Prayer

Corporate prayer (also called prayers of the people[i]) is a core function of the church. Therefore, prayer as it relates to the doctrine of the church is now discussed. But the topic of prayer includes more than just corporate prayer. Therefore, this section will address prayer in general, including corporate prayer, even though some of these issues are not directly related to the doctrine of the church.

Prayer can most generally be defined as an act of deliberate communication with God. This can occur in a private context (i.e., prayer by a single individual), in a social context (e.g., prayer by a small group of Christians such as before a family meal), or in a corporate context (e.g., prayer led by a pastor at a Sunday church service). Regardless of the context, prayer involves spending personal time with a personal God. A fundamental goal of all Christians should be to strengthen their personal relationship with God. As with all personal relationships, this requires spending quality time together. Without prayer, developing a close personal relationship with God is impossible. A strengthening prayer life is an indication of a strengthening relationship with God. A weakening prayer life is an indication of a weakening relationship with God.

Most Christians in the west associate prayer with words, either spoken aloud or spoken internally. This is type of prayer is called kataphatic (or cataphatic). More specifically, Kataphatic prayer utilizes positive content such as words, images, and/or ideas. In contrast, apophatic prayer does not use any positive content. Rather, apophatic prayer seeks to empty the mind of words and ideas and to directly experience the immediate presence of God. For example, centering prayer is a type of apophatic prayer. A centering prayer seeks to empty the mind and to center oneself completely in the presence of God. It involves choosing a sacred word that serves a similar function as a mantra. Centering prayer then involves relaxing and quieting, mentally repeating the sacred word, and coming back to the sacred word whenever anything else enters your thoughts. Many western Christians are initially uncomfortable with apophatic prayer, but it is common in Orthodox Christianity, has a long history of practice, and is not to be thought of as something appropriated from Hinduism or Buddhism.

Whereas the purpose of apophatic prayer is to directly experience the immediate presence of God, there are many different purposes for kataphatic prayer. There are different ways to classify these purposes, but a simple and helpful one is simply adoration, thanksgiving, repentance, and petition. These types of prayer roughly correspond to the acronym PRAY, which is a guide for one way to structure a prayer. P is for praising, corresponding to the first part of a prayer that focuses on adoration and thanksgiving. R is for repentance where sins are confessed, forgiveness is requested, and the forgiveness of others occurs. A is for asking, where God is petitioned for personal needs and/or the needs of others. And the PRAY prayer ends with Y, for yielding. This is where one attempts to listen to what God has to say in response to our prayer.

A similar guide to how to structure a prayer is the acronym ACTS. A is for adoration, C is for confession, T is for thanksgiving, and S is for supplication (humbly requesting something from God). Of course, a single prayer need not contain all of these elements, but a healthy prayer life will certainly contain them. Personally, I prefer the order of adoration, repentance, thanksgiving, petition, and hearing. But each Christian should find the structure of prayer that personally results in the closest feeling of intimacy with God.

With this introduction, it will be beneficial to examine some key Bible verses addressing prayer, allowing for a theological examination of the topic. This will be done for the topics of prayer life, prayers of comfort, prayers of repentance, prayers of petition, and general instructions on how to pray.

The following verses address prayer life in general:

• Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thes 5:16–18);
• Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving (Col 4:2); and
• This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us (1 Jn 5:14).

Christians are told to pray without ceasing. Therefore, a healthy prayer life will include regular prayers, prayers throughout the day, and a general mindset that is oriented towards God as much as possible. A classic short prayer that can be said often throughout the day is called the Jesus Prayer. A short version of the Jesus prayer is simply, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.” A somewhat longer version is, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We are to be devoted to prayer, and not see it as an obligation but to pray with a thankful attitude that God welcomes our prayers and wants to spend time with us. Last, if we pray according to God’s will, we can be assured that God hears our prayers.

The following verses address prayers of comfort:

• Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray (Jas 5:13).
• Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Phil 4:6); and
• Keep watching and praying, so that you do not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mt 26:41).

When Christians are suffering, the Bible says that they must pray. It is not one option among many to deal with the suffering condition, but something mandatory. Similarly, prayer should be the primary way that a Christian deals with anxiety. Last, comfort can come through prayers that request strength to resist sinful temptations and wisdom to avoid tempting situations in the first place.

The following verses address prayers of repentance:

• If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9);
• And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you for your offenses (Mk 11:25); and
• Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much (Jas 5:16).

Prayerful confession of sins is a requirement for forgiveness in the sense that unrepentant sins fail to admit that they are an offence to God and are acts of disobedience. Furthermore, requests for forgiveness should accompany the forgiveness of others. We should not expect God to forgive if we do not forgive. Furthermore, Christians are encouraged to not just confess their sins in private, but to do so in the presence of other Christians. This can be difficult, but sin can thrive when it exists as a secret. When a sin that previously existed in the darkness is exposed to the light of other Christians, it can be more easily conquered with the prayers, support, and accountability that comes with a public confession (see Eph 5:11-13).

The following verses address prayers of petition:

• Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you (Mk 11:24);
• And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it all (Mt 21:22);
• But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that person ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (Jas 1:6-8);
• You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures (Jas 4:3); and
• First of all, then, I urge that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made in behalf of all people, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity (1 Tm 2:1).

