Hi. Please read the post below. I love thinking about prayer. I want my prayer to honor God, our church prayer to please the Father. I’m adding this because I found it of great interest and it won’t be a separate blog post. If you read A Pure Church, you’ll see that I wrote the chapter on John 17. This year, Mark Dever interviewed John MacArthur for his 9Marks on fellowship in the church. I agree with MacArthur and Dever about what fellowship in the church is. About 10 minutes in, Dever says something that MacArthur didn’t question, but was very interesting. He said that, of course, Jesus in John 17 prays for unity in the local church. The local church, he says, very purposefully. This is what my chapter teaches, but I was happy to hear Dever say the same thing.
In the last few weeks, I wrote a post on unacceptable degrees of normativeness of the book of Acts. Not all of Acts is normative. I talked about prayer, especially as it relates to healing. It didn’t have to be healing. It could also be the idea of praying for someone to get out of prison, a prayer we don’t read in scripture, but it often is assumed by many in Acts 12 with Peter. Other types of prayers might include a prayer for a certain figure of money.
I’m thinking of Paul’s three time request to God to take away a thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7-8. Some think that his “thorn in the flesh” was some kind of chronic sickness. I don’t believe there is any contextual basis for Paul to be asking for God to heal him. God’s answer, either way — healing of sickness or not healing of sickness — was, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Paul was an Apostle and God gave the Apostle direct revelation. He talked to Him. We have it recorded. God is not still talking to you. He is not revealing, “No,” to you. He does want you praying in His will and with faith. He doesn’t want you taking the prayer equivalent of heaving the full court shot or even the half court one with a prayer that the ball will go in the basket. You pray for what you know He wants.
Paul is not a model for praying faithless, prayers out of God’s will. We shouldn’t say, “Paul prayed a prayer like that.” He was wrong to do it. He stopped. He wasn’t importunate. He didn’t keep going after three times. We’re supposed to learn from him not to do that. We shouldn’t want to pray prayers outside of God’s will. We should want to do things in His will. That is the point. The “‘no’ answer” is an invented doctrine. I’m open to an exegesis of it from somewhere, but I can’t give you an example of that being taught. What is taught is pray for God’s will and know that you will get it.
First, should we do anything that we are not sure is in the will of God? By that, I mean the moral will of God, that is, something God would want from us. If God doesn’t want it, we shouldn’t do it. When it comes to prayer, we shouldn’t pray in a different way than what God teaches. We are to pray without ceasing. We should not want to displease God with prayer. The point would be for Him to be pleased. We are to pray in everything, but that doesn’t mean that we ask for anything we want. Scripture is clear on this.
Jesus in His model prayer in Matthew 6 and Luke 11 teaches to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” God’s will, not ours. God’s will here is not what He allows, but what He wants or wishes. Some of what He allows is sin, and we aren’t praying for that. What He wants is what He has written, His moral will. His sovereign will is what He allows or causes. Surely we wish God to be sovereign. However, we are praying for His moral will, what He has revealed that He wishes.
Parallel with that prayer of the model prayer of Jesus is James 4:2-3, “2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” “Your lusts” are your pleasures. We pray for what pleases God, not what pleases us.
Last, as I said, God can heal. No doubt. God is a good God. God gives every good and perfect gift. God involves Himself with His creation. Since our lives are in His hand, we should trust God with whether we are healed or not, whether we get out of prison or not, whether we get the big money gift or not. We should pray for our daily bread. That fits into having food and clothing and being content. We should be content with states of sickness or health. We should be prepared to die, knowing that we are going to a place far better. We should understand that out of His care, God can and will raise us back up to health either through indirect or direct means. We shouldn’t assume that we won’t get better. Most of the time we will. There are times we won’t, and we die because God has appointed unto man once to die (Heb 9:27).
Don’t just blow up and reject what I’m writing. Think about it. Adjust your prayers to what you read the Bible say about prayer. Proverbs 15:8 says that the prayer of the upright is God’s delight. The upright are praying in God’s will and with faith. They are following Jesus’ model and praying biblical prayers. Give your life over to God’s sovereignty and providence. Know that whatever the outcome, He is a good God with your absolute best in view. All things, including bad things, work together for good for believers. That includes a deadly disease.
I believe that the “‘no’ answer” dogma comes from some kind of human philosophy or tradition that has been popular with men. It perpetuates itself, because it is very powerful. It opens up the door for regular praying outside of the will of God. People want to pray those prayers and they want others praying those prayers for them. They become more important than actual biblical prayers. They lend themselves toward getting and keeping people in the church, because men are especially prey to pain relief and surviving terminal illnesses.
We might talk about the Charismatics who make phony excuses why someone doesn’t survive the brain tumor. My aunt was one of those. She was a Charismatic who got cancer and wasn’t healed, told because it was her lack of faith. Non-Charismatics have their “‘no’ answer.” “You didn’t get healed. God’s answer was ‘no.’ We don’t know why it was a ‘no,’ but it was. So God actually answered your prayer with a ‘no.’ Your prayer was answered. Sometimes we don’t find out whether we are in His will until after we don’t get we asked for.”
If it is a “‘no’ answer,’ then God didn’t answer the prayer, because it wasn’t in His will. Stop praying prayers that are not in His will.
In thinking about this and discussing it with others, I arrived at something else I wanted to say here. I think this prayer for healing is almost identical to the gift of healing for the Charismatics. Think about it with me. Aren’t Charismatics praying for instantaneous healing when they lay hands on someone? When it doesn’t happen, they say the person didn’t have faith. Non-Charismatics pray for healing, but it is a process that takes awhile to occur, but besides that, it isn’t anything different. If the healing doesn’t occur, and the person dies, these say that it was a “no” answer from God. I don’t see much difference, if any, between these two approaches. They are both Charismatic.
As a practical question. We have two blind men in our church that have been faithful for years. I evangelized them door-to-door, baptized them, discipled them. One of them was at our men’s prayer time on Saturday AM, and I thought about whether I should pray for him to see. He’s 60. He’s been blind from birth. For those who believe in a prayer for healing, should I pray for him to see? Why or why not?
