“For This Reason I Bow My Knees…”: How and Why Paul Prayed

The words we say indicate what’s on our minds. Prayer probes even deeper, revealing what is going on not only in our minds but also in our hearts. As our use of money and time tell something of our priorities, so, too, do our prayers.

When we come to the New Testament and to Paul’s letters, we recognize that the great apostle and preacher was a man of prayer. We get a glimpse of what Paul was like in private when he writes in Ephesians 3, “For this reason I bow my knees” (v. 14). He knew how to proclaim a big Christ from a lowly place—namely, on his knees in prayer. His public ministry was the outworking of his private devotion.

Prayer reveals what is going on not only in our minds but also in our hearts.

The basis for Paul’s praying was the Gospel. Chapters 1 and 2 tell us that much:

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit …. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. (Eph. 1:13; 2:19)

Having taught the Ephesians what was true of them, Paul the pastor then prayed that the Gospel would be experienced by them. Paul tied his instruction to the Ephesians with intercession for them. Then, having provided them with information, he prayed it home. Paul understood what many too easily forget: that “unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1). Paul was utterly dependent on God—and he showed it in prayer.

Paul’s pastoral prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21 reveals at least two principles for prayer, showing how preaching and prayer work together.

Prayer Is Selfless

First, the apostle highlights several dimensions of the selfless nature of prayer in verses 14–19.

Selfless in Expression

Prayer is, by definition, a selfless act. A self-assured person won’t pray. There’s no need to; he has everything already covered. Nor is a self-righteous person going to pray; she has no sin to confess, no praise to offer. But true prayer involves stooping low before a holy God, saying with Paul, “I bow my knees before the Father” (v. 14).

Jesus understood this. When we read the Gospels, we sense that Jesus was praying all the time—far more than what’s recorded for us. Consider the Upper Room Discourse, for example, in John’s Gospel. After instructing His disciples in chapters 13–16, Jesus then concludes His teaching with the great prayer in John 17.

Prayer is, by definition, a selfless act. A self-assured person won’t pray.

The lesson for us is clear: If Jesus Christ, the greatest teacher in the world, followed up His instruction by prayer, what of us? And if Paul, enabled by the Spirit of God to serve the churches, bowed before God in a Roman prison and prayed, what of us?

Whether we pray, how much we pray, and about what we pray says a great deal about our view of God and of self.

Charles Simeon, who served as minister at Holy Trinity Cambridge for fifty-four years, once remarked in a sermon that “it was more easy for a minister to preach and study five hours, than to pray for his people one half-hour.”¹ Tragic, but true! If we’re honest, many of us find it easier to talk to our colleagues than to talk with God. We are content being engaged in busy work rather than with slowing down and acknowledging God in prayer as we ought.

Selfless in Posture

Yet prayer is selfless not only in its expression but also in its posture. We find Paul on his knees before God in prayer, declaring with his posture what is in his heart: Without God, he is utterly helpless.

Jewish men generally prayed standing, not kneeling. This is why both the Jewish Pharisee and the Jewish tax collector in Jesus’ parable are standing, we’re told, in prayer (Luke 18:11–13). But Paul bows his knees, probably aware of the promise in Isaiah, in which “every knee shall bow” before God at the consummation of history (45:23).

Whether we pray, how much we pray, and about what we pray says a great deal about our view of God and of self.

The posture of our hearts before God is the issue. And Paul, gripped with awestruck wonder before the creator of every family on earth, stoops low before Him.

Selfless in Focus

Finally, and importantly, Paul doesn’t pray for himself in Ephesians 3. He prays that “you” may “be strengthened” (v. 16), “filled with all the fullness of God” (v. 19). These are selfless requests.

Writing from prison, the apostle doesn’t petition God for his release, nor does he ask for an improvement in his circumstances. Instead, making the most of every opportunity, he yearns for the cause of the Gospel to reach beyond his prison cell and to the nations.

Prayer Is Spiritual

Prayer, however, is not only selfless; it’s also spiritual—which may seem an obvious way to describe it!

Many of the matters that are the focus of contemporary prayers are absent in Paul’s prayer. For example, he wasn’t concerned chiefly with material matters, not because they weren’t pressing or were by nature invalid but because he recognized that the greatest need of men and women is spiritual, not physical.

Like us, the Ephesians had concerns for food, clothes, shelter, taxes, marriage, employment, and so on. Paul would have shared in this concern to some extent too. But Paul’s gaze was eternal. His most pressing needs existed in the spiritual realm.

Didn’t Jesus teach this very principle? Talking with His disciples, who were concerned about their food and their clothes, our Lord said,

I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? … Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matt. 6:25, 33)

In other words, prayer’s hub is always spiritual. As the hub on a bicycle wheel is the key to the whole thing functioning properly, so the spiritual nature of prayer is critical to a Christian’s vitality.

The posture of our hearts before God is the key issue in prayer.

It’s as if Paul reminds the Ephesians in praying this way, “Amid all your pressing needs, what matters is that you bow your knees before the Almighty. He knows what you need. He is what you need.”

The heart of what Paul is saying here lies in a little phrase in verse 21: “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” When a church has Christ, that church has everything. When a church doesn’t have Christ, that church has nothing.

May God’s people strive to be in Christ and to be like Christ, before whom we bow and on whom we depend for every matter.

This article was adapted from the sermon “I Bow My Knees — Part One” by Alistair Begg.