1 Timothy 2:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I exhort therefore Seeing God is so gracious, and thou art intrusted with the office of the ministry, I give thee this in charge among other things. He proceeds to give directions, 1st, With regard to public prayers; and, 2d, With regard to doctrine. That supplications To prevent evil; prayers To procure good; intercessions On behalf of others; and giving of thanks For mercies received; be made for all men Chiefly in public. “Supplications, δεησεις,” says Whitby, “are deprecations for the pardon of sin, and averting divine judgments; προσευχαι, prayers, for the obtaining of all spiritual and temporal blessings; εντευξεις, intercessions, addresses presented to God for the salvation of others. And by this rule were the devotions of the church continually directed. For, saith the author of the book De Vocatione Gentium, ‘there is no part of the world in which the Christian people do not put up such prayers as these, praying not only for the saints, but for infidels, idolaters, the enemies of the cross, and the persecutors of Christ's members; for Jews, heretics, and schismatics.'” Of prayer in general we may observe, it is any kind of offering up of our desires to God. But the true, effectual, fervent prayer, which St. James speaks of as availing much, implies the vehemency of holy zeal, the ardour of divine love, arising from a calm, undisturbed soul, moved upon by the Spirit of God. “By this exhortation,” says Macknight, “we are taught, while men live, not to despair of their conversion, however wicked they may be, but to use the means necessary thereto, and to beg of God to accompany these means with his blessing.”