Hi, Kent, thanks for the in-depth response.
I'm very short on time the next day or two, so I can't give you an answer in kind right now.
As far as I know, James 4:3 is the only real rebuke in the NT for asking wrongly.
But certainly, my view on this is not at all based on seeing Acts as normative. You've mis-diagnosed things there. 🙂 Nor is it particularly novel.
Nor is the view that James 5 refers to a pray for physically healing a charismatic view, unless you want to claim men like John Gill and Matthew Henry (who predated the modern charismatic movement by centuries) were influenced by charismatic teaching.
More later, if the Lord gives me time.
What about Jesus prayer on Gethsemene?
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Might one model an appeal for healing on this? Jesus knew the will of His Father, but seems to pray for some possibility of relief while remaining in submission to His Father's will.
Thanks Jon for wanting to talk about prayer. When I was young, I either heard or read about prayer and many different books. I heard a lot of different perspectives. Preaching and teaching through the Bible has changed my thinking on it through the years. We pray every Wed at a prayer mtg, every service with some prayer, and then once a month with a men's prayer time, and we talk about prayer, really bouncing off of each other what we read in the Bible about it.
I really, really believe we should be praying when we are sick. I really, really think we should be looking to God for deliverance. I'm dealing with something more in tune with Charismatic healing.
I'll look into Gill and Owen on James 5. Obviously, they weren't Charismatics, but I think I said men tend toward a normativeness of Acts that teach that. That was not a super strong statement. It doesn't mean Charismatic, but something more in line with a lack of dispensational understanding, too much continuity. Maybe I could be more clear there, but now I am in the comments. 😀
Hi d4,
Thanks for your participation. Ultimately, what was Jesus' request. Not as I will, but as thou will, fitting with His own model.
I'm going through Lamentations now the last 6 weeks on Weds and there is a biblical basis for lament. I read the desire to have the cup pass from Him to be the nature of a lament. He lamented going through this. This is permissible for believers. We cry out to God in times of pain. How long? What have I done? In the realm of disease or injury, it might sound something like the following.
"Father, I'm hurting. I'm having a difficult time. How long? If possible, I would desire for this to be gone, but my life is in your hands. If my pain is your will, then your will be done. I trust in you. Help me to get through this Lord. Give me the grace necessary to be the testimony for you in the midst of this. I look to you for strength, but oh how I hurt."
Something like that.
John Bunyan's book on prayer was one of the most helpful to me. He defined prayer as, "a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God hath promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God."
I had never heard that before,i.e., that real prayer is praying for what God has promised. It completely changed how I viewed prayer and how I prayed. I had always thought we should ask for whatever we want, and as long as it isn't sinful, then we are to expect the "yes, no, or wait" answer from God. I totally misunderstood verses like John 15:7, not realizing that the word abiding in us shapes the "what ye will" that we ask for.
Good post. Thanks for the reminder.
Joe,
Great quote. I appreciate it.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Very thought provoking. In thinking through what you've written, on the normative vs. not in Acts, I have some questions.
You seem to be implying that if we pray according to His will in faith we will for sure see it come to pass. You said, "What is taught is pray for God's will and know that you will get it." How does this come to play in praying for lost to be saved. It is God's will ("not willing that any should perish") and Paul said that his prayer God is for the people of Israel to be saved (Rom. 10:1). But we do not know if the person will repent and believe on the Lord Jesus. How would you fit in praying for the lost into this discussion on prayer?
In the matter of prayer and steering clear of Charasmatic teachings, praying to know God's will on matters not clearly answered creates an entire spectrum of beliefs among Baptists. We say that God does not speak directly to us any more since we have the completed Word of God. Charasmatics believe otherwise. When we read events like David praying to God, asking to go up to battle or not, the question nor the answer were doctrinal. If we have a similar question, the Bible will not give a specific answer. There are principles and ways of ruling out what would be wrong, but after that, we still have to make a decision. Since God does not speak directly to us and we don't know God's will on some matters, is it sinful and unbiblical to ask questions like David did in prayer? Questions like, who to marry, what college to attend, has God called me to be a missionary, what house to buy, etc.? Do you believe God has a will on matters in our life that are not directly answered in Scripture? If so, how would you explain that we know His will on these matters? Many statements are said by believers like, "I didn't have peace about it," that are quite subjective.
Maybe there are some other unstated principles that you have not stated yet that would help. Thank you in advance for your response.
"Father, I'm hurting. I'm having a difficult time. How long? If possible, I would desire for this to be gone, but my life is in your hands. If my pain is your will, then your will be done. I trust in you. Help me to get through this Lord. Give me the grace necessary to be the testimony for you in the midst of this. I look to you for strength, but oh how I hurt."
Well said and a biblically modeled prayer request.
David,
Thanks. I'm going to answer your questions. How would you fit in praying for the lost into this discussion on prayer?
Within the context of Romans 10:1, God is going to save Israel. He said so in the Old Testament, Zechariah, among other places — saved as in 1/3 of the people and during the tribulation. There is a difference between Israel being saved and an individual Israelite being saved. God isn't done with Israel. Paul, knowing that God would save Israel, knew that Jews would be saved. Do you have an example of prayer for a particular person to be saved in the NT? If you believe God will answer that prayer, you would have to believe in irresistible grace too. Calvinists rightly make the point that non-Calvinists don't have a basis to pray for an individual lost person to be saved. I don't know the condition of someone's heart, so I don't pray for individual people to be saved. I pray for boldness. I pray for wisdom. I pray that I would speak as I ought to speak, to know how to answer every man. That is, pray like Paul asked folks to pray for him regarding evangelism in Colossians and Ephesians.
Regarding asking to go up to battle or not, this is again a situation where David was in a period where special revelation was not complete.
Is it sinful and unbiblical to ask questions like David did in prayer?
