Round About
Brothers, pray for us! 1 Thessalonians 5:25
For – When you pray as a group, how do you position yourself? Are you on your knees, face down, sitting quietly, standing with arms raised? We should probably add one more important posture after reading this verse. Of course, you wouldn’t see it in English. You would have to know that the Greek preposition is peri and you would have to know that this preposition has a particular sense of location and motion.
Most Greek prepositions have a primary sense in some aspect of motion. Peri is no exception. It means basically “around,” as it occurs in Acts 25:18, “standing around him.” By extension, it means “concerning,” as we see in John 19:24. Depending on the context and the rest of the words in the sentence, peri either suggests location or it suggests a relation between an action and the object of that action. But it never quite loses its idea of motion. So, when it comes to this verse, we might think of Paul’s request with the overtones of “surround us” with prayer. You can think of this as forming a circle with Paul and his fellows in the center. The ones in the middle are prayed “around,” surrounded by brothers and sisters who are concerned about the will of God for the recipients.
This action is a powerful way to demonstrate the single purpose of the community. When you are surrounded by other believers, lifting you up before the Father, hands joined or placed on your shoulders, God’s desire for unity finds physical expression. Certainly God hears our prayers while we sit or stand in the pews, but this action emphasizes the solidarity of our ability to bear the burdens of others. The best part is that it can be accomplished at a distance. All that is required is that those who pray gather around the one prayed for, even if the recipient is not present.
Did you notice that Paul fervently requests this surrounding prayer? Paul, perhaps that strongest example of faith in the entire New Testament, pleads with his congregation in Thessalonica to surround him in prayer. Are you just a little surprised? Wouldn’t you expect it to be the other way around? A great man of faith telling the congregation that he is praying for them. It’s easy to forget that prayer is the operating force of all God’s children, regardless of their status in our eyes. If anyone needs to be surrounded by prayer, our leaders do. And I don’t mean the President and senators. I mean those who are on the cutting edge of the delivery of God’s word to the world. I mean those who are suffering because of their stand for Jesus. I mean the ones who day after day, week after week, proclaim God’s authority and suffer the consequences of resisting the world’s systems. Surround them with prayer. Join together with your fellow Christians and form a circle, putting the leader in the center, surrounding him or her with the multiplied power of all your voices.
You’ll be blessed because you did. And you will fulfill the request of one like Paul. “Brothers, pray for us!”
