Being True to the Gospel under Powerful Threats. Reading scripture challenges our imagination and empathy, to put ourselves back in the situation of the writer and readers and hear the words as they heard them. Scripture is more than that, but it begins there. This text can seem bland or obsequious when read from a comfortable setting in modern times. But it is a text that affirms God’s heart expressed in worship in a time of vast uncertainty and threat, both from powers and divergent teaching. Put yourself in Ephesus, Roman provincial capital, about 3 years after Nero killed Christians in Rome after a great fire. [Tacitus] Things had been hard, but now the empire has given permission to denounce Christians and execute them. Some want to turn inward to become a group that doesn’t engage the world but focuses on special knowledge, speculation, and myth. Paul challenges Timothy to guide the community in prayer precisely for their fiercest enemies. What does it mean to Pray for All People and for the Emperor? Rome’s empire and politics were highly stratified. Christian communities had no ordinary power. They were too different to be incorporated into Rome’s “tolerant” paganism. But they could have railed against it. Instead, Paul draws on Jesus’ teaching to urge God’s inclusive vision.