<p>3:13 <i>Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory</i>- Our confidence in the Heavenly throne room explained in :12 should mean that nothing on earth makes us waver. They had heard and perhaps witnessed Paul's tribulations at Ephesus for them, and were aware he was in prison in Rome. He was a living exhibition of the sufferings which come from being &quot;in Christ&quot;. And it naturally made the converts worry at what might be coming their way. Instead of fearing as a result of Paul's sufferings, they were to instead glory in them.</p><p>&quot;Lose heart&quot; is a phrase elsewhere translated &quot;faint not&quot; and it occurs in Lk. 18:1: &quot;He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint&rdquo;. There are so many allusions by Paul to this verse and the ensuing parable. This shows just how like us Paul was; he had his favourite parables, one or two that really stuck in his mind, just as we do. And he alluded to them They were in his heart, to inspire and motivate him, just as the Lord intended. Paul picks up the idea of not fainting in 2 Thess. 3:13: &quot;Brethren, be not weary (s.w. &quot;not to faint&quot;) in well doing&quot; . What well-doing did Paul have in mind? Attending the Sunday meetings? Being patient with some difficult sister in the ecclesia? The connection with Lk. 18:1 tells us what he had in mind: keep on praying intensely. It's no co-incidence that Paul started that section of 2 Thess. 3 (in v.1) with the exhortation: &quot;Brethren, pray for us&quot;. And he concludes it with the same rubric: &quot;Brethren, be not weary&quot; (faint not), in your prayers. He knew from the parable that repeated prayer was powerful. And so he asks them to keep at it for him, because he needed it. Perhaps Paul had the same thing in mind here when he wrote to the Ephesians (3:13): &quot;In (Christ) we have boldness and access with confidence (to God, in prayer, cp. Heb. 4:16)... <i>wherefore</i> I desire that ye faint not (s.w. Lk. 18:1) at my tribulations&quot;; is he not implying 'You know how powerful prayer is, so don't faint in it, you know what struggles I'm having, <i>please</i> keep on praying for me, like that persistent widow in the parable'. This fits in with a number of other passages in which Paul unashamedly begs his brethren to pray for him. In this we see his humility, his high regard for other brethren who were almost certainly weaker than him, and also the physical desperation of his daily life.&nbsp;</p>