“There are hardships and obstacles in this work that have to be wrestled out of the way.” Now, two things stand out there concerning this wrestling. “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” He works within me. “For this I toil” - now, that’s not the word, but the modifying participle that comes after is the word. Paul says, “ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That’s the same goal as Epaphras’s prayer, by the way. Probably the most important one is right here in Colossians, back in Colossians 1:28–29. So, let’s go to those other uses of the word “wrestle” or “struggle” or “fight” (or however that agonizomai is translated). And he wants to know, and I want to know, well, what’s that like? Should I be doing more of that? And if I did, what would it look like? And he’s wrestling it says he’s wrestling. “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” So, the answer that Epaphras is after in his prayers for the Colossian believers would be that they stand, and that they stand mature and be fully assured of God’s favor and God’s will as they live their Christian life.īut what Jason is asking about is not what Epaphras is praying for, but about the way Epaphras is praying. Here’s what it says: “Epaphras, who is one of you” - so, Epaphras was from Colossae, but he was with Paul, and that’s why Paul knew how he was praying. So, let’s start with Colossians 4:12, because that’s the text he is asking about. Where has he used that word? (Or you could just use the English with “wrestle” or “struggle.”) And what light might that shed on the way you pray? Ephaphras’s Wrestling So in this case, the Greek agonizomai - and you can hear the word “agonize” in the Greek: agonizomai. So, I think the best thing to do is to take the word “wrestle” or “struggle” (or whatever the word happens to be you’re working on) and look up, with a concordance, how Paul (or whoever you’re reading) used it in other settings.
QUICK WORD DIFFERENT MEAN HOW TO
What would that feel like? What would I be doing differently than I’m doing?” It’s just a great question, and good for me to think about.Īnd I think - this is the best I know how to proceed - the best way forward in answering a question like that is not first to look into my experience and say, “Okay, where have I done that? What’s wrestling like for me?” Because I might just read in my experience into the text. What’s that really like? He says he’s wrestling in prayer. You’re reading along, and you tend to just breeze by something, and he’s stopping and saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa - wait a minute. Well, the first thing I’d say is, that kind of question is so good, so important. What does it mean to wrestle in prayer? Who is the wrestling against? And how do I - and all of us - learn to wrestle in prayer ourselves?” Here’s mine: In Colossians 4:12, Paul affirms Epaphras because he is always ‘wrestling’ or ‘struggling’ in prayer for the church of Colossae. Thank you for helping me think through questions, even questions I didn’t even know should be asked. “Pastor John, hello! I listen to your podcast daily through my iPhone. That’s the question from a listener to the podcast named Jason. So what does it mean, biblically speaking, to wrestle in prayer?
And that phrase - “wrestling in prayer” - is a biblical one, used by Paul in the book of Colossians. Sometimes we say that we are “wrestling in prayer” for something. We are going to start the week talking about prayer.
0 kommentar(er)
