Prayer

(The series so far)

The first voice of the creature

The first thing that prayer is is communication with God. If language is a gift of God then prayer is, or ought to be, the first or primary use of language. As such it is the first voice of the creature—whether audible or in silence—speaking to the Creator. As such it is never speaking to some “god,” but is always speaking to the God. If in no other way (and I do not say there are not other ways) this is what sets true prayer apart from false prayer. False prayer is a counterfeit because the god to whom it is offered is a counterfeit. Do we offer up pleas and praise to a divinity who smiles sedately upon all our trivial worship styles and our romanticized views of the Christian Life? That is not God. Do we pray to a cold, distant, offended deity, who moodily withholds answers because he is upset with us even after we have repented? Then our prayers are directed to a false god—one of our imagining.

In either of these scenarios it is ignorance which is the problem. And here I am addressing people with a Bible and a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. I say it again, true prayer can only be given to the true God, the God who reveals Himself in His holy Word.

We have already seen from Exodus 34 how God, even on Mount Sinai on the day the Tablets of the Law were cut, first proclaims those qualities of His essential goodness which promote our sanguine hope:

compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; ⁷ who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.

This is a God to whom we can come with eyes open and hopes raised. Let us be encouraged. This is the covenant God of hesed—of steadfast devotion to us; sinners in a fallen world.

My title is taken from Donald Bloesch’s book, which is one of the best books on the subject. I want to mention here that in my view the best book on prayer is either Prayer by John Bunyan, or How to Pray by R. A. Torrey. Both books get to the heart of what it is to pray, though Torrey hits the nail on the head more quickly than the great Puritan.

Just what is prayer?

Prayer is the most important aspect of the Christian’s daily life. Above all else we should be praying Christians. I do not pretend to know all its mysteries, nor indeed do I think we need such information in order to pray. I do not understand how my computer works, but that does not stop me from typing out this meditation on it! God has not whisked us off to heaven the moment He saved us. He has left us to represent Him in “this present evil world” (Gal. 1:2); at least for a time.

Since we remain here and are not immediately in God’s heavenly presence, our communication with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit cannot be like our communications with other people. When conversing with others we can hear their voice or read their words directed to us. There is a clear sense of reciprocation based upon sight and sound. But God has not called us to walk by sight, but by faith. Faith does not have five senses to tell us we’re in contact. Rather, faith trusts, and prayer articulates that trust in its constant reaching out to the God who is there.

A sermon delivered at Calvary Baptist Church, Derby, Kansas. Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at [email protected].

Tonight, I want us to study a single word in the NT: proskartereo. It looks and sounds like a perfect candidate for use in a Jeopardy category: “twelve-letter Greek words that are difficult to pronounce”!

This word caught my attention as I ran across it at various times over the years in my studies of the NT in Greek, and I thought its various occurrences and uses rather interesting.

It is a compound word, composed of the preposition pros, which means, “to, toward, in the direction of” and kartereo, a verb with the root idea of “to be strong, firm.” So it literally means “to be strong toward something or someone.” As used in the NT, the word carries the sense and meaning “to be devoted to, to be dedicated to, to focus on, to be committed to, to persist in” some purpose, object or person.

This word is used ten times in the Greek NT, six of which occur in Acts. I want to briefly note each of these uses.