One man with God is a majority

Mary Queen of Scots returns to Scotland from France in 1561 — a Catholic queen in a country that has just officially become Protestant. The encounters between her and Knox are among the most dramatic in the history of the Scottish Reformation.

They meet four times. Mary weeps. Knox does not weep back. He holds his ground with a directness that even his contemporaries find alarming.

In one interview Mary accuses Knox of raising rebellion against her mother and herself. Knox defends himself. Mary says he has spoken things too sharp for a subject to say to a prince. Knox says: Madam, I am not master of myself, but must obey him who commands me.

In another interview, when Mary weeps and Knox's supporters urge him to soften his position, Knox reportedly says: I never delighted in the weeping of any person, and much less can I rejoice in the weeping of your Majesty. But I must abide that your Grace and others take in good part what I cannot but affirm to be truth.

He is not cruel. He is immovable.

Mary eventually says of him: I fear the prayers of John Knox more than an army of ten thousand men.

This is the highest tribute anyone ever paid him, and she meant it as a complaint.

Mary's tribute to Knox — that she feared his prayers more than an army of ten thousand — reveals something about what genuine prayer looks like from the outside.

Prayer that is merely devotional produces a person who is warm and spiritual and essentially unthreatening to power. Prayer that is genuinely intercession with God produces a person whose alignment is somewhere else — who is not finally answerable to the person in front of them.

Knox was not disrespectful of Mary. He addressed her properly, served within the conventions of their relationship, wished her no harm. He simply could not be moved by her tears or her anger because he was answerable to someone else.

Are you trying to please man or God? It is a question that sounds simple and is not. The answer shapes every conversation you are in.