People are usually very emotional about this kind of thing. But God isn't going to tell us anything new in addition to what He has already told us, so we can't pray a prayer like David did in faith. I'll let you answer the question — if something is not of faith, it is what?
Questions like, who to marry, what college to attend, has God called me to be a missionary, what house to buy, etc.?
We should pray for wisdom and then as long as it is biblical, choose what we will. There are other principles: counsel, check in with your church. I said something about this in the first post on normativeness in the book of Acts.
Do you believe God has a will on matters in our life that are not directly answered in Scripture?
I call those things the individual will of God, but God isn't going to tell you the answer. You've got to apply scripture and God will help you do that with prayer. That's as good as it gets, and since God said that, it is great.
If so, how would you explain that we know His will on these matters?
The Bible is sufficient, so there is everything there to make good decisions. We need to know the Bible so we can make the best decisions. We should get counsel from people we know that know the Bible. You can know everything you are supposed to know about everything, but that doesn't mean that God will audibly or otherwise speak to you to tell you its the right decision. He doesn't give you a feeling either.
Many statements are said by believers like, "I didn't have peace about it," that are quite subjective.
Yes. This are non verifiable and can be used in a lot of different ways. I often hear people not having peace about something the Bible already told us to do, and even praying about something God already told them to do.
Hello, Kent. Still not sure how soon I'll get to a substantive response, but first a clarifying (I hope) question.
When Paul prayed for removal of the thorn in the flesh three times, do you believe he sinned in doing so?
Or would it only have been sin if he continued to do so after God told him to stop?
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Another example that I'm having a hard to time to see where it fits in with what you've written. We have several friends who do not have children yet but desire to. They have not been able to have children for several years. This is a physical problem. This is a prayer request that is mentioned several times throughout Scripture. Having children is a good desire to have and a prayer request that God has answered on multiple occasions in Scripture. My friends are praying for contentment in the situation to accept it if the Lord never grants them children. The do not know if it is God's will for them to have children. Cannot we please the Lord with a prayer such as, "If it is Your will, please grant them children"? I would be interested in also seeing if Bro. Ross has any input on this, too.
On the Lord's prayer in the Garden, I've read different takes on the prayer. Some are almost blasphemous and attack the deity of Christ, saying that Christ's will was wrestling with the Father's will in the garden. Stating that Christ was asking to get out of going to the cross goes against what He stated multiple times such as, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour." (Joh 12:27) "But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" (Luk 12:50) Christ never lost His Omniscience nor ever had a different will than the Father…. or else He was not God. If we are to always pray according to God's will and Christ asked for something that was not God's will, knowing that it wasn't, how does this not mar Christ's deity? What about Hebrews 5:7 that says, "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;" This verse seems to correlate with Christ's prayer in Gethsemane. The verse seems to indicate that His prayer was according to God's will and was answered ("and was heard"). Most of this comes down to what "the cup" was. Any thoughts on this? Thanks again for taking the time to blog.
Kent said in a previous comment: "Questions like, who to marry, what college to attend, has God called me to be a missionary, what house to buy, etc.?…Do you believe God has a will on matters in our life that are not directly answered in Scripture?…I call those things the individual will of God, but God isn't going to tell you the answer. You've got to apply scripture and God will help you do that with prayer. That's as good as it gets, and since God said that, it is great."
Not unlike something I read elsewhere: "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct they paths."
This is a good topic that challenges a lot of preconceived notions about prayer. I know it did me.
Good thread. I hope it continues and that others will benefit.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
How would you respond to someone who argued:
1.) Scripture provides warrant for praying for whatever we desire, so asking for things that are not sinful but not specifically given as examples is justifiable, e. g., Mark 11:24:
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
2.) NT churches are to sing the prayers of the psalms and pray them along with the psalmist, but verses such as Psalm 6:2, "O LORD, heal me" show that prayer for healing is justifiable
3.) While in James 5 the word "sick" is translated "weak" on occasion in the KJV, the fundamental meaning of the Greek word is physical, but "weak/unhealthy faith" is obviously a metaphorical use, like if we said "unhealthy/sick faith" in English, while if we spoke of an "unhealthy/sick" person we would not be speaking metaphorically, so we should go with the primary, physical use of the word "sick" in James 5 because there is no reason to conclude contextually that speaking of a person that is "sick" is a metaphorical use?
4.) We have warrant in Scripture to pray for things that we don't know for sure are going to happen; even the prayers for spiritual blessings in the epistles, for instance, involve decisions of the will on the part of the church members for whom Paul is praying, e. g., some of the Ephesians could backslide instead of growing more rooted and grounded in love, etc. Therefore if we have warrant to pray for spiritual things that we aren't sure are going to happen, we can also pray for things like people getting saved when we don't have specific verses that say "person X is going to get saved."
5.) The whole world being saved is the moral will of God, 2 Pet 3:9, hence the salvation of specific individuals is the moral will of God, and we are to pray for the moral will of God. Hence we have warrant to pray for individual people to be saved. Furthermore, there is no way that in a situation like Acts 7 Stephen's prayer could be answered without his killers being saved, so "lay not this sin to their charge" really involves a prayer for the conversion of those involved in his death, a prayer that was answered, e. g., in Saul's conversion.
Thanks for any help/light you can give in response. You asked in the post for people to think about what you said–the questions above come out of that thinking.
Jon,
Answering this question: "When Paul prayed for removal of the thorn in the flesh three times, do you believe he sinned in doing so?"
I believe the thorn in the flesh was the messenger of Satan sent to buffet Paul, which I think contextually was the ringleader of the false teachers in Corinth that were the source of the problems that Paul was describing. Rather than just remove them, God said His grace was sufficient, I believe, for Paul to deal with the false teacher himself, which he did.
Paul didn't have a completed NT. I don't think it was a sin for him. He stopped when he knew it wasn't God's will. If it was God's will, importunity would be the rule, persistence in praying for what we know is God's will, since we know and believe.
This comment has been removed by the author.
David,
Thanks.
