prayer-nov-dec-2018

MODERN REFORMATION VOL.27 | NO.6 | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 | $6.95

“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

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FEATURES 20

A Praying Church B Y PAU L E . M I L L E R

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Liturgical Prayer: Words That Enrich the Heart of the Church B Y J O H N J. B O M B A R O

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Kingdom-Building Prayer B Y M I C H A E L S. H O R T O N

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Prayer and the Presence of God

BY ERIC LANDRY

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY LARISSA NOWICKI

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DEPARTMENTS

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BOOK REVIEWS

GEEK SQUAD

Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation

A Simple Way to Pray

INTERVIEW

The Lord’s Prayer W H I R O U N D TA B L E W I T H M I C H A E L H O R T O N , K E N J O N E S, KIM RIDDLEBARGER, AND ROD ROSENBLADT

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BY MARTIN LUTHER

REVIEWED BY HARRISON PERKINS

The Beauty of the Lord: Theology As Aesthetics C H R I S T & C U LT U R E

REVIEWED BY

Fierce Mind and Brave Spirit: Jeanne, Queen of the Reformation

MICAH EVERETT

B Y R E B E K A H DA N

MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Eric Landry Managing Editor Patricia Anders Associate Editor Brooke Ventura Marketing Director Michele Tedrick

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Trinity Psalter Hymnal

76 B A C K PA G E

The Loneliness of Self-Righteousness

BY ERIC LANDRY

REVIEWED BY J O N AT H A N L A N D R Y C R U S E

Creative Direction and Design Metaleap Creative Review Editor Ryan Glomsrud Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith

Modern Reformation © 2018. All rights reserved.

ISSN-1076-7169

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LETTER from the EDITOR

of it at various points in redemptive history, the principles remain the same—with reverence and awe, in the forgiveness of sins, through his appointed mediator. We no longer need the blood of a bull, and there is no cloud of glory that descends upon an earthly temple. That’s because we have something much better: the blood of the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit, who makes the body of every believer his temple. We see the primary elements of prayer in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray—not with ostentatious shouting or empty repetition, but privately, in a manner befitting a respectful “When you say grace you can say it to child with his revered father. grown-up Jesus or teenage Jesus or bearded Through prayer, we weave together God’s promJesus or whoever you want.”—Will Ferrell, ises and our unique circumstances. In this issue, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby our contributors take us deeper into the different aspects of the tapestry of prayer. Paul Miller diso one watches a Will Ferrell movie cusses the necessity of prayer as the driving force for an accurate theology of prayer, but of the local church, and Lutheran pastor John if they wanted a general idea of how Bombaro discusses the organic nature of private many Nor th Americans and liturgical prayer, showing how approach prayer, it would be an easy both shape our worship. Editor-instart. Granted, I don’t think they chief Michael Horton explains how THE TRIUNE would find many people who serithe final declaration—“For thine is GOD OF THE ously pray to teenage/grown-up/ the kingdom, the power, and the bearded Jesus, but it would be pretty glory forever”—acknowledges the UNIVERSE easy to find someone who’s praying to purpose of our prayer as the family TELLS HIS a Jesus who looks more like the person of God, and executive editor Eric PEOPLE…HOW praying than the Second Person of Landry rounds us out with a bibthe Trinity as revealed in Scripture. lical-theological exposition of the THEY MAY This is something we’re all guilty of, famous praying man of James 5.

APPROACH to varying degrees. No sinful mortal In these turbulent and unsetHIM. can completely and accurately contling times, it’s comforting to know ceive of someone so wholly distinct that God does not just tolerate our from themselves as the God Man— petitions; he welcomes them and but if that’s the case, how then do we pray? How uses them as means to accomplish his sovereign can sinful humans, bowed down by their guilt and ordering of all events, both good and bad. Let’s hindered by the limitations of their mortality, draw near to the throne of grace with confidence, approach a holy God? knowing that we can cast all our anxieties freely Unlike the gods of the ancient Near East, who upon him because he cares for us. let humans figure it out for themselves, the Triune God of the universe tells his people (in language they can understand) how they may approach him. Although we see slightly different iterations BRO OKE VENTURA assoc iate editor

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INTERVIEW

The Lord’s Prayer WHI Roundtable with Michael Horton, Ken Jones, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt

n honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s ninety-second birthday, a concert featuring various notable performers was held at the Royal Albert Hall in May of this year.

