the fact that murder ever occurs means that it is sometimes part of his sovereign will.
Crump, 205.
Crump, 207.
Crump, 214.
Crump, 217.
Crump, 232.
Crump, 251.