One More Thing (maybe)…On Public Prayer

Historically, spiritual revival most often begins with intensive, focused prayer. I believe all Christians (especially me) can improve in their prayer life  (particularly in the area of public or corporate prayer) so in addition to practicing praying I often seek advice to improve my prayer.  I found the following very informative regarding public prayer and want to share it with you.

Prepare Your Public Prayers: Helpful Advice from D. A. Carson

"If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers. It does not matter whether the form of spiritual leadership you exercise is the teaching of a Sunday school class, pastoral ministry, small-group evangelism, or anything else: if at any point you pray in public as a leader, then work at your public prayers.

Some people think this advice distinctly corrupt.  It smells too much of public relations, of concern for public image.  After all, whether we are praying in private or in public, we are praying to God: Surely he is the one we should be thinking about, no one else.

This objection misses the point.  Certainly if we must choose between trying to please God in prayer, and trying to please our fellow creatures, we must unhesitatingly opt for the former.  But that is not the issue.  It is not a question of pleasing our human hearers, but of instructing them and edifying them.

The ultimate sanction for this approach is none less than Jesus himself.  At the tomb of Lazarus, after the stone has been removed, Jesus looks to heaven and prays, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me” (John 11:41-42).  Here, then, is a prayer of Jesus himself that is shaped in part by his awareness of what his human hearers need to hear.

The point is that although public prayer is addressed to God, it is addressed to God while others are overhearing it.  Of course, if the one who is praying is more concerned to impress these human hearers than to pray to God, then rank hypocrisy takes over.  That is why Jesus so roundly condemns much of the public praying of his day and insists on the primacy of private prayer (Matt. 6:5-8).  But that does not mean that there is no place at all for public prayer.  Rather, it means that public prayer ought to be the overflow of one’s private praying.  And then, judging by the example of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, there is ample reason to reflect on just what my prayer, rightly directed to God, is saying to the people who hear me.

In  brief, public praying is a pedagogical opportunity.  It provides the one who is praying with an opportunity to instruct or encourage or edify all who hear the prayer.  In liturgical churches, many of the prayers are well-crafted, but to some ears they lack spontaneity.  In nonliturgical churches, many of the prayers are so predictable that they are scarcely any more spontaneous than written prayers, and most of them are not nearly as well-crafted.  The answer to both situations is to provide more prayers that are carefully and freshly prepared.  That does not necessarily mean writing them out verbatim (though that can be a good thing to do).  At the least, it means thinking through in advance and in some detail just where the prayer is going, preparing, perhaps, some notes, and memorizing them.

Public praying is a responsibility as well as a privilege.  In the last century, the great English preacher Charles Spurgeon did not mind sharing his pulpit: others sometimes preached in his home church even when he was present.  But when he came to the “pastoral prayer,” if he was present, he reserved that part of the service for himself.  This decision did not arise out of any priestly conviction that his prayers were more efficacious than those of others.  Rather, it arose from his love for his people, his high view of prayer, his conviction that public praying should not only intercede with God but also instruct and edify and encourage the saints.

Many facets of Christian discipleship, not least prayer, are rather more effectively passed on by modeling than by formal teaching.  Good praying is more easily caught than taught.  If it is right to say that we should choose models from whom we can learn, then the obverse truth is that we ourselves become responsible to become models for others.  So whether you are leading a service or family prayers, whether you are praying in a small-group Bible study or at a convention, work at your public prayers."

D.A. Carson, “A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Baker, 1992), 34-35.

Originally posted by Brian Hedges on Wednesday, September 25, 2013.  

Evaluating Our Corporate Prayers

Ligon Duncan shares some thoughts of Samuel Miller (1769-1850; a Presbyterian theologian who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary) regarding corporate prayer in an article published in the 9Marks Journal titled “Thirty Two Principles for Public Prayer”.  Duncan writes, “Those who regularly bear the solemn responsibility of leading the congregation in public prayer are here again encouraged to study and reflect on this important matter. The consistent devotional use of such helps as Matthew Henry's Method for Prayer should be a helpful aid in preparing for such an awesome privilege and duty. In the introduction Samuel Miller's Thoughts on Public Prayer has already been commended, but perhaps an enumeration of some of Miller's main principles and admonitions will whet the reader's appetite for more and prove useful in evaluating our own efforts in corporate prayer.

Miller detected the following common faults in the public praying of the church in his day and they remain applicable to our own.”

Duncan then lists Miller’s eighteen frequent faults in public prayer followed by fourteen characteristics of a good public prayer.

