Prayer: The Great Conversation by Kreeft Peter

Author:Kreeft, Peter [Kreeft, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898703573
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

Dialogue Eight

The Prayers God

Wrote for Us

Sal: Chris, you said the other day that when Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Teach us to pray”, he didn’t give them a technique but a prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. Doesn’t that mean that’s our answer too? We’re his disciples too, after all.

Chris: Yes, we are. And yes, that is our answer. But that doesn’t mean it’s our only answer, just our number one answer. That’s the perfect prayer, the model prayer. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use techniques, any more than it means we shouldn’t use any other prayers. Anything that helps us get closer to him is good, and anything that doesn’t, isn’t. Techniques can be very helpful to many people, and we’ll have a look at some of them soon. But they’re only ours, not God’s. They’re not commanded in our Scriptures, as they are in Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. But neither are they forbidden. So before we talk about techniques, we should talk about the Lord’s Prayer and other prayers God gave us in his Word.

Sal: O.K. There are a lot of prayers scattered throughout the Bible, aren’t there?

[The Bible can be prayer.]

Chris: Yes, and we can copy some of them down and put them in a little book to make them our own and remember them, especially the ones said to Jesus, like “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief”, or “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof”, or “Lord, teach us to pray.” But the whole Bible can be a prayer too.

Sal: I didn’t know that. How can the whole Bible be a prayer?

Chris: Oh, that’s a precious thing. No Christian should miss that. It’s the best way to read the Bible: as prayer. You can combine prayer and Bible reading, not just do both separately.

Sal: I knew there were prayers in the Bible, but I didn’t know the Bible could be in prayer. I mean, I thought one form of literature in the Bible was prayer, but you’re saying that one form of prayer is reading the Bible, right?

Chris: Yes. Both are true. Each contains the other. And each can bring the other home to us, strengthen the other. On the one hand, the prayers in the Bible are the best prayers, because they’re part of God’s revelation, they’re prayers God arranged for us to have, especially the Lord’s Prayer, so that we can pray them in confidence that God wants us to use them. Prayers we make up ourselves may be very good and very true and very beautiful too, but we can never have the confidence that God wrote them for us, or inspired them, as he inspired the Bible. On the other hand, reading the Bible in prayer, as a prayer—that lights up the Bible, that gives God a chance to show us deeper meanings in his Word. It’s like reading a letter in the presence of the author. He’s there to interpret the words to you. “God is his own interpreter”, as the old hymn says.

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