Mensa Otabil - Praying With Modesty
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Well, we’ve had a great week looking at Paul’s instructions to us in First Timothy, chapter two. We are focused on the aspects that relate to prayer. He starts by telling us to pray for all men and to pray for civil authority. Then he tells us who should be the focus of our prayer: the one God, Jesus, the mediator. He tells us to pray for all people, and then he explains how to pray and the attitudes we must have in prayer. So this is the final instruction in First Timothy, chapter two, verses nine and ten:
«In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly clothing, but which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works.» Now, this sometimes is a bit of a controversy regarding the instructions here. If you take it out of the context of prayer, you may misunderstand what Paul is saying. Remember, he said first to the men to lift up holy hands. He didn’t just mean that men are the only ones who can lift up holy hands; women can too. He chooses to talk about the men because they were the leaders in prayer, but women also pray. Then he talks about women in the same manner. Is this instruction only for women? No, it affects men as well, because there is a general application of this instruction.
Basically, this instruction is about how we present ourselves before God. How do we come before God? Do we come adorned with goodness or adorned with our clothes? How do we show ourselves before God? Do we come in hypocrisy? Do we come in truth? Do we come with our hearts, or do we come with the things that we have covered ourselves with? So the first thing Paul says is that when we come before God in prayer, we must be modest. We don’t come to prayer being bombastic and just coming up with big, fanciful words, trying to pretend and impress God with flowery and verbose language.
Just as women who put on all kinds of adornment may obscure the true self, we must remember that when we come before God, we shouldn’t adorn ourselves with stuff; we should come as we are. So that’s the instruction he’s given. He means that we must not pretend-let us not pretend in prayer. You know, people sometimes have a form in which they pray and the language they use in prayer, which is very different from their ordinary day-to-day English language.
So, when people are praying, sometimes even the tone changes; they take on a different tone, they use words differently, and they express themselves in a different direction than in conversation. When you do that, you are adorning yourself without modesty; you are just pretending before God, and God wants us to come as we are. Speak to Him as you normally speak; don’t try to memorize some flowery language to impress God. When we come before God, our good works must follow us. We cannot come before God adorned in evil, vengeance, or all kinds of bad practices and still hope that God hears us. Our adornment must be our goodness.
We come before the Lord, even if we have sinned, asking for forgiveness, but we can be adorned with goodness. We come adorned with good works. This instruction, which uses the female or woman as a pivot, is not only for women; it is for all of us on how to adorn ourselves when we come before God in prayer.
I trust that the things we’ve learned about prayer will help enrich our prayer life. So, when we come before the Lord, we should come just as we are-with our pretense removed and in modesty-and present our requests before the Lord, and the one true God will hear us and answer our prayer.
Let us pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, I come before You just as I am, without pretense or my own righteousness. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Well, I’m thankful to the Lord that we could do this study. I’m glad that you could follow along, and I hope that next week when we start another study, it will be a blessing to you as well. Pastor Mensa Otabil, shalom, peace, and life to you.