Objection: God Wants You to Bring SUPPLICATIONS and REQUESTS to HIM (Philippians 4:6), Not to “Take Authority” Yourself
We can’t argue with Scripture, and Philippians 4:6 does command the following:
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
So does this mean that everything is a request that we let God adjudicate rather than something we receive by faith?
No, Scripture can’t contradict itself. These instructions concern what you should do regarding OTHER people for whom you intercede. If it’s YOUR need, Jesus didn’t say to take it as a request or supplication to God. He said, “Whatever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24). You can receive anything that YOU need from God yourself. But you cannot receive on behalf of someone else (unless we’re talking about a small child in your family; such matters are covered elsewhere in this book). You can PRAY for others, but that is where supplications and requests come in.
If you look at other places where the Greek word translated supplication is used, it is either indefinite whose need is being specified or it is explicitly stated that SOMEONE ELSE’s need is the subject of the request. For example:
Romans 10:1: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
2 Corinthians 1:11: “Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.”
2 Corinthians 9:14: “And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you.”
Ephesians 6:18: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;”
Philippians 1:4: “Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,”
Philippians 1:19: “For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,”
1 Timothy 2:1: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;”
2 Timothy 1:3: “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;”
James 5:16: “Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
Note that James was talking about prayer for one another in the verse above.
I think you can see a pattern in these verses. The prayers are for other people. You cannot receive for them and you cannot control or override their free wills. You can make requests to God on their behalf, and that appears to be the gist of Philippians 4:6.
The word for requests is only used two other places to mean required and petitions, so we don’t have as much insight about that word’s shades of meaning. In Luke 23:24, “And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required” doesn’t sound much like a “humble” take-it-or-leave-it petition, and in 1 John 5:15, “And we know that if he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” refers to praying a prayer in definite faith, knowing God’s will in advance, which is the opposite of what the objector is saying that we should do.
So if you study this out, you can see that the objection falls flat on its face. There are plenty of Scriptures about having and using authority, so there is no way that this particular verse could negate the “authority” verses and cause Scripture to contradict itself.