Jim
van Heiningen
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We
suggest that the 15 separate articles contained in P.I.P., apart from personal
reading and study, could be very profitably used as a guide in systematic group
studies or meditations, e.g. with groups of new Christians, at home with the
family, in a neighborhood group, or in some other context. The study
introductions could be taken in turns by various ones, who should thoroughly familiarize themselves with the day's material,
prayerfully digging into the relevant Scripture passages.
Very much has been written about
prayer throughout the centuries, much of it useful. In this small brochure we
do not pretend to improve on those writings, rather to provide a simple manual
in which a number of key Scriptures are looked at and the conclusions laid out
one by one, not only about private prayer, but equally about public prayer.
Obviously, much that might be just as profitable has been left unsaid, and
suggestions for future editions will certainly he welcome.
As
soon as a baby is born it must start breathing, if not, its life will be very
short-lived. Indeed, this new human being will continue living physically, just
as long as he or she continues breathing. The one cannot survive without the
other.
Who would not agree that a
Christian’s prayer is very much his spiritual breath and absolutely vital in
sustaining his spiritual life? At the same time, we must conclude that many
Christians get very short of breath and out of breath and into all kinds of
problems with spiritual asthma. That is not a normal development, but it is
very common. We must even face up to the question that, were it not for the
Lord's loving “kiss of life”, where would we be today, spiritually speaking?
There is an abundance of heavenly oxygen for all of us who are his children,
and how he longs to infuse it into each one! Not all of us are letting him.
At the same time, it is important
to realize at the back of our minds, if not at the front, that “someone” is out
to deprive us of this oxygen. In fact there is quite a conspiracy afoot. To be
forewarned is to be forearmed. To have a look at this reality, we can do no
better than dig into the New Testament. It is the perfect pattern for living,
and there is not a personality in the Bible with vigorous spiritual health,
who did not also have vigorous prayer habits.
Take Daniel, a young man, exiled
and made a eunuch at a pagan court – what was his strength throughout his long
life? Simply that continual, intimate prayer touch with his God! When he was
young and about to be executed together with his colleagues in
When he was old, the only way his
enemies could get at him was by making a big deal of his faithful prayer
habits. So a new amendment to the law was devised, which stipulated that, for one
month, no one could pray to God or man! Daniel found out about the decree; he
knew what his enemies were plotting; he realized the death penalty awaited him
if he was found out… So what precautions did he take? Daniel simply trusted his
Lord to work things out and he continued to pray and give thanks as always!! “In his upper room, with his windows open…,
he knelt down…three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God,
as was his custom since early days.” In Daniel 6 we have the whole
thrilling story.
One believer, who allowed himself
to get increasingly deprived of spiritual oxygen, was
To
avoid a similar “lot”, we simply must be on the alert for all the pitfalls
before us. Our Lord is so faithful in pointing them out to us (Luke 22:31-32). Let us trace 15 of them, eight having to do
directly with our private prayer life, that daily “behind-closed-doors” session
of the believer with his Lord (Matthew 6:6), and seven with our public prayers. We shall find that too easily do
we overlook certain “ingredients”, with the result that prayer is not really
prayer any more. It may be more of a ‘show’, an empty formality, a
‘conscience-easer’, thus becoming the devil’s laughing stock.
We
shall examine all
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1.
The Lack of Privacy
“And when you pray, you shall not be like
the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the
corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you,
they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you
have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place;
and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Mt. 6:5-6)
The
religious leaders of Jesus’ time were publicity seekers. Prayer too was a
welcome means to draw attention to their holiness and virtuousness. Jesus calls
it hypocrisy. He makes it clear that before there can be any public sharing of the burden of our hearts, it must have been adequately shared with
the Father, and that means total privacy!
In
compliance with the enemy-of-prayer, we too easily skirt that private time with
the Father. For instance, we may commit ourselves to pray for a matter or a
person. Then, instead of waiting privately on the Lord and unburdening our
hearts to him, we just mention the matter in a few public prayers, and that is
that. Later we may even tell the person concerned: “Brother, we have
been faithfully upholding you in prayer!” Another form of hypocrisy!
It
is all-important for the new Christian to get established in a daily “Quiet
Time” (his QT) right away!
