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Protection

             And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. Thessalonians 3:2-3)

             These verses seem to me to be a little out of kilter. Paul asks for prayer that he will be delivered from wicked and evil people then assures the Thessalonians that God will strengthen and protect them from the evil one. Two points should be made about this. First, in the first verse, Paul wrote about being protected from evil people. In the second, he wrote about being protected from the evil one. Those aren’t the same things. The other point is that Paul had been warned about what he would suffer. His request for prayer was a response to what he was facing and knew he would face, not to something that might happen.

            One of the ideas that comes to mind is that the evil one is less of a threat than the wicked and evil people. I’m not suggesting that we dismiss the evil one as a wimp. He’s not that by any stretch of the imagination. But he is not omnipresent, omniscient, or omnipotent. It might gratify our egos to be so significant that the devil focuses his personal attention on us. Yes, he has an army of fallen angels to help him, and there may be enough for one or more to focus on each person, and yes, God’s children are high-level targets. But I suspect that most of the time, other people and ourselves do more harm than the evil one or his army. So, when Paul asked for prayers for protection from evil people and assured the Thessalonians that the Lord would protect them from the evil one, his priorities may have been in the right direction.

            But, all that being said, here are still more valid points. We are assured that the Lord protects us. And we are commanded to pray for the protection of others, meaning it is appropriate to pray for it for ourselves as well since we are to love others as we love ourselves. 

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