1 John 5:14-17 Pray for a sinning brother

1 John 5:14-17 This seems a strange coda at the end of John's summary. The issue of answered and unanswered prayer. The key is obviously that if we pray the Father's will, He hears and grants the request. But that raises a few questions. If it is the Father's will, why does He need or want us to pray it? Why doesn't He just do His will? How do we know what His will is? What happens if we pray outside the Father's will? And then John focuses in on a specific issue, praying for a brother caught in a trespass. And there is a distinction between a sin leading to death and a sin not leading to death.

          Starting with the last question first, what is the unforgivable sin? According to Jesus, that sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 12:31-32, Luke 12:10) What did Jesus mean? In context, He referred to the preceding passage, in which He had performed a miraculous healing, and the Pharisees had attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil (Beelzebub in that passage). So the implication is that anyone who is so completely twisted and turned from God that he or she sees the work of God and attributes it to Satan is unable to respond to the work of God in his or her life. And that is by choice. So praying for that person is useless. But if a person commits an act of sin but has not rejected the working of God (in their life or in the world) then there is still hope for that person. If we pray for that person, God will answer. The answer may be in the form of trials and tribulation, but that would be for the purpose of rescuing that person's soul. (see 1 Corinthians 5:5)

          Turning to the question of why God wants us to pray His will, the entirety of the Bible suggests that God's purpose in creating Adam and Eve, was to give man charge concerning stewardship of the earth, in partnership with Him. Each person is assigned a specific role, which could be as lowly as peeling carrots in the kitchen, or as lofty as receiving and recording the Law of God for mankind. But within every role of pastoral responsibility, God's plan was simply that it should be exercised in partnership with God. And, of course, that was where Adam fell, because he decided to do it his way and ignore God's directions. But in this case, a person who sees a brother sinning should pray according to the Father's will, and He will answer. And this same principle applies to prayers in any other aspect of life.

          How do we know the Father's will? Many books have been written on this subject. Although His will is always consistent with His word, discernment is best learned by practice. (See Hebrews 5:14) The challenge is the step of applying the truths of scripture to the specifics of a given situation. The Father's perspective is different from ours. So how do we learn to understand how He would have us apply the truths of scripture to a particular instance? The paradigm for Christian growth seems to be shepherding or mentoring. In every relationship described (for example in Ephesians 4-6), we are instructed that the one having authority is responsible to pastor and nurture. So it is in the context of family and community that we individually learn to discern. And this is only possible because love is the defining virtue of Christian fellowship.