Physically
it may not always be easy to find the needed privacy for our QT in a world as
crowded as ours. But the Lord’s grace will make us resourceful. After all, even
Susanna Wesley, mother of John, Charles and another 17, when feeling the
desperate need of some private conversation with her Father, would just simply,
on her kitchen chair, fling her apron over her head and be wonderfully
refreshed in prayer.
Jesus often went out into the mountains and the hills
to be alone. And so, even if “closing the door” to be alone with our Beloved is
not a literal possibility, it doesn’t mean we can’t be “shut in” with HIM.
2.
The Lack of Surrender
“In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our
Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven’.” (Mt. 6:9-10)
“…nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done.” (Lk. 22:42B)
“Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask
anything according to his will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have
the petitions that we have asked of him.” (1 Jn. 5:14-15)
The
Lord gave us a model prayer and in it he shows us the normal Christian’s first
concern, and what the real burden of his prayer must be. It is nothing less
than the Father’s name, the Father’s kingdom and the Father’s will realized on earth as they already
are in heaven. Simply put, it involves an act of total surrender on the
Christian’s part!! That is before he gets down to the nitty-gritty issues of
‘bread, debts and temptations’!
We
may pray for health and wealth, for success and safety, for someone’s life to
be spared (perhaps our own), and for many other good things, but these are not
the true Christian’s priorities, treasures or delights. His delight is in the Lord and he knows that
the true desires of his heart will be granted, meaning, of course, the
desires of his surrendered heart (Psalm 37:4-7).
So, even if he has to go without bread or full restoration to health, as he has
been asking, he is not shaken. He still rejoices in his Father’s will,
whatever that may entail, and whether he understands it all, or not at all.
God’s interests on earth have become his interests. Hence Paul and Silas’
joyful prayers and songs as they languished with torn backs in a filthy dungeon (Acts 16)!
When,
on the other hand, we put our own (legitimate) cravings before something that
might be God’s will, God may certainly give us what we ask for, but it will
also produce in our soul the sad experience of “leanness” – or “wasting
disease” (Ps. 106:15).
A pitiful pitfall, indeed.
3.
The Lack of Asking
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and
you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or
what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a
stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt. 7:7-11)
“And whatever
things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (21:22)
“If any of
you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without
reproach, and it will be given to him.” (James
1:5)
“You do not have because
you do not ask.” (4:2C)
You
would think that this pitfall should be easily avoided by anyone, but, come to
think of it, apart from the routine “asking for blessings”, there often isn't
much asking in a believer’s prayer. Many prefer to tell the Lord all
kinds of things, especially in their public prayers, perhaps prefixing them
with “Lord, you know ..” They may tell him how bad the world is, how much need
there is of this, that and the other, but when it comes to asking for something
specific, they “gladly leave it up to the Lord to decide” what he is going to
do about it, thus missing the whole point of prayer.
In Abraham we see this point beautifully illustrated.
In Genesis 18 he didn’t pray for
In John 14, 15 and 16 our Lord, again and again,
invites us to simply ask him. Many years later John himself encourages us to
do exactly that (1 Jn. 5:14-15)! To get us to come to grips with this, the Lord often
has to put us into tight spots: special classes in his ‘school of prayer’,
where we either learn to ask, or … worry ourselves silly, which is why Luke
12:22-31 & Philippians 4:6-7 are in the Bible: to wean us away from worry
and get us to trust and ask.
4. The
Lack of Forgiveness
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have
anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also
forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark
11:25)
Have
you ever held anything against anyone? It is quite remarkable how much will fit
into a human heart, even into a Christian’s heart, of grudges, animosities,
bitterness, resentments and all that sort of thing. Who might be stoking that
little fire until it gets quite out of hand (Hebrews
12:15)?
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, and
he taught them. If we want to know how to pray, then only the Great Teacher can
teach us. That is, if we are talking about the only valid art of praying. What
He teaches, is that every hindrance to true prayer must be dealt with first.
In
Luke 18 Jesus tells the story of the two men who went up to the temple to pray.
One prayed a simple prayer that was heard. It was valid. The other one prayed a
beautiful prayer that was not heard. It was not valid. Even if the grudges of
this man should have been valid, they didn't make his prayer valid. His grudges
and his pride closed the door on his prayer.
One
man who had more reason than most to feel vengeful, was Stephen. Being falsely
accused by his worst enemies did not intimidate him, nor did he refrain from
telling them the truth to their faces (Acts
6 & 7). Yet when it came to forgiving
them, even when their cruel stones rained down on him, there was not a trace of
bitterness in his heart toward them. His last words were his last prayer. And
he prayed they might be forgiven!
