The apostle says further, “with all diligence.” These are all important things for the battle that this discourse is about, because lazy people are not suitable for it and laziness is the devil’s clothing against a person. Even though the devil would not have access to us any other way, he has it very easily through laziness because he gets at the whole person by being clothed in it. But diligence accumulates much goodness and compels God to do good to us, as He Himself says, “He who seeks finds.” (Luke 11: 10) Again He says, “For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance” (Matthew 13: 12), that is, to the one who has desire, diligence, and faith. That is why diligence is necessary for us in everything, because this life is given to us so that we reach eternal life through painstaking labors and many temptations. Diligence is also necessary in everything because of the devil, so that we do not give him any grounds against us by forsaking goodness and doing good things abominably. That way, he will not identify insincere halfheartedness in us, or see that we are doing God’s works as a debt. The devil understands how he has access to us, because we betray ourselves to him through laziness and doing God’s works abominably. He understands what things he can accomplish in a person who he finds so half-hearted in battle. The devil afflicts him as soon as he catches sight of the nearest cause for evil.
Then the apostle insists that they pray for him and for the saints who labor here in good works and trials. The reason they should pray for the saints is so that they stand firm in goodness, because God’s commandment is that they love one another. Therefore, because of that commanded love, they should pray for one another that they might be saved, remaining in goodness. But the apostle commands them to pray for him with good reason. He points out the particular need for which he requests that they pray for him, saying, “…that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Good News.” In those words the apostle demonstrates that there is no sufficiency in him to be able to learn these kinds of things and make the mystery of the gospel known. Such ability must be a particular gift of God. And I say particular because not every gift is sufficient for that. The apostle had God’s gift for preaching the gospel, but did not have the complete gift at that moment to know the mystery and wisdom of God and make them manifest to others for their good. Such secrets were not revealed to the apostles so plainly without their own and other saints’ prayers for them.
Spiritual battle is too awful for us unsafe people unless we pray to God that He would give us His gifts to make the mystery of the gospel manifest. That is why we are useless, powerless, and insincere and exhibit many heresies through the gospel–not only because of the limits of unfamiliar words and understandings, but we ourselves are dead and desolate. For that reason, we do not make the mystery of the gospel’s hidden truth plain. Instead, we sow the heresies that were hidden by the devil a long time ago under the pretext of the gospel, just as great evil and perilous things are renowned in the Czech lands in these days, which came about because there are many blind teachers. When these kinds of spiritual people do not operate with faith according to God’s gifts and the revelation of spiritual light, but simply according to literary writings, they cannot comprehend any written words–even though there will be many such writings and it is not possible for them to grasp the true meaning of faith without the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We see it clearly in such leaders today, that they only work on collecting many books written by various intellectuals. Whenever they find out about something new, they immediately buy it and pay a lot of money for it because it is written for people like them. They are lifted up in pride when they collect many of these scholarly books, as if they were already very competent. But they do not exercise anything of faith in collecting those many books–first because they cannot understand them, and second because those many intellectuals do not agree with each other. Some interpret the scriptures directly according to faith, and others slacken off and incompetently record and interpret things erroneously because they themselves have led evil lives. That is why these kinds of immature people,
44
