01.B 01. The Scripture Idea of Prayer

I. THE SCRIPTURE IDEA OF PRAYER “What profit shall we have, if we pray to Him?” —Job 21:15.

Frederick W. Robertson, in his sermon on Prayer, says: “Prayer is one thing and petition is quite another,” but in reality prayer and petition are quite one and the same thing. The first essential to intelligent argument is clear definition, and before either of the above statements which are so plainly contradictory can be rightly appreciated it becomes necessary to know just what idea of prayer is entertained by those making them. What is prayer? Evidently Mr. Robertson’s idea of prayer is something quite removed from petition or supplication. Prayer is commonly conceived to be communion with God. But what does the word itself mean and what is the first and root meaning of its equivalents as used in the Word of God? This is without doubt the surest way and the safest to discover the essential nature of this exercise we commonly call prayer. That prayer primarily means petition, supplication or entreaty, the etymology of the word makes certain; it means neither to meditate nor to commune nor even to talk with another person, but it does mean to petition something at his hand. This is not only true of the word in English, but of its equivalent in all other languages, and if you will trace its origin you will find it comes from the same root as the Sanscrit word praach, which means to ask. Usage, however, has given to the word a much wider meaning, no less than five Greek words in the New Testament and twelve Hebrew words in the Old Testament being translated prayer. This is, however, natural when we think for a moment of what is involved in asking anything at the hand of God. When approach to God is made various thoughts and emotions stir the soul to which expression are most naturally given. One cannot contemplate God without being overwhelmed at His infinite and awe inspiring greatness, without becoming deeply sensible to His boundless graciousness and humbly repentant of the wrong done to Him. How especially is this true and how appropriate its expression when we come as a supplicant for His favor.

Hence prayer is usually divided into the following component parts: Adoration, Thanksgiving, Confession and Petition. This suggests a splendid order for the expression of what is doubtless in the mind of every one as he comes to God, though there can be nothing stereotyped in so vital a matter. Some of the most effective / prayers in the Bible are simple, earnest, cries for mercy; but the Bible abounds with prayers in which something of the order noted is observed. But since it is quite as proper for the soul to approach God without being urged I into His presence by some petition it would bring, we have even come to define prayer more broadly as Communion, by which simple address to or talking with God is understood. The first meaning of communion is something else (partnership, sharing), but it is used twenty-eight times in the English Version as a translation of Hebrew and Greek words which mean to speak or talk. In Exodus 25:22, where it is said, “I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat,” the word is dabar, which literally means to speak.

Some have thought to still further weaken the conception of prayer by calling it religious meditation, but if by such expression is meant mere thinking about God, it is not prayer in any sense of the word; it is not even religious; but if by meditation is meant such exercise of mind and soul as involve the sentiments and disposition mentioned a moment ago and which are sure to arise with any one who has even a half-conception of the real character of God (and the writer knows of no other kind of religious meditation), then, even as communion, such exercise may be defined as prayer, for whether such sentiments and disposition be audibly uttered or silently felt it is, after all, an approach to God in which the mind and heart and soul commune with Him. The trouble with such definitions of prayer is that they are partial, and, like all other half-truths, often work serious injury to the whole truth.

Granting now for the moment that the element of petition may be legitimately eliminated from prayer, *’What profit shall we have if we pray to Him?” What benefit is there in thus communing with God?

Now, we would not for one moment insinuate that no practical results come from such praying, but we do mean to say that they are hardly to be compared with those that follow when petition, which is the very heart of prayer, is allowed its true place in the communion we have with God. Without petition the benefit is plainly limited to the effect upon the mind and character of the one who prays; but even this is limited in comparison with the same benefit as derived from prayer in its truest and most vital sense.

Directing the mind and soul toward any superhuman object or fixing them upon any lofty ideal will naturally result in healthy reaction upon the one so engaged. And to contemplate the divine greatness of the Most High God, to mention before Him His boundless providence and to acknowledge His excellent wisdom in all His rulings must of necessity leave with the human soul a greater sense of its own littleness and a correspondingly greater humility of mind, a deeper gratitude of heart and a holier submission to Him who worketh all things together for good.

