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What does the Bible say prayer is? The Bible implies prayer to be the means of communication with God. It is the channel of all of our conversing with God. This means that all types of talking with God fall into the categories of prayer; thanksgiving, worship, supplications, intercessions, counsel, etc. The purpose of prayer is to simply ...
- Preface
- Chapter 1 What Prayer Is
- Chapter 2 A Prayer Tool Kit
- Conversing with God
- Chapter 3 The Place of Prayer in Christianity
- Counterfeit prayers
- Wishing
- Prayer's frequent companions
- Repenting
- Fasting
- Singing
- Practices that include prayer
- Chapter 4 The Progressive Revelation of Prayer
- Prayer in Early Human History
- Prayer during the Life of Christ
- Prayer in the Church
- Luke
- Summary
- Chapter 5 Theological Difficulties
- What the Bible Says about Man and Prayer
- What the Bible Says about God and Prayer
All my life I have had questions about prayer. Prayer and Bible study have been two of my primary interests most of my life thanks to the influence of Godly parents, a good home church, and certain influential friends and teachers. When I was scrounging around for a subject on which to write a doctoral dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary, w...
Most people think of prayer as a way to contact God. Consequently they practice prayer more or less frequently regardless of the religious label they attach to themselves. In a cartoon I saw some time ago, a little boy asked his atheist parents, "Do you think God knows we don't believe in Him?" Instinctively people believe in God. They have to conv...
My father was an avid do-it-yourselfer. Almost every Saturday he would work on some project around our house. Sometimes he would repair something that had broken or build something new. I would often help him during my elementary and high school years. We enjoyed working together. One of his do-it-yourself maxims was, "The right tool makes any job ...
Frequently when people pray they enter into simple conversation with God. I do not mean that God responds to them audibly or that God's response is part of prayer. As we noted in the last chapter, prayer as the Bible uses that term describes only our words to God, not His response to us. By simple conversation I mean to exclude the specific subject...
Jessica just began collecting postage stamps as a hobby. Her parents had given her a modest stamp album, and she had accumulated several dozen stamps. One afternoon she sat down with her stamps and her album intending to put her treasures neatly in their appropriate places in their new home. Immediately she realized that to get them organized and t...
As a Christian reads his or her Bible, one runs across certain practices that look very much like prayer. We ask ourselves, "Is this prayer, or something else?" It is important for us to identify phony prayer because if we do not do so our understanding of prayer will be inaccurate and we may not pray as we should.
One practice that looks remarkably like prayer and that many people confuse with prayer is wishing. I can remember saying, "I wish I had a million dollars." Is that a prayer? Was the Apostle Paul praying when he wrote, "Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you" (1 Thess. 3:11)? When Job said, "Oh that I knew where...
There are certain practices that often accompany prayer, as the Scriptures reveal. It is helpful to identify these things because to do so enables us to distinguish prayer from other legitimate practices associated with communication with God. When we recognize the important place that God has given prayer in His plan, we will want to give it it's ...
Repenting has clear connections with dedicating, and prayer normally accompanies it too. It is difficult to understand the biblical concept of repenting because the word has taken on connotations through English usage that it does not have in the original Greek of the New Testament. In English, repentance connotes a change of behavior. We are accus...
Prayer and fasting go together in numerous passages of Scripture. Fasting means going without food. Fasting usually occurred with prayer in the Bible though most commonly people prayed without fasting. The purpose of fasting for spiritual reasons was to devote the time and energy normally spent eating and drinking to a higher purpose. It was a way ...
Prayer and the singing of songs to God accompany one another too. Since psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are frequently expressions of praise, they often contain prayers (Col. 3:16). Psalms refer to the inspired poems in the Bible that God's people used in their private and public worship. Hymns are modern songs that express similar sentiments th...
There are three more practices of the Christian religion that have close connection with prayer. These practices do not merely accompany prayer, as those explained above. Prayer constitutes an integral part of these practices.
My uncle Richard—we called him Uncle Rich—was a fascinating person. When I was a boy, our family would occasionally drive down from Chicago to visit him in St. Louis. Uncle Rich lived in a Victorian house in which he had been born late in the nineteenth century. It had out buildings, a peach orchard, a well from which we drew drinking water, and mo...
For the purposes of our survey, this period begins with the creation of the cosmos and ends with the creation of the nation of Israel. The main sources of our information on this era are the Books of Genesis and Job. The first biblical prayer probably appears in Genesis 3:9-13. Here Adam expressed his thoughts and feelings to God. This may not ha...
In one sense, the Old Testament doctrine of prayer ends with the end of the Old Testament. In another sense, it continues into the period of the life of Christ since He lived under the laws that governed Israel. Prayer as people practiced it during Jesus' day was simply an extension of Old Testament practices. Thus prayer in the messianic period re...
For the purposes of this study, I am using the term "church" to describe a historical period beginning with Jesus' ascension into heaven and ending with the consummation of the present age. All the New Testament books describe this period, but the Gospels and the Book of Revelation deal mainly with what immediately preceded it and what will follow ...
Luke gave us invaluable insight into the life of the early church in Acts. There we see the disciples giving prayer a prominent place in their personal and corporate lives. The early Christians expressed the great dependence on God that they felt by praying frequently and fervently. The apostles considered prayer one of their primary duties along w...
In concluding this part of our study of prayer, let us note some of the more important comparisons and contrasts between prayer in the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament it was chiefly the Jews who prayed to the true God while in the New Testament both groups prayed on the same basis and with the same freedom. The basis of prayer in the O...
A few years ago a young man dropped by my office for a visit. He said he had been feeling guilty because he was not spending much time praying. What disturbed him even more was that he no longer felt a need to pray. I asked him why he felt that way. He replied that he had come to believe that whatever God wanted to happen would happen. So he had co...
The biblical revelation regarding the nature of human beings apparently conflicts with the biblical revelation about prayer in two particulars.
The biblical revelation about God also creates problems for some people when we think about prayer. Particularly God's love, His immutability, and His omniscience confuse us.
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Jan 1, 2014 · Tonight, we will outline our study of prayer and consider common, yet erroneous, concepts of prayer. An overview of this study Part 1: a systematic theology study of prayer. Before we can pursue this study, we need to have a biblically full definition of prayer. We have to take into account what the Bible generally says about prayer.
4. So much is recorded about people praying in the entire Bible! Concluding Thoughts Even though it may be hard to define prayer to everyone's satisfaction, it obviously is something that all of us do. In fact, Prayer seems to be a universal thing with human beings. It has been said that at least one time in a person's life he will pray—even ...
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Jul 17, 2023 · Prayer can result in submission, like Jesus in Gethsemane. Prayer can result in answers of yes, like the yes Abraham received when praying for Sodom (Genesis 18:16-33). Prayer can result in rest in God Himself, as with the tender confessions of the lamenters of Scriptures who find solace in God’s character and sovereign power.
informal. All prayer must be offered in faith (James 1:6), in the name of the Lord Jesus (John 16:23), and in the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26). As the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia puts it, “Christian prayer in its full New Testament meaning is prayer addressed to God as Father, in the name of Christ as Mediator, and through
1. In “The Power Of Prayer” we saw where prayer can provide... a. Forgiveness from God e. Boldness from God b. Peace from God f. Opportunity from God c. Strength from God g. Healing from God d. Wisdom from God h. Tranquility from God 2. Yet “The Privilege Of Prayer” is not available to all who pray; for some... a. Their prayers will be ...