It is that same grace of God that so teaches us to
forgive (Colossians 3:13).
5.
The Lack of Persistence
“And He said to them, Which of you shall
have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three
loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing
to set before him’; and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me;
the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and
give to you’? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he
is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many
as he needs.” (Luke 11:5-8)
You
may have heard of “stickability”. It may be rather a new word, but it is
useful in pinpointing the thing needed in all kinds of Christian work, and
often in short supply. In one area of Christian work ‘stickability’ is
especially needed, and that is prayer-work. It may be easy enough to start
praying for a certain matter, but then to stick with it when the going gets tough,
that may be a different matter. You need deep conviction for that and
self-discipline and... stickability.
Jesus illustrates this fact by telling us about the
three friends. The one, pleading for the three loaves, didn't do so for his own
benefit. Being acutely aware of his friend’s need, and, pleading his own empty
shelves, he reasoned: “I have nothing to
set before him”. He was determined he was not going to leave without his
loaves. The Master made it clear that this is the persistence he is looking
for in our prayers.
The illustration of the widow, who kept on prodding
the judge, is just as apt (Lk. 18:1-8). Here again the Lord’s teaching is to be persistent
in prayer. Why? He has, of course, his own reasons, but from Romans 5:4 we know
that as the believer learns to persist, it produces in him experience and
character (see also: James 1:3-4). Opting out means losing out, which will cause many
of our prayers to go unheeded and fall by the wayside. Moreover, we are
rendered largely useless in regard to that desperate need of our “friend",
to whom we can offer nothing but “bare shelves”.
6. The
Lack of Faith
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of
God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to
him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a
wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose
that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (Jas. 1:5-8)
“But without faith it is
impossible to please him, for
he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” (Hb. 11:6)
It
is possible to pray and pray and pray, and yet get nowhere. Of course, it is
true that literally anyone can pray, and lots of prayer is made in every single
religion. But for prayer to be effective, it must have a “firm foundation” and
not just float in the air, so to speak. It means you must know the one you are addressing, and be convinced that his ear is
truly open to your prayer. That is really what Hebrews 11:6 is all about. The
key, in other words, is faith.
It
is marvelous, on the other hand, that God’s ear is open also to those who pray
without having gotten to know him so far, but who long to know him. Cornelius
in Acts 10 is a wonderful case in point. This very longing, worked in the heart
by the Holy Spirit, brings along with it a kind of embryonic faith. Cornelius’
case shows us, that it is the listening to God’s Word then which makes all the
difference. Faith was born in his and the others’ hearts. From that moment on
the Holy Spirit took possession. Basically that is the way it has been (and is)
with every true believer.
Yet
what happens so often? In stead of continuing to approach God in childlike
faith, based on the written promises, the believer reverts to the old ways. He
talks to God as if he does not really know him; he is not sure whether God is
really listening, or even interested. James, known in antiquity as ‘Old Camel
Knees’ (his knees looking like that because of the long hours of kneeling in
prayer), says: “Let not that man think he
will receive anything from the Lord” (1:7).
7. The Lack of Right Motives
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask
amiss, that you may spend it on
your pleasures.” (Jas. 4:3)
“I cried to him with my mouth, and He was extolled with my tongue. If I
regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my
prayer, nor his mercy from me!” (Ps.
66:17-20)
The
young man prayed earnestly enough and he was persistent too, yet nothing
happened. He had become convinced that he could serve God much better if he had
a car, he could then visit more people in outlying places, help in more open
air work, ferry people to meetings, etc., and so, the proper thing to do was to
pray for a car, or for the funds to buy one. But with prayer going unanswered
and with the old bicycle even giving up the ghost, he felt pretty disheartened.
However, since there was a sincere desire to serve the
Lord faithfully, he began to discover something during his Quiet Times. It
dawned on him that perhaps his prayer was not altogether born of a pure desire
to please his Lord. And he soon had to admit that secretly, half consciously,
he had been after that car, mostly because he was after more status among his
fellow believers, especially the young female ones.
It
was a sobering discovery, never to be forgotten. But once seen, it filled him
with joy and praise to the Savior for being such a faithful Friend. Psalm 139
became his favorite after that, and how grateful he now was for healthy legs to
walk long distances...
