In Luke 11, Jesus goes right from a long teaching on prayer (Luke 11:1–13) to casting out a demon (Luke 1:14). There’s no transition between these seemingly disparate stories, but shouldn’t there be? If you grasp the way Luke has portrayed prayer in his Gospel so far, the seemingly abrupt shift makes more sense.

In Luke, prayer is directly connected with God’s activity in the world. This is the fundamental concept: God acts in the world through prayer. Because this is true, it’s no wonder it was customary even for Jesus to go away into desolate places and pray (Luke 5:16). Even when the divine Son was on earth, God’s power impacted the world (and Luke’s story) through prayer. Let me show you what I mean.

Apocalypse

In Luke, apocalypses tend to happen while people are praying. God appears to Zechariah, “while a crowd of people are praying” outside the temple (Luke 1:10). While Jesus was praying, after being baptized, there is an apocalypse where the Father breaks into the world, anoints Jesus with the Spirit, and reveals Jesus as the Messiah and divine Son (Luke 3:21). From a time of prayer, Jesus reveals to his disciples clearly that he is the Christ and begins explicitly reshaping how they think about the concept of Messiah, helping them understand his path of exaltation in terms of suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension (Luke 9:18ff). Jesus goes to the top of a mountain to pray with three disciples, and it is while he is praying that he is transfigured, revealing his divine nature and shared identity with Yahweh (Luke 9:28–29).

Following

Because God acts in the world through prayer, Jesus prays and he teaches his disciples to do the same. Jesus spent the whole night in prayer before the day when he called the twelve apostles (Luke 6:12–13). In light of the way God breaks into the world through prayer, Jesus teaches his disciples to respond to human conflict through prayer. In Luke’s Sermon, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray for people who mistreat them (Luke 6:28). This is surely a practical way to refrain from “judging others” and allowing God to work on one’s behalf (Luke 6:37; Romans 14:13; 1 Corinthians 4:5). Because God acts in the world through prayer, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done (Luke 11:1–2). The underlying assumption seems to be that through prayer, God’s kingdom will come and the world will flourish because God’s presence in the world is what makes it flourish (à la Genesis 1–2). Disciples should pray for their daily provisions of both food and reconciliation with God (Luke 11:4–13). They need both. Through prayer, disciples will receive (1) the physical necessities of life that they need, and through prayer they will receive (2) the experience of forgiveness that they need to trust God and walk in confidence that he will act in their world and lives.

Conclusion

Luke’s broader portrait of prayer leading up to chapter 11 helps make sense of the quick transition from Luke 11:1–13 to a story about Jesus casting out a demon in the next verse. By the time you reach the middle of chapter 11, Luke has made clear that God powerfully acts in the world through prayer. Through prayer, God breaks into the world with revelation about his identity in Christ, he brings physical and psychological healing through prayer, and he confronts both human opposition and the forces of darkness through prayer. In Luke, it is through prayer that people become conduits of God’s Spirit, bringing new creation wholeness to a world fractured by sin and the snake.