TEACH US TO PRAY

                 

How many times have you heard “Let us pray”?  Have you ever taken the time to define pray?  Prayer is defined as a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.  Prayer is the language of want.

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.  We find this in Matthew 6:5-15

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They, have their reward.  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.  But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto them: for your, Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.

After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:  But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

In this model prayer taught by Jesus to His disciples, there are some noticeable things missing.  Here is a list of things that are missing from this prayer:

•          It never mentions Christ 

•          it never mentions church 

•          it never mentions “Lord.”

•          it never mentions the inspired inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth, the miracles, the atoning death, or bodily resurrection of Christ

•          it never mentions the gospel.

•          it never mentions the Holy Spirit.

•          it never mentions Christ, substitution, sacrifice, atonement, or sin.

•          it never mentions the next life, heaven, or hell.

•          it is prayed by Christians who emphasize what it never mentions and also by Christians who ignore what it does mention.

What is interesting when looking at this prayer it is an outline of the 19 prayers First Century Jews would pray.  The Jewish prayer could be broken into three major sections:

 The Blessings of Praise

1.         Blessing One – Avot (Fathers)

2.         Blessing Two- Gevurot (God’s Might)

3.         Blessing Three- Kedushat HaShem (Holiness of God’s Name)

The Blessing of Petition

4.         Blessing Four- Da’at (Knowledge)

5.         Blessing Five- Teshuvah (Repentance)

6.         Blessing Six- Selichah (Forgiveness)

7.         Blessing Seven- Geulah (Redemption)

8.         Blessing Eight- Refuah (Healing)

9.         Blessing Nine- Birkat Hashanim (Prosperity)

10.       Blessing Ten- Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of Exiles)

11.       Blessing Eleven- Birkat  HaDin (Restoration of Justice)

12.       Blessing Twelve- Birkat  HaMinim (Against Heretics)

13.       Blessing Thirteen- Tzaddikim (Righteous Ones)

14.       Blessing Fourteen- Binyan Yerushalayim (Rebuilding Jerusalem)

15.       Blessing Fifteen- Malkhut beit David (Kingdom of David)

16.       Blessing Sixteen- Kabbalat Tefillah (Acceptance of Prayer)

The Blessing of Gratitude

17.       Blessing Seventeen- Avodah (Worship)

18.       Blessing Eighteen- Hoda’ah (Gratitude)

19.       Blessing Nineteen- Sim Shalom (Grant Peace)

20.       The Amidah Recited

The Lord’s Prayer

The Blessing of Praise

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

The Blessing of Petition

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The Blessing of Gratitude

 For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen

It is not the length of the pray that is important but the content of the pray. In Jewish life, prayers were offered at least twice a day, and often three times a day.  The Book of Acts records Peter and John going to the Temple “at the time of prayer — at three in the afternoon.” (Acts 3:1).

Devout Jewish men particularly were expected to pray at 9 am, at noon, and at 3 pm, also.  The Old Testament story of Daniel who defied the king’s law and continued to pray three times a day in “his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem.” (Daniel 6:10)

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He followed the three Blessings of the Amidah.

The Lord’s Prayer starts out with the acknowledgment of the fatherhood of God and His place in heaven. While the Amidah talks of God as the God of our fathers in the opening verses.

"Hallowed be your name," or, "may your name be sanctified," relates directly to the third Amidah blessing: "Thou art holy and Thy Name is holy, and the holy praise Thee daily. Blessed art Thou 0 Lord, the holy God.”

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. "May you continue establishing your Kingdom; may your will be done in heaven and in earth." In the Amidah pray, "Reign Thou over us 0 Lord, Thou alone in loving kindness and tender mercy and clear us in judgment. Blessed are Thou 0 Lord the King who lovest righteousness and judgment."

"Give us this day our daily bread." "0 God, the needs of Thy people are many, their knowledge slender. Give every one of Thy creatures his daily bread and grant him his urgent needs." And the ninth Amidah blessing asks, "Bless this year unto us 0 Lord our God together with every kind of the produce thereof for our welfare."

"Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who have sinned against us." An important Jewish concept, that man cannot ask for forgiveness from God until he first makes amends with his fellowman whom he may have wronged or been wronged by. Before going to sleep at night, the pious Jew prays, "Master of the universe, I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonized me or who sinned against me," while in the sixth Amidah blessing he asks, "Forgive us 0 our Father for we have sinned, pardon us 0 our King for we have transgressed, for Thou dost pardon and forgive. Blessed art Thou 0 Lord who art gracious and dost abundantly forgive."

