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.
– 1 Timothy 2:1–2
What a couple of verses that teach us how to pray and I think convict us when we think about all people, including kings and all who are in high positions.
1 Timothy 2:1–2 Explicitly Teaches Us to Pray for Those in High Position
How often are we praying and interceding and thanking God for all people, not just the people who are closest to us or the people we love the most? Obviously we pray for them, but to pray and intercede and thank God for all the people around us. Just think about all the people you will interact with today. What would it look like just to live today praying for, thanking God for all the people around you today, including those who are in high positions of government?
How often are we praying for our leaders in government, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, and then the verses after this go on and talk about how God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. This would change our prayer lives if we were intentional about praying for all kinds of people around us without exception, including kings and those who are in high positions.
So let’s practice that now and then I just want to encourage you all day long today. Remember 1 Thessalonians 5, to pray continually for all people, for all the people you’re interacting with, to be continual in prayer for them, thanking God for them, interceding for them and making sure to include those who are in high positions. Oh God, we want to obey 1 Timothy 2:1–2 even right now. So we pray, oh God, for all the people that we will see today or tomorrow.
1 Timothy 2:1–2 Encourages Us to Pray for All People
God, we pray that you would help us to be a blessing to them for those who don’t know you, to point them to you with our words and our actions, for those who do know you, to point them to you with our words and our actions. Help us to build up all of our brothers and sisters in Christ today. God help us to intercede for all the people around us, that we’re in school with, that we work alongside, that we interact with in shops or restaurants or drive next to.
Oh God, change our perspective as we’re sitting in traffic or we’re driving along the road just to look around at the people we see and to pray for them. God, help us to pray continually for all people and we pray specifically for those who are in high positions. Oh God, we pray for presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens and dictators and other rulers in countries around the world. God, we intercede right now.
This Verse Encourages Us to Pray for Our Government Officials
So I think about my country, for President Biden and Vice President Harris and leaders in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, for justices on the Supreme Court, for governors in states and other civic leaders. God, we pray for your grace over them. We pray that you would turn their hearts towards you, that you would help them to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with you. God, we pray for their repentance and faith in Jesus, that they would know the depth of your love for them, that they would lead out of the overflow of love for others that is selfless.
Oh God, so many things coming to our minds that we pray for our leaders. We pray for their wisdom. God, we pray for their families. We pray for their strength. God, we pray that you would help them and all the decisions they make today, to make right and good and wise decisions for the protection and promotion of good among their people and among all peoples. Lord, we pray this for all the leaders of the world, for those who are leading in the middle of war and conflict.
God, we pray for your grace and your wisdom over them. Help them to lead in ways that promote peace just as you’ve called us to pray, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. God, we pray for rulers to be raised up and to be empowered all over the world, who enable followers of Jesus and all those who were under their leadership to lead peaceful and quiet lives and specifically to live godly, dignified lives in every way.
Prayer for the Adi People
God, as we pray for unreached people, for the Adi people today of China and India and Bhutan, God, we pray that you would open the door for the spread of the gospel freely to the Adi people of Bhutan. We pray for their salvation. Even as we pray, God for the leaders of those countries, God, we pray for Modi in India and President Xi in China and we pray for the prime minister of Bhutan, Prime Minister Tshering. Oh God, we pray for your mercy over those leaders and you would help them to lead well and you would draw them to yourself.
God, we praise you for this privilege you’ve given us right now during these few minutes to intercede for all kinds of people, including the highest leaders in this world. Oh God, help us to faithfully intercede for them to participate with you in what you are doing in their lives and their leadership as the sovereign King overall. We pray all of this according to your word in 1 Timothy 2:1–2. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