One of the performers, Shawn Mendes, went on to describe his brief meeting with the queen as terribly awkward: “I was just standing there— you’re not meant to talk to her first; you wait for her to talk to you—but she just stood there for ten minutes and didn’t say anything!”

If meeting the queen (or any notable celebrity one holds in high regard) is awkward, then it makes sense that Isaiah would fall on his face and cry “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen

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the King, the Lord of hosts!” when confronted by the angel of the Lord (a theophanic appearance of the Holy Spirit). Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look upon God; Mary was greatly troubled when the angel of the Lord appeared to her and announced her pregnancy. The biblical accounts of mortals coming face-to-face with the Creator of the Universe don’t describe gushing expressions of adoration as much as they recount terrifying encounters with a being wholly unlike themselves in essence and in holiness.

How then should we—a people who are both commanded and invited into the presence of the Lord every Sunday—approach the Triune God? There is a familiarity with which he endears himself as well as a respect he requires. How do we revere him in his transcendence while

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adoring him in his imminence? Isaiah was certainly frightened, but he was comforted when the angel took the burning coal and touched his lips, signifying the forgiveness of his sins. The Lord himself instructed Moses on how he should approach him, and the angel told Mary not to be afraid. The fact that we worship a loving God who willingly accommodates our creaturely limitations and provides for our sinful proclivities is one of the greatest comforts of our Christian life.

We see the greatest example of this in Jesus, who emptied himself of the glory of communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit and took the form of a servant—not only to teach us how to pray but to make it possible for us to enter into the divine presence. In him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we approach the Father—not as Moses or Isaiah or Mary did, in fear and trembling—but with boldness and confidence, comforted that Christ’s blood covers our sins, and sure in the knowledge that our prayers are not just countenanced but welcomed. A while back, the hosts of White Horse Inn got together to discuss all the varying aspects of the Lord’s Prayer: how we are able to approach God in his glory; what constitutes a specifically Christian prayer; what we pray for; and why we pray for it.

M H : First of all, in terms of its context, the

Lord’s Prayer is quite interesting. Jesus told his disciples not to be like the Pharisees who make a public show of their piety but rather to be sincere when they go to God. They’re not doing this for themselves so that they may be seen in prayer. They’re doing this because they’re actually going to talk to God, because God has something to give them. What is so different and new in the whole history of prayer in the Bible by addressing God as Father?

KJ: The concept of intimacy. This is the sover-

eign Creator of the universe, this is the judge, this is the thrice-holy God. But yet, by virtue of our union with Christ, there is an intimacy we have with him as a beloved Father. So we’re not going to him as judge but as dependent children

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to our Father—and that single note of intimacy is a complete paradigm shift from what we were and are in our fallen state.

KR: How do we relate to a God who is utterly

transcendent, who has condescended to reveal himself to us? We relate to him as a father.

MH: Isn’t that the paradox? “Our Father, who art

in heaven.” We don’t waltz into his presence just because we’re nice people, or because he’s the great sugar daddy in the sky. He’s exalted on his throne in heaven, and yet we are invited to call him our father. This is not a relationship that people have naturally, born into the world.

KJ: That’s why you’re not just going as a crea-

ture; you’re not just going as a plaintiff; you’re not going as someone who’s looking to get something from this unknown or unknowable deity.

You’re going before the Creator of the universe who happens to be your father by virtue of your relationship to Christ.

M H : Because you’re adopted. Doesn’t it also underscore that true prayer is Trinitarian?

We pray to the Father in the Son by the Spirit.

Now, of course, not all of that is packed into this prayer. It’s assumed, and it certainly is unpacked in the Epistles: lots of the prayers, the benedictions, the salutations, not to mention the baptism formula—are in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

What are some of the contemporary challenges to prayer? Let’s talk first about false immanence—that kind of greasy familiarity.

KR: I think that’s the first thing we have to discuss. We hear lots of people say that the Greek word here for “father” (pater) is similar to the Aramaic Abba, so this is an intimate term like “Daddy.” This is indeed an intimate term, but as this is a term adults would use; we don’t want to say “Daddy.” “Father” is pretty appropriate.

There is an intimacy in that I can call this God “Father,” and yet there’s also this sense that he

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has condescended to me. The only way I can call him “Father” is because of his gracious act toward me. Other than that, I have no right to call him this.

MH: That’s a big one, isn’t it, because there’s a

false immanence—meaning there’s a nearness to the point even of God being one of us, apart from the incarnation. The other is a false transcendence, sort of like deism, where God is like the absentee father. Although he created the world, why would I pray to him about the cut on my leg? One seems to be instant gratification— that is, you can make that happen more easily than wait for or depend on God to bring something about. We see this all around us: on Sunday I pray, while on Monday I believe the invisible hand of the market has my destiny in its hands.