On
later occasions, tired out and making his way home from some remote
home-gathering, where there had been signal blessing, his thoughts would
sometimes go to Matthew 6:33, and with a smile he’d say: “Well Lord, in your
own time you may want to ‘add an old
car unto me’, but that’s entirely up to you.”
8.
The Lack of Considerateness
“Wives, likewise, be
submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they,
without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe
your chaste conduct accompanied
by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely
outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let
it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former
times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being
submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord,
whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.
Husbands, likewise, dwell with them
with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of
life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:1-7)
It
might be a headline in Heaven:
HUSBAND’S
PRAYER HINDERED AGAIN!
It would not make happy reading in that lofty sphere.
But, of course, the angels don’t need newspapers to know all about our
stumbling and bumbling, and they must wonder how it is that many a Christian husband has such a hard time
unlearning all that old pride and ‘machismo’, which so easily wreak havoc on
his prayer-life, and, why so many
wives are bent on wriggling out from patterns their loving Lord has laid down
for them.
Demons, out to destroy more and more Christian homes,
must also be wondering (in glee) why Christians are so stupid.
Their attack centers first of all on the couple’s
lines of communication with God’s throne of grace! When these start to falter,
a harsh or nasty word from the husband to his wife is to be expected. The enemy
knows this will pose a clear hindrance to further prayer. For even going
through the ‘motions’ of prayer after that, he is not getting anywhere. The
wife’s reaction may be one of resentment and now her prayers are failing to
get through, equally hindered. After that things easily get worse.
The
real problem lies in the fact that he or she
is not really counting on the Lord being “in the midst”, which is his only
proper place (Mt. 18:20). They are
running their marriage. Christ, their
HEAD, is really no more than a figurehead. But what a difference when
both gladly submit to HIM...! It involves daily bending their knees together
and being totally honest.
Going Public...
It
is in the home that often the first steps are taken to ‘pray in public’. A
child hears his parents pray aloud and in all simplicity he or she will quite
naturally do the same. In a loving atmosphere the parents then monitor and
carefully teach the child along the way.
Christians, not raised like that, but converted later
on in life, may find praying audibly in public a very daunting prospect.
However, in fellowships and prayer meetings that are not big, where there is a
true ‘family’ atmosphere, they will easily learn like children.
Even
so, very many Christians continue to have the idea that praying in public is
something that “clergy” do. In other words you need to be kind of professional.
It would be hard to think of any hint to that effect in the Old Testament,
leave alone in the New, where we find that now all true believers form one ‘universal priesthood’ in Christ (1 P. 2:5, 9; Revelation 1:6).
Does
that include women? Paul declares all to be “one in Christ” (Galatians 3:26-28).
Race, status or gender have no place in the spiritual world, he says. So who
will arbitrarily decide that one basic activity of the “priest”, praying
audibly in public, is forbidden to the greater part of those in Christ, simply
because of gender? In 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 we find the Christian woman praying
in public alongside the man (compare Acts
2:17-18).
Satan
hates the genuine public prayer, at least as much as the genuine private prayer,
so... plenty of pitfalls to be expected.
9. The
Lack of Reconciliation
“Therefore if you bring your gift to the
altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave
your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Mt. 5:23-24)
“Be
angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor
give place to the devil… And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you
were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians
4:26-27, 30)
Matthew’s
verses picture a typically Jewish situation with worshipers going up to the
temple in
However, the point is that we too approach God, even
though the circumstances have radically altered. We too do so in a public
fashion, especially in, what we might think of as the Christian’s counterpart
to that Jewish service, namely the Lord’s
Table, when around it we “remember” him, who was sacrificed as the Lamb of
God for us (1 Co. 11:23-32). At the same time He
himself is present in the midst as the great High Priest (Mt. 18:20; Rev. 1:13-16; 2:1).
Moreover
we too are just as likely as the Jewish worshipers to have been in unpleasant
situations during the previous week, or even that very day, situations that may
have gotten out of hand, where we may have “stood on someone's toes”, so to
speak. This person, hurt or offended, will obviously not have forgotten, even
if we are frantically trying to be as forgetful as possible.
Reconciliation
is a must, whether the other person is present or not. The Lord has a
way of reminding us even in the ‘nick of time’, before we partake, before we
pray and worship. He simply cannot accept worship-with-a-guilty-conscience.