Your question: "Cannot we please the Lord with a prayer such as, "If it is Your will, please grant them children"?"
If you had a woman today, who was married for the first time at 55 or older, should she and her husband pray for a child, since God can do anything? Or would this just be for those who we consider young enough to have children?
The Lord opens and closes the womb, and I don't know if He's opened it or closed it. I can't ask in faith for God to give someone a child, so I wouldn't pray it. I believe God is a good God who will give someone a child who wants a child if He wants that family to have a child. The, "if it's your will," prayer, which is obviously not knowing, since "if" is some realm of possibility only (and it is possible), would not be a prayer of faith. In a sense, it isn't even a prayer, but an acknowledgment that God is good and He could give us a child if it is His will, which is true.
I understand that people want that prayer, but I would teach them that God is good and He'll give you a child if He wants, so just trust Him and thank Him and do everything you can to see it happen.
You asked: "If we are to always pray according to God's will and Christ asked for something that was not God's will, knowing that it wasn't, how does this not mar Christ's deity?"
Actually, biblical and historical Christian doctrine says that Christ did give up the free exercise of His attributes, the doctrine of kenosis (Philip 2). Whether He knew something or not does not reflect on His deity at all. For instance, He didn't know the hour He would return — only the Father knew that.
You asked: "What about Hebrews 5:7 that says, "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;" This verse seems to correlate with Christ's prayer in Gethsemane. The verse seems to indicate that His prayer was according to God's will and was answered ("and was heard"). Most of this comes down to what "the cup" was. Any thoughts on this? Thanks again for taking the time to blog."
I have not doubt that Jesus prayed in the Garden, but it seems that the prayer was, "Not my will, but thine be done," not the other part. He prayed that, because of His reverence of the Father. He feared. So He wouldn't pray something out of the will of the Father, which would have been disrespectful. Hebrews 5, v. 7, and the verses around it, seem to back up what I'm saying. He refused to pray to be delivered to the One who could deliver Him, and He learned obedience.
How could he learn anything if He knew everything? This is part of the doctrine of kenosis. He grew in wisdom.
Hi Thomas,
It seems that this prayer thing has been an area that you and I have disagreed some, so there are those out there that believe that we shouldn't fellowship, because we are making prayer a non-essential. But that is another topic and another post, although I've answered it — they think they can drive a mack truck through that. Please park that truck, readers.
Thomas: "1.) Scripture provides warrant for praying for whatever we desire, so asking for things that are not sinful but not specifically given as examples is justifiable, e. g., Mark 11:24:
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
You left out "believing," at least in your conclusion. What is the basis for believing. This is not anything different than what I'm saying. The basis of faith is what? This is not name it-claim it. "Desire" is aiteo, which is very often translated "ask," so whatsoever you ask when you pray, believing. Your teaching has, it seems, zero quality control. I want this and this and this and this, and I'm going to keep praying for them until I get them.
Thomas wrote: "2.) NT churches are to sing the prayers of the psalms and pray them along with the psalmist, but verses such as Psalm 6:2, "O LORD, heal me" show that prayer for healing is justifiable"
There are also imprecatory psalms. Do you pray for the destruction of your enemies? Faith without works is dead. Do you kill them too?
Psalm 6 is a penitential psalm. David had sinned and was being chastised. His physical maladies were directly tied to his sinning. That needs to be recognized. When someone else is sick, do you know it is chastisement? Know it. So that in that person's repentance, you can pray for the discontinuation of the consequence of the unrepentant sinning? I think we should assume that physical and spiritual healing are tied together in times of chastisement. Chastisement ending when repentance occurs is God's will. I'm not saying that we don't have difficult situations to consider, but personally I don't know when someone is sick or weak from taking of the Lord's Table unworthily, but God does, and likely the person does.
Thomas wrote: "3.) While in James 5 the word "sick" is translated "weak" on occasion in the KJV, the fundamental meaning of the Greek word is physical, but "weak/unhealthy faith" is obviously a metaphorical use, like if we said "unhealthy/sick faith" in English, while if we spoke of an "unhealthy/sick" person we would not be speaking metaphorically, so we should go with the primary, physical use of the word "sick" in James 5 because there is no reason to conclude contextually that speaking of a person that is "sick" is a metaphorical use?"
I get your argument, have thought about it in depth previously, and I believe that contextually what I am writing is true. This is not praying that someone would lose his brain tumor.
Thomas wrote: "4.) We have warrant in Scripture to pray for things that we don't know for sure are going to happen; even the prayers for spiritual blessings in the epistles, for instance, involve decisions of the will on the part of the church members for whom Paul is praying, e. g., some of the Ephesians could backslide instead of growing more rooted and grounded in love, etc. Therefore if we have warrant to pray for spiritual things that we aren't sure are going to happen, we can also pray for things like people getting saved when we don't have specific verses that say "person X is going to get saved.""
I do have warrant to pray for things that the Bible says to pray for. That is in fact what I'm arguing for. Praying for someone's love to abound more and more is in the Bible. I believe it will occur when I pray it.
Second Part Thomas,
Thomas wrote: "5.) The whole world being saved is the moral will of God, 2 Pet 3:9, hence the salvation of specific individuals is the moral will of God, and we are to pray for the moral will of God."
I think that if we just took 2 Peter 3:9 alone, and the moral will of God alone, as a prerequisite, then you would be right. But that isn't all there is. You pray in faith. There is no follow up in 2 Peter 3:9 that says, "and since He isn't willing, then everyone pray for everyone who's not saved to be saved." If you pray that believing, God will give it to you. No. I pray for boldness, to speak as I ought to speak. Your pray requires a lot, including irresistible grace. But even if that point of Calvinism were true, Calvinists don't know the person is one of God's elect, so Calvinists are in for a tough time too. I like the John Bunyan prayer that Joe Cassada quoted earlier.
