How to Pray for MissionariesSýnishorn

PRAY FOR OPEN DOORS AND OPEN HEARTS (Col 4:3-4)

The Word of God is central to all effective ministry, including prayer. The two go hand in hand. When praying for revival, for example, it is important to see the preaching of the Word as an indispensable ingredient. True revival is Word-based revival. To pray for revival is to pray for the gospel to be preached. To be revived without the gospel is impossible.  

So when the New Testament tells us to pray for missionaries, this is necessarily and implicitly an injunction to pray for the expansion of the gospel. This is why there is a regular focus on the preaching of God’s Word. 

In writing to the Colossian Christians, Paul asks them to pray that God would open a door for the Word, so he could declare the mystery of Christ and that his preaching would be effective and clear (Col 4:3-4). There are two major aspects here.

Open doors

It is not uncommon for missionaries to face closed doors. Increasingly in recent years, countries and cultures have tried to bar the preaching of the gospel. It is easy enough to find examples. So Paul specifically invited the Colossians to pray for God to open a door for the Word. 

Even unlikely incidents or circumstances may prove to be open doors, such as changed weather or economic conditions, political unrest, religious strife, modified attitudes or unexpected blessings. Sometimes closed doors mean moving on to where other doors are open, as Jesus said (Luke 10:10-12). Ironically, on one occasion, for Paul and Silas, an open door proved to be behind the closed door of a prison (Acts 16:16-40). The possibilities are vast.

Opportunities abound. But the opposite also applies. So we ask God to make a way. He does this through Jesus who holds the key of David and who opens what no one can shut and shuts what no one can open (Rev 3:7-8). In other words, it is Jesus, the ultimate King, who determines who enters and who leaves the royal presence. 

Open hearts

And this is the mystery of which Paul speaks. The word he uses here (musterion) might be better rendered as ‘secret’. It is not a mystery in the modern sense of something to which no one knows the answer, but a secret which is known to some, but not all. And this secret, hidden for generations, is that Christ is among us, bringing us together in wonderful fellowship here and now and offering us a sure and certain hope in the age to come (Eph 3;6; Col 1:27). 

So to pray for missionaries biblically and effectively is to pray that God will open doors for them so they in turn can open people’s hearts to the good news about Jesus.

This is the core of all mission—whether at home or abroad, whether through medical work or social work, whether through large churches or small prayer groups, whether through counselling or preaching—the core of all mission is to bring people to Christ. And for that we must never cease to pray.

  What next?

• What would an open door look like to a struggling missionary? List several examples.

• What aspects of the gospel could be described as a musterion to people even in our own society? Make a list.