Even though the first petition, “Our Father,” indicates intimacy, he’s still heavenly. So there is this sense of reverence that still goes with that intimacy.

KJ: Even though the first petition, “Our Father,”

indicates intimacy, he’s still heavenly. So there is this sense of reverence that still goes with that intimacy; and as you indicated, I think the danger or the error many have fallen into is overfamiliarity, where there’s a loss of the reverence for God—a flippancy.

MH: What about the fact that God so graciously

condescends to work through means in our everyday life, which we’ll talk about when we get to “give us this day our daily bread”? On this point, Martin Luther said that God works through masks. The baker who makes our daily bread is a mask of God. It’s not that we get our daily bread from the baker; we get it from God through the baker.

KJ: Or through the farmer who plants the grain

and harvests it.

MH: The irony of it all, however, is that God in his graciousness reaches down through all these layers of creaturely mediation in order to give us stuff, and we end up worshipping the layers of mediation (the things he gives us) instead of God. It’s all meant to raise us up in thanksgiving

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to him, but we easily worship the technology, whatever makes our lives easier, simpler. One of the factors that pushes prayer out of things in my life is the illusion of self-sufficiency that I have—when I look around and say it would be more practical for me to use this time to do something with this technology or with that over there, or call this person and fix that, than it does really to go to my Father.

KJ: I’m reminded of a preacher I once heard in

Nigeria. He says that in Africa nothing works, so they have a tendency to worship those who can make things work. In the West, everything works, so we have a tendency to worship the things that work.

MH: Without reverence, we think that we can waltz into God’s holy presence without calling on the name of the God who has revealed himself in his word, and without the Mediator he has given us for safe passage into his presence.

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INTERVIEW

KR: It’s a dangerous thing to be in God’s presence apart from a mediator; it’s called judgment.

MH: Which reminds us of Isaiah 6 and the vision of God and his holiness; Isaiah needs to be forgiven before he can withstand this vision.

KR: There has to be a bloody cross and an empty

tomb in order for me to call God my father.

KJ: In Psalm 50, God says that it’s not the offerings he wants from us. We can go ahead and offer them, but that’s not where the problem lies. He does, however, command his people to offer the praise of thanksgiving. So the reason we can come into his presence is because a blood sacrifice has been offered in the person of Christ, and therefore we give to him thanks and adoration because of what he has given—not only in those things that we petition him for but primarily in what he has given us in Christ. That’s what gives us access.

MH: So when we pray, we cannot abide a prayer

that is not Trinitarian. In other words, we cannot pray a prayer with non-Christians. We pray first of all as his adopted children, which happens only through faith in Christ. We do not pray to God. We pray to the Father in the Son through the Spirit; if there’s any other kind of prayer, then we’re not participating.

RR: I think it would be wonderful if those who believe the historic Christian faith would say thanks but no thanks.

MH: That itself would be a witness. We think it

would be a witness for us to join in that public civil religion, but it’s actually an anti-witness, a false witness. It would be more of a witness to say that we can’t do it.

RR: You could be civil, be polite, thank them for the invitation, do all of that—and decline.

K R : Since we are pastors, we get invited to

the city council meetings where we live. As a

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Christian, I can go and pray for the city, but I can’t participate with anybody else in that prayer. And if anybody tells me I can’t pray in the name of Christ, then I’m not coming.

MH: So what do you do at the dinner table if you

have non-Christians gathered for the holidays or for a meal? Do you pray as you normally do with your family?

RR: I’m with Kim. If I’m asked to do that, it’s going

to be through the name of the one who mediated.

KR: I have non-Christian family members, and

I will pray and give thanks and thank God for them and for their participation, in the name of Christ. It’s not a witness. In that case, I’m giving my thanks for them and for that day.

MH: Remember, this is a prayer Jesus taught his

disciples to pray. They came to him and asked him for a form for proper prayer. Jesus does that, as was traditional in those days, but not by giving them a lecture on prayer and what it means (“and here are four principles”): he gave them a prayer.

He says, this is a prayer and this is how you should pray. It’s marvelous how there’s nothing left out of this prayer. If you think of what prayer includes, in this very short prayer, we could pray all sorts of words that aren’t in the Lord’s Prayer. But there is nothing that is the basic structure of any prayer that is left out of this prayer. It’s really amazing.