Thomas said, "Hence we have warrant to pray for individual people to be saved. Furthermore, there is no way that in a situation like Acts 7 Stephen's prayer could be answered without his killers being saved, so "lay not this sin to their charge" really involves a prayer for the conversion of those involved in his death, a prayer that was answered, e. g., in Saul's conversion." I'm not going to try to answer this, because I think it is a stretch to call this a prayer for a particular person to be saved. I think it was very merciful on Stephen's part, and perhaps he knew something that we do not know. He did see Jesus standing on the right hand of God too. I have never seen that, and this was in an era of miracles.
I would be interested in whether you think I should pray for Deryl and Peter to see? Do you pray that for them? Why or why not? Thank you.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Thank you for the comments and insight. I'm totally with you on the importance of praying the types of prayers actually found in Scripture. This is much neglected.
I don't really understand how irresistible grace objection can be made if you believe that God is certain to answer prayer that believers will be filled with the knowledge of God's will, etc. If sanctifying grace is not irresistible, but we are justified in playing such prayers, why can't we pray for the lost to be saved while recognizing that justifying grace is resistible? Along those lines, isn't Paul's prayer for Israel in Romans 10 for his living countrymen, and not only and specifically for the future eschatological conversion of the whole nation at one point in time?
If the man born blind whom Jesus healed was the only one from the beginning of the world for whom that had taken place, I can recognize that the sign gifts are done, not expect sign miracles like what Jesus did to the blind man, but still believe that James chapter 5, which says nothing about sign miracles, involves physical healing. So I don't pray for Deryl and Peter to see.
Looking at the psalter, I see prayers for physical healing, for protection from enemies, etc. all over the place that I see no reason to think of as types or as things that are limited to a time before the completion of the canon of Scripture. If we can only pray for things that are absolutely certain to happen because they are recorded in the Bible, like the second coming, I don't see how we can pray much of the psalter. And yes, when our enemies are God's enemies and Christ's enemies, the imprecatory prayers of the Psalter are appropriate.
I don't know if we can dismiss a test like 3 John 2 buy simply saying that it is a wish, not a prayer. In our secular age we disassociate wishes and prayers in a way that I do not believe first century Christians would have done. 3 John 2, even if one were to concede that it is not a direct prayer, involves, I think, at least an indirect invocation of God to fulfill the wish, in a way somewhat comparable to the Greek me genoito, "let it never be," really involves an invocation of God, and hence the KJV translation "God forbid."
I don't see how, even if we concede that Psalm five involves a prayer for healing when under chastisement, we avoid the fact that we are praying for things with a certainty less than the deductive certainty we derive from the propositions of Scripture. Can we be 100% for sure that a sickness is a result of chastisement, the way that we can be 100% for sure that whatever the Bible says is true? If not, unless we say that David had a special revelation in Psalm five about why he was sick, which seems to me to be a stretch, then we have a prayer there for something that is less certainly the will of God and the purpose of God than what we know from the specific propositions of Scripture.
I think we also have in the New Testament examples of prayers for things other than what is specifically revealed in Scripture or given by special revelation. For example:
But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. (Phm 22)
Isn't the natural reading of this verse that Paul had an expectation that he would get freed from prison because of the prayers of Philemon and the church, but he wasn't 100% sure about it? The word "trust" can also be translated, and is translated the majority of the time, as "hope," and biblical hope, while it is frequently a confident expectation, sometimes just means what we think of as hope, that is, something that is not certain but wished for, e.g.,
Ac 24:26* He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.
I would also be interested in your response to the view that God can give faith for specific things not specifically stated in Scripture when they are his sovereign will so that a person can only pray in faith for something when God enables him to believe in that way, so it is not "name it and claim it."
Is a great blessing that you are so serious about wanting to pray the biblical way and that you care about what the Bible says about prayer.
Thanks for the comments In advance.
By the way, my with the Philemon passage is not that Paul is totally uncertain whether Philemon's prayer for his deliverance from prison will be answered, only that Paul's certainty is at a lower level than the certainty Paul had the propositional statements of the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and whatever portions of the New Testament existed were true.
Hi Thomas,
"I don't really understand how irresistible grace objection can be made if you believe that God is certain to answer prayer that believers will be filled with the knowledge of God's will, etc. If sanctifying grace is not irresistible, but we are justified in playing such prayers, why can't we pray for the lost to be saved while recognizing that justifying grace is resistible?"
Sanctifying grace works on something that isn't thorny, hard, or stony soil. This is a saved person, and since God says he is predestined to conform, he will in fact conform. I have confidence in that prayer.
Thomas: "Along those lines, isn't Paul's prayer for Israel in Romans 10 for his living countrymen, and not only and specifically for the future eschatological conversion of the whole nation at one point in time?"
It's different to pray that Israel will be saved and to pray that Johnny will be saved. I suppose, since Paul was an apostle, God could tell him if an individual person would be saved, but I do believe he knew that Israel would be saved, like he knew that there would be those saved in Corinth by divine revelation. I just can't argue with that passage what you want. I also can't say, just go ahead and pray for individual people to be saved. Do you pray for everyone in the phone book? In every phone book? Why not?
Thomas wrote: ". . . . I don't pray for Deryl and Peter to see."
I don't understand this answer. If you believe James 5 is teaching to pray for physical healing, why do you not pray for Deryl and Peter? Not as a sign gift, but out of sheer compassion for two believers. You didn't answer that.
Thomas wrote: "Looking at the psalter, I see prayers for physical healing, for protection from enemies, etc. all over the place that I see no reason to think of as types or as things that are limited to a time before the completion of the canon of Scripture. If we can only pray for things that are absolutely certain to happen because they are recorded in the Bible, like the second coming, I don't see how we can pray much of the psalter. And yes, when our enemies are God's enemies and Christ's enemies, the imprecatory prayers of the Psalter are appropriate."
There was a promise by God to Israel to destroy her enemies that is not given to me to my enemies. If God gave me that same promise, I would pray that prayer. I believe God was right in destroying enemies and for psalmists to pray it, and I believe God is honored and praised by my singing that to Him. Agreeing with that being His will, then, is agreeing that God is righteous in His anger and judgment. I gladly sing that.