I would recommend reading the complete article at http://www.9marks.org/journal/thirty-two-principles-public-prayer

Improving Public or Corporate Prayer

…….one reason why previous generations of evangelicals were more Biblically literate than ours is that there was more Bible content in their services than in ours. The word preached and the word prayed and the word sung were constantly reinforcing each other. The romanticism of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emptied our hymns of most of their biblical and theological content. As noted above, only fragments of scriptural expression remain in our songs. We've already commented on the state of preaching and praying. The irony that the churches that profess to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture make such little use of Scripture and are becoming increasingly ignorant of Scripture is bitter indeed. What a difference it will make if you will call the people to worship with Scripture, invoke the presence of God with scriptural praise, sing a metrical Psalm, confess sins using Scripture language, read the Scripture, preach an expository sermon, sing a scriptural hymn, build your intercessions around the five categories found in Scripture, used by the early church, and revived by the Reformers, and conclude with a scriptural benediction. This done, Sunday morning and evening, fifty-two weeks a year, year after year will build a strong church, one characterized by scriptural literacy and spiritual maturity. If you worship in this way your growth may be slower than is acceptable to many. It may require that one take a longer view than is customary today. One may not gather large crowds overnight. But in the long run a church that builds a foundation like this on the words of Christ, will endure like a rock, and not be shaken.

Excerpted from an article "Recommendations for Improving Public Prayer" by Terry Johnson and published in the 9Marks Journal.

The entire article is available at http://www.9marks.org/journal/recommendations-improving-public-prayer

God's Ordained Methods

"God's providential arrangements often seem very mysterious.  We are shut out from  opportunities which seem favourable to the promotion of His kingdom within and around us: we are deprived of circumstances or associates which seemed needful for our growth in grace: we have sickness, poverty, distresses, reproach, persecution,  hatred, when we think we could serve God better in health, competence, ease, honour, tranquillity, and love.  But we are short-sighted: we are of yesterday, and know nothing.  All these things are ordained for us in the deliberate arrangements and counsels of His will.  There is neither chance nor mistake in the kingdom of grace.  Let us therefore, not only contentedly acquiesce, but adoringly rejoice in His wise orderings.  His good hand is in all our matters.  Let us therefore give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Excerpt from "Family Devotions" by Henry Law

Happy Labor Day Weekend

(apparently they didn't get the memo....)

Walking the Talk

Christian explains to Faithful why Talkative is such a “sorry fellow” and Faithful expounds the gospel meaning of the clean and unclean animals.

CHRISTIAN. He (Talkative - ed.) talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them.  I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and I know what I say of him is the truth.  His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour.  There  is there neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he.  He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion, to all that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him.  Thus say the common people that know him, “A saint abroad, and a devil at home.”  His poor family finds it so; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have and dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him; for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands.  This Talkative, if it be possible, will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and overreach them.  Besides, he brings up his sons to follow his steps; and if he findeth in any of them a foolish timerousness (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience), he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much or speak to their commendation before others.  For my part, I am of opinion that he has, by his wicked life caused many to stumble and fall; and will be, if God prevent not, the ruin of many more.

….Besides, good men are ashamed of him; they can neither call him brother nor friend; and very naming of him among them makes them blush, if they know him.

FAITHFUL    Well, I see that saying and doing are two things, and hereafter I shall better observe this distinction.

CHRISTIAN. They are two things, indeed, and are as diverse as are the soul and the body; for as the body without the soul is but a dead carcass, so saying, if it be alone, is but a dead carcass also.  The soul of religion is the practical part: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”   This Talkative is not aware of; he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian, and thus he deceiveth his own soul.  Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life; and lets us assure ourselves, that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits.  It will not be said them, “Did you believe?” but, “Were you doers, or talkers only?”  and accordingly shall they be judged.  The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit.  Not that anything can be accepted that is not of faith, but I speak this to show you how insignificant the profession of Talkative will be at that day.

FAITHFUL.   This brings to my mind that of Moses, by which he describeth the beast that is clean.  He is such a one that parteth the hoof and cheweth the cut; not that parteth the hoof only, or that cheweth the cud only.  The hare cheweth the cud, but yet is unclean, because he parteth not the hoof.  And this truly resembleth Talkative: he cheweth the cud, he seeketh knowledge, he cheweth upon the Word, but he divideth not the hoof, he parteth not with the way of sinners; but, as the hare, he retaineth the foot of a dog or bear, and therefore he is unclean.

CHRISTIAN. You have spoken, for aught I know, the true gospel sense of those texts; and I will add another thing.  Paul calleth some men, yea, and those great talkers too, “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals,” – that is, as he expounds them in another place, “things without life, giving sound.”  Things without life, - that is, without the true faith and grace of the gospel; and, consequently, things that shall never be placed in the kingdom of heaven among those that are the children of life; though their sound, by their talk, be as if it were the tongue or voice of an angel.

(The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston – date unknown – pages 146-148)

The War

So, how goes the battle?

A short question I remember from my father encapsulating into a brief sentence the question of direction for our life.  Taken from my fathers perspective I’m sure it was a question specifically pointed to our earthly endeavors, but it was also a statement revealing the effect of the world on our life.

Life is a battle.

            A battle is a brief period in a war.

A battle needs soldiers.

           

A battle requires a field of action.

A battle has a course of action.

            A battle is difficult.

            A battle is hazardous.

            A battle requires commitment.

            A battle IS NOT for the faint hearted.

                        Many difficulties and hardships must be overcome and it terrorizes the heart.

A battle has a finality.

Successful battles win a war.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

2 Corinthians 10:3-5