Why not let his grace see
us through?
10.
The Lack of Humility
“And when you pray, you shall not be like
the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the
corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you,
they have their reward.” (Mt. 6:5)
“Also He
spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous,
and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and
the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes
of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so
much as raise his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell
you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk. 18:9-14)
“Set your
mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col. 3:2)
At
first glance it might seem to some that in Matthew 6:5-6 the Lord condemns
public prayer and only accepts private prayer. That is not the case. What he is
saying is that he who prays in public, must first have a private, and firmly
established, relationship with his Father in heaven. If not, his public prayer
is no more than an empty and abominable show. Could it be that the Lord, one
chapter later, still had all this in mind, when he warned us not to cast sacred
things to the dogs and pearls to the pigs?
The
possibility of that was brought home to us forcefully in
But why would Jesus put such emphasis on this matter? If we link it
directly to Luke 9:23 and Paul’s experience in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, everything
becomes clear. To Paul, manifesting “self”, even extremely religious ‘self’,
had become utterly abhorrent. Furthermore it doesn’t attract people to Christ.
It turns them off (1 P. 3:15-16)!
He
who would truly pray to God in public, is not out for men to hear and praise
him. His only interest lies in conversing with his heavenly Father in the
utmost humility and the simplest of terms, while at the same time identifying
with the needs of his companions and others, and taking these with him into
God’s presence.
11. The
Lack of Concision
“And when you pray, do not use vain
repetitions as the heathen do.
For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not
be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask
him.” (Mt. 6:7-8)
Concision
is that virtue that will keep to the matter in hand, without wandering all over
the place. It is a virtue much needed
in prayer, both private and public, and easily lost.
John Bunyan in his “Pilgrim’s Progress” tells of the
encounter with “Talkative”. This character not only had “the gift of the
tongue”, which to many sounded like the “tongue of angels”, he cleverly used it
to cover up the sorry mess of his life. He was no more than a ‘professing’
believer. Why would it be that many Christians, especially prominent ones,
become so “talkative” when praying in public? Are they trying to prove
something? Are they hiding something?
Jesus tells us not to be like ‘pagans’, who think that
the ‘many words’ of their ‘babblings’ will give them ready access to God’s
throne. We cannot approach the throne of a sovereign on our terms, and this Sovereign tells us to come without pretensions,
simply, just as we are, not with rambling, chatty prayers, which moreover put
off and put to sleep the others present.
And
then He gives us the model of a very brief and concise prayer. How ironic that
precisely this should now be the subject of countless and mindless repetition.
Admittedly a master stroke of the great plotter of pitfalls.
So
does it all mean that long prayers are definitely out? In John 17 we do find
our Lord’s prayer to be pretty long. However, what we are shown here is a
glimpse into his private prayer-life. His public prayers were invariably short and pithy.
“Lord, teach us to pray..!”
12. The
Lack of Agreement
“Again I say to you that if two of you agree
on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my
Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am
there in the midst of them.” (Mt.
18:19-20)
In
a Christian’s private QT he is out to find God’s will and to affirm his
agreement with it. When he prays together with one or more others, all of them
having that same spirit, it will let them experience the world’s greatest
“welding power”: the marvelous concept of ‘spiritual unanimity’, about which
the New Testament has such a lot to say. It will not be theory, but living
reality.
Prayer-meetings galore (nowadays also with
‘prayer-concerts’, ‘prayer-walks’, etc.) are a common phenomenon, though not
necessarily attended by most Christians. However, if in such prayer-activity
the one vital building block of spiritual agreement should be missing, can we
expect much more than a spiritual “beating about the bush”?
In Matthew 18 we sense the Lord’s delight with being
in the midst of his beloved. In Zephaniah 3:17 He is even pictured among them
as singing with joy. But, surely, such delight must be seriously tempered, when
his children at prayer are not really out to discover his will, remaining sadly
divided about small issues as well as big (compare
Judges 21:25).
The
modern concept of democracy that has millions of Christians in thrall, is a
demonstration of what is not the NT way! It asserts the
preference of the majority’s opinion over the minority’s in any decision of the
local church, and is anything but a
unifying factor. In contrast, his way puts his will first. His
children's conformity with it creates the unanimity and the united progress
they crave.