Thomas wrote: "I don't know if we can dismiss a test like 3 John 2 buy simply saying that it is a wish, not a prayer. In our secular age we disassociate wishes and prayers in a way that I do not believe first century Christians would have done. 3 John 2, even if one were to concede that it is not a direct prayer, involves, I think, at least an indirect invocation of God to fulfill the wish, in a way somewhat comparable to the Greek me genoito, "let it never be," really involves an invocation of God, and hence the KJV translation "God forbid.""
I don't believe it has the power of a prayer or it would have been a more specific word for prayer. I wish you were a billionaire. I don't pray it. Isn't that nice of me, though?
Thomas 2,
Thomas wrote: "I don't see how, even if we concede that Psalm five involves a prayer for healing when under chastisement, we avoid the fact that we are praying for things with a certainty less than the deductive certainty we derive from the propositions of Scripture. Can we be 100% for sure that a sickness is a result of chastisement, the way that we can be 100% for sure that whatever the Bible says is true? If not, unless we say that David had a special revelation in Psalm five about why he was sick, which seems to me to be a stretch, then we have a prayer there for something that is less certainly the will of God and the purpose of God than what we know from the specific propositions of Scripture."
In David's case, he did know. I'm not saying that we always know or when we do. David wrote quite a few psalms under inspiration of God. I don't see the point of your paragraph. My argument is that there is something different about chastisement and a sixty year old with congestive heart failure. The latter doesn't follow from the former. But the prayer doesn't have to be answered for you to pray it. You don't have to believe it will be answered. There is not prerequisite, it seems, to believe what you are praying. This is the essence of the "no answer" doctrine. What hope does a person have who you pray for? You are selective as well, not praying for two blind men, for no apparent reason that I can see, based on your belief.
Thomas said: "I think we also have in the New Testament examples of prayers for things other than what is specifically revealed in Scripture or given by special revelation. For example:
But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. (Phm 22)
Isn't the natural reading of this verse that Paul had an expectation that he would get freed from prison because of the prayers of Philemon and the church, but he wasn't 100% sure about it? The word "trust" can also be translated, and is translated the majority of the time, as "hope," and biblical hope, while it is frequently a confident expectation, sometimes just means what we think of as hope, that is, something that is not certain but wished for, e.g.,"
I actually answered that in the first post: "What about Philemon 1:22? Good question. Paul wrote, "But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you." That's not Acts. That's Philemon. My answer is that Paul the apostle knew that it was God's will that he would be given to him, so he wanted him to pray that. In the end, Paul's head was chopped off. Was there a prayer that could have kept that from happening? Faith comes from hearing the Word of God and God only answers a prayer of faith. Philemon must have known that it was God's will for Paul to be released, so he had the faith to pray it."
This is the problem with examples and Paul and prayer. This is not propositional, but narrative, and we have to ask if all narrative is prescriptive or descriptive. In light of propositional teaching, I take it as I described to you.
Thomas wrote: "I would also be interested in your response to the view that God can give faith for specific things not specifically stated in Scripture when they are his sovereign will so that a person can only pray in faith for something when God enables him to believe in that way, so it is not "name it and claim it.""
We can make applications to what we know from what God said. I pray that husbands would love their wives. I pray that parents would bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Those are all God's will on earth. I don't know if He wants them to have new shag carpeting.
I mentioned Bunyan's book on prayer earlier. Very helpful. I beg the moderator's patience for my giving a lengthy excerpt regarding praying for what God has promised :
Prayer it is, when it is within the compass of God's Word; and it is blasphemy, or at best vain babbling, when the petition is beside the book. David therefore still in his prayer kept his eye on the Word of God. "My soul," saith he, "cleaveth to the dust; quicken me according to thy word." And again, "My soul melteth for heaviness, strengthen thou me according unto thy word" (Psa 119:25-28; see also 41, 42, 58, 65, 74, 81, 82, 107, 147, 154, 169, 170). And, "remember thy word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope" (ver 49). And indeed the Holy Ghost doth not immediately quicken and stir up the heart of the Christian without, but by, with, and through the Word, by bringing that to the heart, and by opening of that, whereby the man is provoked to go to the Lord, and to tell him how it is with him, and also to argue, and supplicate, according to the Word; thus it was with Daniel, that mighty prophet of the Lord. He understanding by books that the captivity of the children of Israel was hard at an end; then, according unto that word, he maketh his prayer to God. "I Daniel," saith he, "understood by books," viz., the writings of Jeremiah, "the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, – that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes" (Dan 9:2,3).
So that I say, as the Spirit is the helper and the governor of the soul, when it prayeth according to the will of God… Hence it is that our Lord Jesus Christ himself did make a stop, although his life lay at stake for it. "I could now pray to my Father, and he should give me more than twelve legions of angels; but how then must the scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be?" (Matt 26:53,54). As who should say, Were there but a word for it in the scripture, I should soon be out of the hands of mine enemies, I should be helped by angels; but the scripture will not warrant this kind of praying, for that saith otherwise.
It is a praying then according to the Word and promise. The Spirit by the Word must direct, as well in the manner, as in the matter of prayer. "I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also" (I Cor 14:15). But there is no understanding without the Word. For if they reject the word of the Lord, "what wisdom is in them?" (Jer 8:9).
Seriously, get the book, ya'll. Kent is spot on here.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Thank you for wishing that I become a billionaire. Anyone reading this who wishes the like may use the paypal button on my website to get the process going. 🙂 If you wish Pastor Brandenburg becomes a billionaire, you can send contributions to Bethel Baptist Church. Alternatively, we can get an even more liberal federal reserve and have stagflation set in–then we can all be billionaires, possibly.
Misc. point: I don't think restoring sight to people born blind is the kind of non-specifically-miraculous healing James 5 is about. I suppose I wasn't clear about that before.
I may not be able to keep this discussion going because of other things going on, but I wanted to get your thoughts on a few further things if you have the chance. Thanks!
