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Romans 1:8

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.

It is noted that most ancient greco-roman letters began with a thanksgiving and a prayer section. Paul follows this pattern in most of his letters, and vv.8-12 is Paul’s thanksgiving and prayer messages to the Romans. One can see, here in v.8, that Paul doesn’t know the Romans personally because the thing he thanks God for is that the Romans’ faith being reported all over the world. Furthermore, there is a continuing theme of Paul wanting to build good rapport with the Romans, as one of his purposes in writing is to admonish some of their matters of theology, while still maintaining that both he and the Romans share a faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

How does giving thanks to God… work?  There seems to be differences from church to church and even household to household about whether people begin their prayers as ‘Dear God’ or ‘Dear Jesus’. Is either a theologically correct way of praying?Paul here in v.8 says ‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ’. That would imply, as Douglas Moo writes, that ‘[it is] an indication that Christ is the one who has created the access to God for such thanks to be offered.’  Looking in the Bible, all the prayers in the Old Testament are directed to ‘Lord’ or ‘God’, because Jesus had not come to earth yet. In the New Testament, which is mainly made up of letters from Paul, there seems to be a bit more of a split between praying to ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), which is the Jesus tells his followers to pray, begins with ‘Our Father in Heaven,’- that is God. When we pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit, we are ultimately still praying to God, because they are all part of the trinity. As John Piper says, ‘Pray to God the Father in the power of God the Spirit, by the authority and the merit of God the Son’. For more on this topic, check out ‘Should I Pray to the Father, the Son, or the Spirit?‘ on Desiring God’s website.

ASK YOURSELF: How is your prayer life? Are you in constant conversation with God throughout your day?

Dear God, I pray that you will help me see the beauty and wonder that is a relationship with you. Thank you for everything you bless me with. Please help those around me to see you as the source of their blessings. Thank you for everything you do to point me towards a reliance on you. Amen.