All this we would not underestimate; much less deny. Indeed, this subjective effect of prayer might be still further analyzed and doubtless many other elements of worth discovered. We do not say it would be improper to speak here of a certain calmness of temper, of certain freedom from distraction, of sympathies and self-disinterestedness and other traits of moral excellence, all of which touch the character with a beauty that is much worth while. But what we would have the reader now to appreciate, and what many who have thought more profoundly on this subject than we presume to have done have failed to discover is this, that not only are such effects themselves very much heightened when due place is given in prayer to petition, but that with petition eliminated there would be but little if any communion with God at all; not that one only goes to God when he has a petition to offer (for there is much communion without petition), but that if a man had any sort of assurance that such approach of the soul to God as communion involves was being made to a Supreme Being whose ear was deaf and whose heart indifferent to our cries of distress and our petitions for help or hearing could not help us because of the inevitable course of things over which He has no control, the probability is that that man would soon begin to incline toward a state of dumb resignation to the inevitable, which in turn would rapidly tend toward the neglect of prayer altogether. We pray too little as it is. If with Frederick W. Robertson we see in prayer only such contemplation of the character of God as ends with the resignation of ourselves to His will, most men, we fear, would not put themselves even to such effort to obtain it. They would be more likely to accept the inevitable and devote the time otherwise required for such contemplation to making the best out of a condition of affairs for which there is no help, at least from above.

But, on the contrary, to know that God hears my cry for help as well as my voice in praise and thanksgiving and confession, and that like as a father He not only pitieth His children but, having the power, He giveth unto them what would not be theirs but for the asking, then indeed are we constrained to come to Him, not alone with our petitions but with the expression of grateful hearts; then indeed are we drawn into His presence by that very fact, not only in the hour of special need but continually, even as with the closest friend; how much sweeter and more intimate fellowship with such a God than with the one contemplated a moment ago.

Now that true prayer not only includes petition, but that petition is the very heart of prayer, even a cursory glance into Scripture will show. Of the five Greek words in the New Testament which the translators have chosen to translate prayer, the primary meaning of the three most frequently used (deomai, ten times; erotao, seven times; EUCHOMAI, eighty-five times) is to petition, to ask, to supplicate. Of the other two words so translated and used but once each, one (ENTEUXIS, to hold converse with) is used in the sense of thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:5); the other (parakaleo, to call along side of) is used in the specific sense of a petition for help (Matthew 26:53). But apart from the fact that the primary meaning of the word prayer is petition; apart also from the fact that one hundred and two times in the New Testament (to say nothing of the numerous instances of the Old Testament), are foreign words whose primary meaning is also petition translated prayer, thirty three times in the New Testament and thirty-nine in the Old Testament we find the simple word ask (which is the exact translation of its foreign equivalents) used to describe the act of going to God in prayer. As we think this over we wonder if we are not wasting words and time in proving that prayer means primarily petition. Of course it means petition, and when the great prayer Teacher said, “Ask and ye shall receive,” He most assuredly meant that we were to obtain something through our asking.

How much richer and fuller, we again remark, is the meaning of prayer when thus correctly understood. The word is now big with meaning, and when one thus sees it to be his privilege to make known his requests before a God who will concern Himself about their answer all the other inducements into His presence are much intensified, it seems to me, and not until we have thus fully realized all that prayer involves are we in a position to fully realize how valuable the exercise is. With these thoughts on the nature of prayer in our mind, let us see what answer can be given to the question standing at the head of this chapter: “What profit shall we have if we pray to Him?” We are now prepared to see that the value of prayer is, (1) in its reflexive or natural effect on the soul, and (2) in its direct efficacy in securing what we ask of God. These two phases of the value of prayer may properly form the substance of separate chapters.