13. The
Lack of Decorum
“Every
man praying or prophesying, having his
head covered, dishonors his head. But every
woman who prays or prophesies with her
head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head
were shaved.” (1
In
Roget’s Thesaurus the word ‘decorum’ is followed by ‘comportment, deportment,
decency’. That is what, in these verses, the apostle is writing about to the
Corinthian Christians. Their decorum left a lot to be desired.
To
avoid all misunderstanding: he is certainly not telling, either the men, or the
women, that they are not to pray in public (transmit to God what is in their hearts) or prophesy in public
(transmit to men what is in God’s
heart). To the contrary, when we
study his epistles, it becomes abundantly clear that these ministries are God-given,
also for women.
But
just in case an eyebrow is raised here and there, with the mind racing to those
two famous passages in 1 Corinthians 14 & 1 Timothy 2, an honest study will
reveal that in both Paul speaks about ‘wives’ (same word in Greek as ‘women’),
telling them to be subject to their husbands. Once again it is imperative to
keep in mind the Scripture quoted by Peter the very instant the Church was born
- Acts 2:17-18.
So
what is Paul getting at in 1
Corinthians 11? Simply that they are not to run ahead of the established customs of the country and the period. The
women, considering themselves emancipated in Christ, decided they did not now, when meeting together with men, need to keep their heads veiled. Were
they not all brothers and sisters of the same “family”? Paul shows them that
such goings-on clashed with the testimony and hindered effective prayer and
preaching.
14. The
Lack of Understandability
“If you bless with the spirit (i.e. doing so in a foreign language), how will he who occupies the place of the
uninformed say ‘Amen’ at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand
what you say? For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified… In
the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may
teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue (or foreign language).” (1
Quite
an equation in verse 19: 5 intelligible
words count for more than 10,000 unintelligible words! And, indeed, how many thousands of words are not uttered
in our prayer meetings, which others present can only guess at? This is, of
course, very true of modern day ‘tongues-speaking’. What is on Paul’s mind is
the vital need for understandability. In
other words, what is the point of praying out loud, when others present do not
understand the words? It is not an edifying experience to them. Whether the
words spoken are in the common language or in a foreign tongue, when there are
those that cannot catch the meaning of the sounds they hear and so find it
impossible to identify with them, it is a blow against fellowship and
edification.
The
whole point of meeting together is that all the believers may sense the Lord’s
presence, and experience the reality of the Holy Spirit’s ministry as He
exercises it through different fellow believers.
There
may be several causes of the abnormality: the one praying may never have been
clearly taught to speak up. He or she, made aware of the need, may not
really have looked to the Lord for his enabling grace. There may be a speech
impediment. In the bigger churches the crowd is often just too big.
But God’s grace, ever
sufficient, will enable the congregation’s elders to show the way forward, “making level paths for everyone’s feet”.
If the church’s HEAD makes clear that the big group should be split into
smaller ones, so that every believer can pray and be understood, who will
object?
“I desire therefore that the men pray
everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner
also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and
moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing…” (1 Ti. 2:8-9)
“Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt.
5:8)
“Pursue peace with all people,
and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hb. 12:14)
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties;
and see if there is any wicked
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23-24)
The
same ‘machismo’ that may hinder a man’s private prayer, as we saw in 1 Peter 3,
will naturally also stand in the way of an effective public prayer ministry. A
husband loses his temper, lifts up his hand to deal his wife a blow and then,
in the meeting, lifts up that same hand to God in prayer... By the
same token, says Paul, a woman dolls herself up, tries to conceal ten years,
does all she can to create sex-appeal and furthermore she prays to God... These
are pagan practices, possibly acceptable in temples, mosques and cathedrals,
but not in God’s presence.
In Bible times one of the common practices was to lift
up hands in prayer (not to be confused
with modern Charismatic fashions). Quite likely it was Moses’ example on the hill, in
Exodus 17, that later inspired God’s people. He touched God’s throne on behalf
of
The
enemy loves us to be spiritual chameleons: the world coloring us at
home and in the workplace, and the Bible in our meetings with other
believers. Paul instructed Timothy that the Ephesian churches must not tolerate
such split-personality conduct. It would spell certain defeat. Only when we
show our true colors (his colors) to the world, can we pray for the
world. “Chameleons” make a clever show, but are notoriously bad fighters. James
assures us that the prayer of a righteous man, however, is powerful and
effective (5:16).
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