When he was asked whether somebody else’s faith will secure salvation for a person, he [Martin Luther] replied, “By all means! In fact, the faith of one person may obtain another’s whole conversion. Accordingly it’s said that Paul was converted and saved by Stephen’s prayer. However, Paul wasn’t accepted on account of Stephen’s faith, but Stephen’s faith obtained faith for Paul from God and by this faith he was saved in God’s sight. Many people have been preserved by prayer, as we prayed Philip back to life.Ah, prayer accomplishes much.”
Somebody else asked, “But, Doctor, wasn’t Paul converted long after the death of Stephen?”
The doctor responded, “Not at all! He was converted that same year. He was still a fine, young man and was learned. He adhered to the righteousness of the law: ‘By doing these things a man shall live’. He thought he was pleasing God in this way. It’s impossible that God shouldn’t hear a prayer of faith. Whether he always does is another matter. God doesn’t give according to the prescribed measure, but he presses it down and shakes it together, as he said.
“This is what Augustine’s mother did. She prayed to God that her son might be converted. But nothing seemed to help. She approached all sorts of learned men and asked them to persuade her son. At length she proposed to him that he marry a Christian girl in order that she might bring him back, but it didn’t work. But when our Lord God came along he acted effectively and made such an Augustine out of him that he’s now called an ornament of the church. So James said well, ‘Pray for one another,’ etc., for ‘the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects’. This is one of the best verses in that epistle. Prayer is a powerful thing, if only one believes in it, for God has attached and bound himself to it [by his promises].”
