Tag: prayer

Inspiration, inerrancy, & Paris

The subjects of inspiration & inerrancy have been running through my mind lately. {“Well, at least they have plenty of space to roam.” –Shive}

Let’s say I was persuaded that the Bible is not fully inspired/inerrant because some passages, especially in the OT, run contrary to the Christian love ethic (see Psalm 109:6ff or 137:9). Consequently, some passages shouldn’t guide or inform the Christian life.

Then I see ISIS wreaking havoc in the Middle East and now in Paris. When innocents are being murdered can I pray for retributive justice on ISIS? Can I take my cue from Jesus’ teaching in Luke 18:7-8 and from John’s vision in Rev 6:10, or were they being too Old Testamenty in those passages?

How is one to know what he can & can’t pray?

The Savior of my prayers

Jesus isn’t just the Savior of my soul. He’s also the Savior of my prayers. My prayers come before the throne of God as the prayers of Jesus. “Asking in Jesus’ name” isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers are perfect. It is one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.

–Paul Miller, A Praying Life

Classically counter-intuitive

The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty; we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it–it might be phony or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible. In a fixed form we ought to have ‘gone through the motions’ before in our private prayers; the rigid form really sets our devotions free. I also find the more rigid it is, the easier it is to keep one’s thoughts from straying. Also it prevents getting too completely eaten up by whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (i.e. war, an election, or what not). The permanent shape of Christianity shows through. I don’t see how the ex tempore method can help becoming provincial, and I think it has a great tendency to direct attention to the minister rather than to God.

C. S. Lewis, Letters (1 April 1952) as quoted in A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis, 147.

a prayer that reveals a true heart

…O Thou blessed Pilot of the future as of the past, we are so happy to leave all to Thee; but in leaving all to Thee we have one wish, and it is that Thou wouldst in the next year glorify the Father’s name in us more than in any other year of our lives. Perhaps this may involve deeper trial, but let it be if we can glorify God. Perhaps this may involve the being cast aside from the service that we love; but we would prefer to be laid aside if we could glorify Thee better. Perhaps this may involve the ending of all life’s pleasant work and the being taken home–well, They children make no sort of stipulations with their God, but this one prayer ascends from all true hearts this morning, “Father, glorify Thy name”…

Charles Spurgeon, “A Golden Prayer”, The Pastor in Prayer

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