1.) I don't understand why Paul said he hoped/trusted that he would get out of prison through Philemon's prayers if he knew this 100% sure by special revelation. Why not say "know" instead of "hope" he would get out? I don't say that I "hope" the propositional statements in Scripture are true. I know they are true. If Paul had special revelation about getting out of prison, and that is the only reason the prayer in Philemon is justifiable, why say "hope" instead of "know"?
2.) If we are only to pray for things that we are 100% sure will happen in Scripture, how can we pray for pace from authorities in 1 Tim 2:1-4? I can't think that the only reason people like Antipas or Stephen got martyred is because they disobeyed 1 Tim 2:1-4. So isn't that an example of praying for something that isn't sure to happen?
3.) Along those lines, I agree totally that believers will be changed and aren't thorny ground, etc. But can we say that every believer is filled with all the fulness of God, etc. that Paul prayed for the Ephesians? Apparently their love didn't all continue to abound, for Christ had to rebuke them for leaving their love in Revelation. (Granted, that's a lot later.) Can we pray the prayers Paul prayed in Ephesians and know 100% sure these prayers are answered if someone we pray them for seriously backslides and does, say, what the guy in Corinthians did who lived in incest?
4.) Should we fast, pray, and preach the gospel to someone who is demon possessed? Since the sign gift of exorcism is not for today, do we have a 100% guarantee that the prayer will be answered?
5.) There are lots of other prayers in the psalter that I can't see being 100% sure to be answered. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," for example. There were periods of time when Jerusalem didn't have peace, and I don't think the context would bear the sense of "pray for peace in the New Jerusalem" or something like that. (I'm not saying you would say it's the New Jerusalem; I'm just trying to see how that prayer for the currently extant city of Jerusalem at different periods can fit with the "pray only for what is 100% sure in Scripture" view.)
Anyway, thanks for your comments. I appreciate your desire to pray Biblically.
Hi Thomas,
I think we should continue a conversation on prayer face to face, not because it isn't important, but because of how long it takes to do it.
Regarding praying for someone to get out of prison. In the model prayer, Jesus said pray for the kingdom to come. We already know that, so why pray for it? Jesus had the disciples pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit He promised. When we pray for what we know is happening, we are aligning ourselves with the will of God, expressing our desire for it.
Over all, I think the issue here is a matter of defining faith. Do we need to know in order to believe? I believe so. If we can't know, we can't believe. Believing and confidence are closely related, almost synonymous. We can't be confident about what we aren't sure about. If I'm going to pray believing, then I have to know what the answer will be.
1 Timothy 2:1-4 doesn't say pray for peace with authorities. It says to pray for them, but it doesn't follow that surely we will have peace. We are motivated to pray for those in authority the possibility of having peace with them. I've never understand that I would certainly have peace with them, because they doesn't logically follow. The consequence isn't a necessary consequence, only that we may live a peaceable life. May.
The Ephesians one is similar. I pray that someone might experience the love of Christ. I don't think that the consequence, again in the subjunctive, follows.
Your point about exorcism, I don't think I quite get. I would preach the gospel to a demon possessed person. That's the best I can do. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
Peace in Jerusalem could be prayer of faith and it was answered in David's reign. And it will be answered in the future based on God's promise and the Davidic covenant. Praying for the kingdom to come doesn't mean that it must occur in my lifetime.
You haven't dealt with the idea of a prayer of faith, what is it?
I have never heard something quite like this before, so I'm trying to grasp what you are saying, without jumping to incorrect conclusions. I understand that Biblical praying isn't going to God with your wish list. But since He is our heavenly Father, is it wrong to take requests to Him that we don't know for sure are His will or not? Wouldn't you, as an earthly father, be willing to listen to your children, even if you knew it wasn't in their best interest to answer their request? Obviously, we should desire God's will above all else, but doesn't our relationship with God give us the freedom to talk to Him about anything?
The Philosopher
Hi Philosopher,
I'm saying that the Bible is saying that we pray in everything. We pray in every situation. We ask for what is in God's will with faith, believing. We can't believe what we don't know. Faith is based on knowing. No one has disagreed with that. And if it is His will, we know His will, so this overlaps there. This is obviously historical, as Joe has indicated with the quotes by John Bunyan. It's also biblical. What changed my view on prayer was preaching or teaching everything the Bible said about prayer. That is a grid through which all this conversation flows. God isn't going to contradict Himself.
We can only take the parent child analogy to the extent that the Bible takes it with God. When we go further than that, to say that it's OK to ask God for things not in scripture because we want our own kids to ask for things they aren't going to get, that is still speculative.
Thanks.
Hi, Kent. Had another long post on this topic disappear. Rather frustrating. I know I should have saved it locally, but I didn't. My last try. 🙂 Shorter this time, because I don't have time for the full treatment.
Anyway, the Scripture is full of people praying for things they didn't know for certain God would do. Were those prayers of faith or not?
Hezekiah prayed for deliverance from Sennacherib before Isaiah had given revelation that it would happen. He also prayed for healing and God sent Isaiah back to tell him He had heard his prayer.
Gabriel told Zecharias his prayer for a son had been heard. Was it ok for him to pray for a son? How is that different from praying for healing?
Paul prayed for something to be removed. It doesn't matter what it was that much, but it was something that was not in God's will for him and it didn't happen. Yet, he prayed for it. You say it wasn't sin for him to do so. You haven't really given a reason why it was ok for him to pray for something that he didn't know was God's will, but not for us.
(I don't at all believe the "thorn in the flesh" was a false teacher. We use "thorn in the flesh" figuratively to mean just about any kind of trouble, but there is little evidence it was used so generically back then. It was a personal problem to him, "given to me" and "to buffet me" to keep him personally humble. So I can't agree with you on this, either, but it really doesn't matter to the question at hand. Paul asked for something which he could not know for certain God would do, and God did not do it.)
