Life Notes
“Prayer and the Kosmos 1 Cor. 2:12
Why pray? When we pray who in the world (kosmos) are we praying to? The Greek word for world is kosmos. Perhaps you remember the television series called, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Carl Sagan and others were the writers and Sagan was the narrator. As Sagan pontificated, the Cosmos is the source of understanding.
Compare this to what the Apostle Paul wrote. “Now we have not received the spirit of the world (kos’mos), but the Spirit of God who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God (1 Cor 2:12). As Paul explains, the kos’mos is this age, this belief in the creation instead of the creator, which makes the cosmos the antithesis of the Spirit of God. Paul continues, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” 1 Cor. 2:13
Our God who created the kosmos gives us the Spirit to guide and lead us in spiritual truth which includes the command and the invitation to seek Him, to relate with Him in the Word and prayer. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Paul writes in Romans 8:26, “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Life Received, Life Together, Life Giving- John 10:10
Question of the week: Where do we find the Lord’s Prayer in the Scriptures?
Answer: The Lord’s Prayer, was taught by Jesus to his disciples. Two forms of it are recorded in the New Testament: a longer form in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke as a response by Jesus to a request by “one of his disciples” to teach them “to pray as John taught his disciples.”
