Today's epistle reading is located in a portion of this pastoral letter that focuses primarily on issues of worship (2:1-3:16). The church is faced with disruptive personalities ("false teachers") and the hazardous, haphazard upwelling of wrong doctrine not to mention its precarious position amidst first-century opposition.

It is telling that the body of this letter (2:1-6:19) opens with a deceptively simple command to pray and to make that prayer all-inclusive. In today's text Paul asserts that there are both good social reasons (the desire to live in peace and quiet) and good theological reasons (there is truly only one God and one Redeemer) for this call to universality in prayer.

In 2:1 the primacy of prayer in all its forms is stressed. Paul specifically lists three different kinds …