Romans 8:26 tells us the Spirit intercedes when we don't know how to pray as we ought. It doesn't tell us to only pray for the things we know we ought to.
In II Corinthians 13:7 Paul prayed that they would do no evil. Certainly, that would be God's will, but did it happen, that the believers in Corinth literally did no evil after that prayer? No one thinks that happened. Is it because Paul didn't have enough faith when he prayed for God's will?
You are making a prayer of faith to be almost a faith in the prayer, that the prayer has to be the right thing. I think this is a mistake.
The faith is in God. When we pray, we trust Him. We trust Him that He knows best and we don't, that He loves us better than we love ourselves, and that if we are mistaken in what we ask, the Spirit intercedes and He will do what is best.
We don't have to be fearful about coming to our Father in prayer, careful about making sure we aren't asking the wrong thing. We ask, and if our request is not in His perfect will, we trust Him to do otherwise, because we know who He is. He's our loving Father. He delights in our expressions of trust and dependence. We should pray freely. Prayer is not a formula, it is an expression of our loving dependence on our loving Father.
A man in our church had an injury which could only be healed by a miracle of creation. A young lad said last week he wanted to pray for this man. He didn't know how to pray — he said so. His prayer was all wrong theologically. Yet, we could use many such prayers. I trust the theology will straighten out. In the meantime, there's a heart for others and a childlike faith that says, "I can ask God for this!" And he can, just like Zacharias could ask for a son.
Jon,
Sorry about the disappearing post. Don't know enough about stuff to explain how or why.
The Bible is full of miracles and miraculous healing. Should we expect that today? I ask that in answer of your first question. Again, I'm looking at propositional teaching, eras of miracles, and other factors.
Hezekiah had Old Testament promises that would have his thinking he could be delivered. God told Solomon that if His people, who were called by His name….etc….that was a promise in answer to Solomon's prayer in 2 Chronicles 6. Solomon asked if he would hear a certain prayer and God gave a specific answer in chapter 7.
I can't explain every biblical example, like those of barren women giving miraculous birth. I don't believe they are normative. I see there being promises in certain instances, i.e., the line of the Messiah in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. That would have me to believe that there was something like that with Zacharias, rather than having the expectation that a barren woman will bear a child.
It would have been a sin for Paul to keep praying. But we have the hindsight of Paul's prayer.
If I developed the context, I believe the best understanding of the thorn is that it is essentially a stake, that the flesh is human fallenness, and that the messenger of Satan is actually a person. God allowed the problem that 2 Corinthians 11-13 is actually talking about in order to help Paul stay humble. God's grace was sufficient for Paul to deal with the messenger.
When we don't know what to pray the Holy Spirit steps in. Yes! That doesn't prove that we should pray prayers not in God's will.
2 Corinthians 13:7 is a good prayer. I don't believe it is a prayer for sinless perfection, but like the prayer, deliver us from evil and lead us not into temptation.
My faith isn't in the prayer, but in what God says. Faith is based on what God said, which is also His will. I don't understand your faith in the prayer. In fact, I think that is more the direction of the unbiblical praying. That person is not trusting in God's Word.
The faith is in God. When we pray, we trust Him. We trust Him that He knows best and we don't, that He loves us better than we love ourselves, and that if we are mistaken in what we ask, the Spirit intercedes and He will do what is best.
I'm not afraid of coming to God. But I don't come to Him like I would just anyone. There is the highest respect, as Isaiah saw in the heavenly holy of holy. I want to ask in faith and according to His will. The reason I'm not afraid is because I have confidence in what I'm praying, that it is in His will. I believe His will is perfect, it's the best, and it is what I want for my life. I believe He is a good God who is already taking care of me. For instance, I am content, having food and raiment. I already have it. I know it is God, Who opens and closes the womb. I also know that He can make the barren woman to be a joyful mother of children. He has done that and He can do that, but I'm content with Him when He doesn't do that too.
Our faith in God is based on what He says. Would you pray for the blind men in our church to see?
I do teach my own children to pray biblical prayers out of respect for God. I understand someone not praying them, but I want them to do that. I would be glad that someone wanted to pray and not have it all together on that previous, but I would help him to understand. There are things that we know God can do, but we don't pray them, because they are not in His will. He could give me a lot of different things, but I don't ask for them unless I know they are in His will. God isn't a genie in a bottle Who exists to give us what we wish.
Thanks!
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Thanks for your comments. Again, I appreciate that you want to take what Scripture says about prayer very seriously.
1 Tim 2:1-2 reads:
2 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
You affirmed that we are not to pray for peace with our governmental authorities (if I understood you correctly), because it isn't something we can be 100% sure of. What do you think we are commanded to pray for in 1 Tim 2:1-2?
In relation to the Ephesians text, you affirmed:
The Ephesians one is similar. I pray that someone might experience the love of Christ. I don't think that the consequence, again in the subjunctive, follows.
Aren't we then praying for something that isn't 100% certain to happen? And if we can do that, why can't we pray the moral will of God in 2 Pet 3:9 and pray for people to be saved?
I also don't understand how, if we can only pray for things that are 100% certain to happen because of Scriptural promises, texts like the following work:
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (Mt 17:20).
It seems very clear that Christ connects faith with getting the answer to the prayer. James 1 does the same thing–the person who doubts won't get the answer. But if we are only to pray for things that are 100% certain (like the 2nd coming, etc.) how does having faith have anything to do with the prayer being answered? Christ is going to come whether we pray for His return or not.
The view that I have heard on faith in relation to prayer for things not specifically addressed in Scripture is that since God works in us to will and do of His good pleasure, if the prayer is in His will, He can give the person praying the faith to be certain that it will come to pass, while He won't give the faith for that if it isn't His will. Thus, for example, Paul could ask God to have the thorn in the flesh removed, but He couldn't have the "faith and doubt not" of a text like Mt 17:21 for the answer because God wouldn't give Paul the faith for that since it wasn't His will.
(The verse:
Matthew 21:21 – Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this [which is done] to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.)
Thanks again for the help.