When he says, “Our Father,” not everybody, even Christians, would be comfortable with that. In Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Eerdmans, 1976), D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones really strikes at the heart of this: “Our Father.” Yes; but because of our debased conception of fatherhood, He hastens to say, “Our Father which art in Heaven,” the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the kind of Father we have.

But there are many people who are in this world, alas, to whom the idea of fatherhood

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Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, not as they have been loved by their earthly parents, but as they have been loved by him. Paul speaks of the love of the Father, the heavenly Father, who has been poured abroad in our hearts.

is not one of love. Imagine a little boy who is the son of a father who’s a drunkard and a wife beater, and who is nothing but a cruel beast. That little boy knows nothing in life but constant and underserved thrashings and kickings. He sees his father spend all his money on himself and his lust, while he himself has to starve. That is his idea of fatherhood. If you tell him that God is his father and leave it to that, it is not very helpful, and it is not very kind. The poor boy of necessity has a wrong idea of fatherhood. That is his notion of a father, a man who behaves like that. So our human, sinful notions of fatherhood need constant correction.

Let’s not take it for granted, therefore, that everybody can pray “Our Father” and have intimacy.

RR: Luther says, “What does this mean? With these words, God tenderly invites us to believe that he is our true father and we are his true children; so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask him as dear children ask their dear father.”

KJ: Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, not as they have been loved by their earthly

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parents, but as they have been loved by him.

Paul speaks of the love of the Father, the heavenly Father, who has been poured abroad in our hearts.

MH: It is significant that Jesus says, “When you

pray, pray like this: Our Father in Heaven.” Not to peer into the glory and majesty of God but to specifically pray to a concrete person, the Father who is known only in the Son.

KR: This is a huge point; this is a reality: a God who condescended to us and who is personal.

Not a force, not a power—a particular person, the Father of Jesus Christ.

RR: Unless I’m mistaken, you can search pretty diligently to find a parallel for this in the other religions of the world, but you’ll find that it’s unique to Christianity.

MH: For those who want a religion that is about spirituality, a kind of vague trust in something beyond themselves, a higher power or whatever, they will find that Christianity at every turn is going to bug them because it’s a very particular religion. It has lots of rough edges. It’s a particular God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s a particular way: through a mediator, Jesus Christ. It’s a particular revelation: in Judah is

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INTERVIEW

God known. God speaks to a particular people in a particular nation in a particular place in a particular time.

KJ: In a particular relationship.

MH: And God becomes flesh as a particular man,

lines of what Dawkins would say: nobody’s ever seen God, and nobody knows what color he is, or whatever. While I can’t tell you how tall Jesus was or what kind of hair he had (or what kind he didn’t have), I hold to Nicene Christology. This is something the church has failed to really deliver.

a Jewish rabbi in first-century Palestine, and he delivers himself to us today through the proclamation of a particular gospel, a particular set of great announcements, and a particular means— baptism with water—and a particular sacrament of the Lord’s Supper with bread and wine (you can’t use anything else). This is all very particular.

MH: That’s because it’s presupposed that we pray to God the Father because he sent the Son. We’re not rising up to heaven. This Father in heaven has sent his Son to earth so that we could have a relationship with him and call him Father in the first place.

RR: Yes, those who are looking for a general

depicted as a power. Prayer is communication with a particular, personal God. There are benefits, obviously, from praying, but when we say that prayer is itself a power, then it almost doesn’t matter who we’re praying to.

spiritual religion need to go someplace else.

They’re going to be constantly up against it in Christianity: a particular Jew, born in a particular time, who died a particular death, with blood with a DNA factor to it, an Rh factor. When I get into some of these discussions with unbelievers, they’re civil; but they’ll say something along the

K J : In a lot of evangelical circles, prayer is

MH: A lot of Christians tout the psychological studies that show how people who pray are healthier and that it’s good for the psyche. This does not help the cause, because it basically turns prayer into something not about God but a practice, such as going to the gym, which will get you what you want. People say, “There’s power in prayer.” No, there is no power in prayer at all.

There is power in God to whom we pray.

KJ: I think it was Eisenhower who said, as he

People say, “There’s power in prayer.”

No, there is no power in prayer at all.

There is power in God to whom we pray.

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urged people to pray, that “it doesn’t matter who you pray to, just pray.” This sounds like the people on the boat with Jonah. The captain tells Jonah to talk to his God. It didn’t matter who that was—just talk.