Do not bring us into the grasp of temptation but deliver us from evil." The seventh blessing is a prayer for deliverance from afflictions of all kinds. Since other blessings specify the physical necessities, this prayer has come to have a spiritual connotation. "May it be Thy will 0 Lord our God to place us in light and not in darkness, and may not our heart grow faint nor our eyes dim. Lord of the Universe, it is revealed and known before Thee that it is our desire to perform Thy will but what stands in the way? The Evil Inclination and the Oppression of the kingdoms (secular world). May it be Thy will to deliver us from their hand, so that we may again perform Thy statutes with a perfect heart."

"For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever," shows similarity to David’s benediction in I Chronicles 29:10-13. This scriptural passage is part of the daily prayer service and is an essential component of the section called Pesukei D’zimrah, or "Verses of Praise," which immediately precedes the recitation of the Shema, (Sha-ma) the central affirmation of faith in Judaism.

Is the Lord’s Prayer an early version of the Amidah which Jesus taught his disciples so they could fulfill their minimum obligations of prayer to God? I strongly believe that enough exist between the two prayers for the theory to be a distinct possibility.

Prayer was a natural, regular, and necessary part of Jewish life.  But the problem with any spiritual practice is that what starts out with great feeling and intensity, with deep meaning and good intentions, can often become a perfunctory ritual.  That was what had happened with the practice of the Jews in the first century.

Meaningless ritual is an age-old problem.  On more than one occasion God reminds his people that he wants their hearts, not their empty sacrifices.  After asking the question “With what shall I come before the Lord?” Micah answers with this — “And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8) God wanted their hearts, not their meaningless ritual.

Before Jesus tells the disciples how to pray, he cautions them on how not to pray.  This is another way of Jesus saying, “You have heard it has been said…but I say unto you….” —  only now, however, Jesus is using a different phrase to correct their practice.

Jesus must teach the disciples to pray because prayer has fallen into a meaningless ritual that has lost both its purpose and its power.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…”  The hypocrites were probably those who would have been considered “righteous men” in Jesus day.  They were men who prayed three times a day, and who did so wherever they were.  Apparently, to show off their own piety, many of these so-called righteous men would position themselves at street corners, or in the most visible parts of the Temple when the time for prayer came.  Jewish men of the first century prayed while standing, with their arms outstretched, palms up, and their faces either bowed or lifted to heaven.  We know the posture because Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector who go up to the Temple to pray.  They are both standing when they pray, but the tax collector — an outcast and sinner — would not lift up his head to heaven, according to Luke 18:9-14.

Jesus addresses the first problem of prayer, and that is praying for our own reward.  Now Jesus isn’t condemning the corporate prayer of God’s people gathered together.  Rather, Jesus said those that stand alone praying loudly on the street corners, or in prominent places in the synagogue or Temple, have their reward.  Everybody saw them praying, but their audience wasn’t God, it was those within viewing distance from them.

Jesus said we are to go into our room, shut the door, and pray.  They are two sides of the same coin.  Private prayer is part of the “when you pray” assumption that Jesus makes.  And, in some ways, we have accepted  that we shouldn’t pray conspicuously, but have neglected to pray privately.  It isn’t enough not to pray to be seen; private personal prayer is the disciple’s appropriate entry alone into the presence of God.

A problem with prayer, especially when you’re expected to pray a lot, is that it can quickly become meaningless.  Interestingly, The Lord’s Prayer in the early days of some denominations was considered “endless repetition” and meaningless babble and was not prayed in church.  They probably left it off also because both Catholics and Lutherans continued to say The Lord’s Prayer, and the Anabaptists drew sharp distinctions between themselves and others.

It is to be noted that the eighteen (18) prayers of the Jews was condensed into the Lord’s Prayer, meeting the need of formal praying.  However, this condensed prayer has resulted in the same meaningless babble of “endless repetition” that the Amidah (ah me da) was to the Jews.  However, I don’t think Jesus intends us to recite this prayer. I believe he gives it to us as a model to guide us, not a passage to memorize. The Lord’s Prayer is not a form to follow verbatim, but a guide or outline when I communicate with God.

Acknowledge God the Father

Make Our Petitions

Show Our Gratitude