“I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” 

Here in 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul makes clear that the men of the church must pray. Instead of letting ego and competition lead them to quarreling, the men are to lift their hands in prayer. Earlier in 1 Timothy 2, he began this theme of speaking to God by urging that “supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people.” Who is to be making these prayers? The men of the church. Of course, it would be radically amiss to assume that Paul did not want the women of the church to be praying as well (for example, see Acts 1:14).But perhaps Paul makes this emphasis in 1 Timothy because we as men struggle with prayer and with prayer gatherings. If getting together and arguing is more your style of getting things done, maybe you should come and argue with God. If prayer feels unstructured, then perhaps this is the prayer meeting you’ve been waiting for. We will eat. And then we will have 45 minutes of pleading with God according to the promises in his word. We will echo back to God what he has spoken to us in his Psalms and in other parts of Scripture. We will read prayers from church history to show us how people have prayed from the first century until today. And then, right at 8:00, we will say the Lord’s Prayer and be done.

This prayer dinner is designed to get right to the issue. We will plead with God to bless the ministry of the word here at Tenth in all of its venues. We will plead with God to draw sinners to Jesus here in Philadelphia. And we will plead with God to bless and encourage Tenth’s global partners that they might bear fruit in bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth. Whether you are a man or a woman, this prayer dinner is for you. We all approach the throne of grace together because of the blood of Christ. No one should ever feel like prayer is not for them. Prayer is our way of responding back to God after we hear his promises to us in his word. Prayer is the way the Spirit leads us to respond with adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication when we see Jesus’ work on the Cross. 

This Tuesday night is for you. We will start at 6:45 and be done at 8:00. We will eat soup and sandwiches.* And there we (men and women, adults and children) will pray, knowing that Jesus, our sympathetic high priest bids us to boldly approach his throne. Why will we do this? That we might find grace and help in our time of need (Hebrews 4). Clearly we need the grace of God at Tenth, so let’s gather around food and his word eager to meet with our gracious heavenly Father.

*The dinner is free—you can donate two–three dollars if you’d like to contribute to next month’s prayer dinner on July 7.