M H : James Boice used to give a great illus-

tration, which I believe he got from Donald Barnhouse. A mountain climber tripped and fell off a cliff. He managed to reach out his arm, break his fall, and save his life. But he realized before long that he couldn’t pull himself back up onto the ledge. So he did as a lot of people do in those situations and got religious all of

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a sudden—a foxhole prayer. He cried out, “Is there anybody up there who can help me?”

Much to his surprise, a voice boomed back: “Yes, I am up here, and I can help you—but first you have to let go of the branch.” The climber thought a moment, then he looked back up and cried out, “Is there anybody else up there?” We have to let go of the branch. We’re not using prayer to pull ourselves back up onto the ledge.

We’re throwing ourselves onto the mercy of God, who is good.

We read that Job put his hand over his mouth.

There’s likewise a moment for us in prayer to put our hands over our mouths, close our eyes, and say, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Adore him.

KJ: This is a privilege he’s granted to those to

whom he has reconciled himself through his Son.

RR: Christians know no other kind of prayer.

Christians don’t allow themselves into general prayers that have nothing to do with this particular God.

KR: It’s idolatry to do that.

MH: When I think of the Lord’s Prayer, as far as

the way I often pray, I realize that I’m not praying properly when I pray, “I’ve got this need; help me with this.” It’s easy in that setting for us not to take the time at the front end to do what Jesus is saying here. Basically, Jesus is telling us to forget our petitions for now—we’ll talk about that later. When we go into God’s presence, we should first of all pause, just be silent.

It’s sort of like the response of Jeremiah, or Job after all of his talking. Chatter, chatter, chatter, and all of his friends chatter, and God is just sitting there. Finally God speaks: “Where were you when I created the world?” We read that Job put his hand over his mouth. There’s likewise a moment for us in prayer to put our hands over our mouths, close our eyes, and say, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Adore him.

KJ: I like Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that

I am God,” or elsewhere it says, “The Lord is in his holy place; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

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RR: When it’s the right God, man, does that fit.

KR: That fits so much with what Christ said earlier about the context here—that the scribes love to pray in public so people can hear their many words. Then Jesus gives them this prayer, which is so short and so concise and so wonderful.

RR: Who would have thought? God in heaven becomes flesh in Jesus Christ, and the disciples ask, “Lord, teach us how to pray.”

MH: It’s one thing when Jesus prays to the Father with such intimacy and talks about the Father— as if he had been with him from all eternity and just came down three decades ago. But before that, he was with the Father from all eternity.

Oh, and he created the world too. That’s one thing. But then for Jesus to say, “And I’m going to give my life for you, so that you can pray, ‘Our Father.’” We can address him as our father. Is there significance in praying our Father? Much of our prayer is individualistic today; but when

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“Our Father who art in heaven” is the gospel. . . . God is our Father, not our judge. That is the key to all prayer. Stop a minute. Let us bask, just enjoy being in the presence of such a merciful Father, and let the gospel soak in.

we read Acts 2, we see that the disciples gathered for the prayers—communal prayers.

KR: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with

a believer praying “my Father” in an intimate setting, but I also think it’s important to realize that “our Father” means something. I’m not the only redeemed person who has been given this privilege, and there is a corporate dimension to this prayer when Jesus instructs the disciples (plural) to pray like this.

KJ: Paul picks this up in his various letters when

he reminds the Ephesians, for instance, to pray for all of the saints and then to pray for him in particular. There is a covenant community element included in our prayers, which reminds us—yes, this is an individual privilege (although it’s actually a community privilege that can be exercised by every individual within the community)—we are never to lose sight of that covenantal community element that’s incorporated in that phrase “Our Father.”

RR: This includes all believers of all ages.

MH: This does undermine the individualistic, pietistic view of a lot of people today who think

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that what’s really important is that they have their daily quiet time—not that they have their weekly gathering to pray the prayers with the people of God, to confess the faith with the people of God, and to receive the blessings of God with the people of God. RR: Finally, these people are saying that they’re the church more than that’s the church.

KJ: This includes those we pray for. Although our prayers are not just about our own households or personal struggles—even though we make all of that known to the Lord—in the midst of our personal engagements and struggles, we lift up our brothers and sisters, and we pray for the saints.

RR: Luther used to say that there was something to that text in the Gospels. Setting a small child before his disciples, Jesus said that unless the disciples became like one of these little toddlers, they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. Luther used to say that the child who sees prayer as just asking for things was closer than we think to what the adults ought to watch and pick up. Simply asking—petitions. Luther says that this child is more trusting than the adults. It’s reliance.

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MH: Even that expresses faith.