It is clear that God will answer all prayers that are done in strong belief and without any doubt. But if prayers do not seem to be answered, it should not be understood as due to a lack of faith or excessive doubt. Rather, God will typically answer all sincere prayers with one of three responses: (1) OK, I will answer that prayer; (2) OK, I will answer that prayer in due time, but not now; and (3) I hear your prayer, but trust that I have a better idea of how to respond. Last, we are particularly called to pray for people in authority, not just for personal acquaintances.

The following verses are how Jesus instructs how to pray.

• [Jesus says,] And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But as for you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use thoughtless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him (Mt 6:5–8); and
• [Jesus says,] Pray, then, in this way: “Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Mt 6:9–15).

The first point that Jesus makes is to not use prayer to impress others of your piety. This instruction is naturally obeyed when praying in private, but can also be obeyed when leading a social or communal prayer. Jesus also gives us an example in the Lord’s Prayer, which seems to be intended to be prayed in groups since it begins with “Our Father.” Notice that the Lord’s Prayer starts with adoration and submission, followed by petition. It ends with repentance, including the forgiveness of others. Prayers can contain other elements such as thanksgiving, but Christian’s cannot go wrong when following the form of the Lord’s Prayer or even reciting the Lord’s Prayer as it appears in Scripture.

The Lord’s Prayer is addressed to the Father, and Jesus consistently addresses His prayers to the Father. It is therefore apparent that it is acceptable for Christians to address their prayers to the Father. But is this the only acceptable option? Praying directly to Jesus is demonstrated when Stephen prays before his death, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” Praying directly to the triune God is demonstrated when the Apostles prayed for wisdom when selecting a replacement for Judas, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all people, show which one of these two You have chosen” (Acts 1:24). There are no direct examples of prayers directed to the Holy Spirit, but the book of Jude refers to “praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20). It seems, therefore, that praying to any one of the persons of the triune God is equivalent to praying to any of the others as well as the triune God as a whole. But each is a separate Person, and it may be more comfortable for some to pray to the Person more particularly ascribed to what is involved in a particular prayer. For example, one might pray to the Father for general thanksgiving and forgiveness, to the Son for issues related to salvation, and to the Holy Spirit for issues related to sanctification and guidance.

A difficult issue in theology is the impact of prayer on God. Will God, in His infinite wisdom, really change what He would otherwise do based on our prayers of petition? The Bible teaches that God is unchangeable, and it also teaches us that our prayers will be answered. This issue is therefore one that cannot be fully understood by humans and must remain a mystery. But there is much anecdotal evidence for the power of prayer to head and clinical evidence as well. Consider the following peer reviewed study that involved about 400 patients with coronary disease. The study randomly selected groups of about 200 and assigned remote prayer teams to members of one group and no prayer teams for the other. Both the patients and the physicians did not know which patients were assigned to prayer teams. The results were the following:

“It was found that although the patients were well matched at entry, the prayer patients showed significantly superior recovery compared to controls (p<.0001). The prayed-for patients were five times less likely than control patients to require antibiotics and three times less likely to develop pulmonary edema. None of the prayed-for patients required endotracheal intubation, whereas 12 controls required such mechanical ventilatory support. Fewer prayed-for-than control patients died, but the difference in this area was not statistically significant. The design and the results of the Byrd study are impressive, and even skeptical commentators seem to agree on the significance of the findings.”[ii]

Further evidence of the power of prayer in healing is exhaustively treated by Craig Keener in his two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of New Testament Accounts. Keener started his project to simply demonstrate that miracle claims like those in the NT are still common today. After carefully investigating many hundreds of account, he finds that some have no easy non-miraculous explanations. He finds fifteen cases where a supernatural explanation is the most plausible (assuming a supernatural explanation is not a priori excluded from consideration), nine more that are very probably supernatural or almost certainly supernatural. A few of these include:

• A blind man with cataracts is instantly healed with witnesses seeing his eyes visibly changing;
• A child with no vital signs for twenty minute comes back to life after prayer, and later completes a master’s degree;
• An infant with severe burns is healed after one day of prayer, leaving no scars; and
• A person with congenital deafness and a limp is healed during prayers with the leg measurably lengthening over several minutes.[iii]

And so there need be no tension for the Christian concerned with whether there is room for both science and miracles through prayers in the world. At least in Keener’s investigations, many miracles were a result of corporate prayer efforts of local churches. God, of course, can perform miracles through prayer if He so chooses. And there is strong evidence that God, at least sometimes, does perform miracles through prayer.

[Next Topic: Doctrine of Last Things]

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[i]        Prayers that are offered on behalf of others who are gathered together in the context of worship are traditionally referred to as prayers of the people. A wonderful book of prepared prayers on a variety of subjects is Prayers of the People: The Privilege and Practice of Praying for Others, by Bruce Finfrock.

[ii]        William Braud, “Empirical Explorations of Prayer, Distant Healing, and Remote Mental Influence,” The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research, April 1994: 64.

[iii]       Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, vol. 2, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing: 752-756.