And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel…that therin I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
—Ephesians 6:19-20
“And for me”—what light these words cast on the deep reality of Paul’s faith in the absolute necessity and the wonderful power of prayer! What did he ask the Ephesians to pray for? “That utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly…that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” By this time, Paul had been a minister of the gospel for more than twenty years. One might think that he had such experience in preaching that it would come naturally to him to “speak boldly, as [he] ought to speak.” But so deep was his conviction of his own insufficiency and weakness, so absolute was his dependence on divine teaching and power, that he felt that he could not do the work as it should have been done without the direct help of God. The sense of his total and unalterable dependence on God, who was with him, teaching him what and how to speak, was the basis for all his confidence and the keynote of his whole life.
But there is more. In his twenty years of ministry, there were innumerable times when his circumstances were so bad that he was left to throw himself upon God alone, with no one to help him in prayer. And yet, such was his deep spiritual insight into the unity of the body of Christ, and into his own actual dependence on the prayers of others, that he pleaded with them to pray “with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication” (verse 18),and he asked them not to forget to pray for him. Just as a wrestler cannot afford to dispense with the help of the weakest members of his body in the struggle in which he is engaged, so Paul could not do without the prayers of the believers.
What a call to us in this century, to awake to the consciousness that Christ our Intercessor in heaven, and all believers here upon earth, are engaged in one mighty battle! It is our duty to call out and cultivate the gift for the power of God’s Spirit in all His servants, so that all may be given divine utterance and all “may speak boldly, as [they] ought to speak.”