the subterranean method
you also joining in helping us through your prayers… For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (2 Corinthians 1.11; 10.4)
I do not know a devoted Jesus follower who does not want their whole life to count for Christ. Each of us wants to be used by God to influence people and participate in the eternal legacy of Jesus Christ. We, who have been embraced and empowered by His love and grace, naturally want to express His love and grace to others. Let me suggest one method that is tried and true— it has changed individuals, transformed whole families, demolished walls of racism and ethnic strife, and it has even toppled civilizations. I shall call it the “subterranean method”— you know it more simply as prayer.
There is a fascinating verse in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians where he invites their prayerful support for his evangelistic work. In 2 Corinthians 1.11, the word translated as “helping together” is a compound word that contains the word, “underneath.” In context the beginning of the verse literally says: “You also helping underneath together in prayer.” Why would he choose to employ this word only here instead of the other words for help he draws upon more commonly? What could such a phrase mean to Paul? Could it be he was thinking of the fortresses that were such common structures in the ancient world? Evangelism involves storming strongholds in people’s lives, but frequently a frontal personal assault is often ineffective just like storming the fortresses of the ancient world. Instead, what is needed is a tunnel. This will require a common and sustained effort. Such work is unseen and unsung. But it is crucial if the fortress is to be taken. Prayer is like that. It assails the inner recesses of a person’s will in a way that all our talking cannot.
J. I. Packer writes:
“However clear and cogent we may be in our presentation of the gospel, we have no hope of convincing and converting anyone. Can you or I, by earnest talking break the power of Satan over a person’s life? No! Can you or I give life to the spiritually dead? No! Can we hope to convince sinners of the truth of the gospel by patient explanation? No! Can we hope to move people to believe the gospel by any words of entreaty that we may utter? No! Our approach to evangelism is not realistic until we have faced this shattering fact, and let it make its proper impact upon us.”
Now, let me confess to you at once that all of this is counter-intuitive for me. By temperament, I would much rather storm walls than tunnel away in prayer. But time and experience continue to confront me with the reality that it is the tunneling that counts and prevails.
Foolish is the Christian— and I have frequently been the fool— who does not remember that reality exceeds the yardstick of the scientist. There are natural laws for the realities of nature, and there spiritual laws that are natural to the realities of the Kingdom of God. In the natural realms, gravity can exert a force that causes things to fall. In spiritual realms prayer can exert a force that, while unseen in the natural, has the capacity to cause “things” to fall.
The fall of Jericho (Joshua 6) testifies to the power of God’s ways. God instructed the Israelites to march around Jericho for six days in a huge worship procession. Then, on the seventh day, they marched again, gave a shout unto the Lord, and the city walls collapsed. Israel’s victory was not the fruit of their prodigious vocal strength! Victory came because something “subterranean” was happening in the spiritual realm that would breach the structural integrity of the walls in the natural realm.
The movement of God always begins in “spiritual places.” The call to Abraham, the Exodus, the selection of David, the prophet’s vision, the coming of Jesus, the day of Pentecost— from where did these come? From the realms of nature of the realm of the Spirit? Prayer is the one tool that God has given us to impact the fallen spiritual realm, which buttresses the bastions of evil, sin, and brokenness in and around us.
So, if you feel like you are banging your head against a wall that will not budge, perhaps it’s time to start tunneling…