KR: Calvin takes a bit different tack in calling

prayer the chief exercise of thankfulness. When we consider all that God has done for us and our hearts pour out thanksgiving and praise, there is no focus from Calvin—as we see in the modern age—on “gimme gimme.” While Luther is not saying that, they kind of fit together.

MH: How different this is from the constant haranguing that people ought to pray more, read their Bible more, do more—which actually turns them into the Pharisees who are making a show, so that they can tick that off their list or be the pious people they’re told they need to be. I think of the line from John Wesley where he says, “I don’t trust the Christian character of any man who doesn’t pray for at least four hours a day.”

How different that is from God telling us to come into his presence.

KJ: Because you’re in the presence of your Father,

you don’t even bother to look at your watch.

MH: I’m not ticking a box off here. I’m not saying, “I had my quiet time today; I’m okay.”

KR: Even if I do look at my watch, God is not

going to kick me out.

MH: God enjoys us just being in his presence. He

has invited us and welcomed us into his presence. The more you mention about checking your watch, the more I am filled with wonder that I want to hang around, that I want to pray more.

KR: He even won’t cast you out when you’re angry with him.

MH: That’s something we’ll see as we go along here. The prayers that are modeled for us in the Psalms, for example, are not all “Hi, Father! It’s so wonderful to be in your presence. I’ve come boldly in Christ.” Some of our prayers come after we slam the door behind us and cry to him,

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“What have you done? Are your hands in your pockets? Do something!”

KR: The Father imagery ties us to family. There

are things that families can say to one another that no one else outside the family dare say.

KJ: Sometimes we say, like the prodigal son, “Father, I’ve sinned again, and I don’t deserve to be here; I don’t deserve to be your son.”

RR: The centurion said, “I’m not even worthy to be under the roof where you are, but I know you, and if you say the word, my dying daughter will live.” He used a centurion and not an Israelite.

And that brings tears to me.

MH: “Our Father who art in heaven” is the gospel.

There’s so much to unpack there in Christ. God is our Father, not our judge. That is the key to all prayer. Stop a minute. Let us bask, just enjoy being in the presence of such a merciful Father, and let the gospel soak in. He is our Father. We get to address him as our father, as no one but those who are united to Jesus Christ can. From there, it’s a wonderful privilege we have to pray for ourselves and our needs, to pray for those who are in need, and to pray for his kingdom.

MICHAEL HORTON is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation and the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

KEN JONES is pastor of Glendale Missionary Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, and cohost of the radio program/podcast Saints and Sinners Unplugged.

ROD ROSENBLADT, now retired, served as professor of theology at Concordia University in Irvine, California, and as an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

KIM RIDDLEBARGER is pastor of Christ Reformed Church in

Anaheim, California. He is visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California and a frequent contributor to Modern Reformation.

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Fierce Mind and Brave Spirit: Jeanne, Queen of the Reformation

by Rebekah Dan

he had a temper—molto fantastico!—complained the Catholic ambassador from Florence; and in 1528 when she was born, her parents (King Henry and Queen Marguerite d’Albret of Navarre in southwestern France) likely wished for a son after neighboring royal rivals from Spain scoffed at their newborn female heir: “The cow has brought 1 forth a sheep.” Little did they know that the high-spirited, intelligent, and tenacious Jeanne d’Albret would prove to be a powerful asset for the Reformation in France, and that she was just as courageous and influential as any male monarch. While Calvin and Luther preached the truths of Scripture in their regions, it was

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Jeanne who played a significant part to sustain and bolster the Reformation cause in her territory of France.

Her looks matched her character. A sharp face with thin lips and gray piercing eyes, Jeanne was a dynamic child although frail in health. “Noisy and boisterous,” her mother described her in 2 a letter. Parents of overly energetic children, however, can take note of Jeanne’s story—and how that energy can be channeled with positive results if children are trained in the fear of the Lord (Prov. 22:6).

For the first nine years, Jeanne’s childhood was idyllic on the family estate in the Loire Valley away from the public eye, which would be a stark contrast to the dangerous and complex

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politico-religious drama she navigated through the rest of her life as queen. Until then, however, she enjoyed a normal royal upbringing. On their estate in Lonray, Jeanne had a personal maid, a tutor who instructed her in Latin and the classics, and twenty servants. As they were French, it only made sense to have two bakers and a pastry maker among them (crème brûlée anyone?)!

Jeanne’s mother, Marguerite, was also the sister of King Francis I of France and therefore an influential renaissance woman. Although Marguerite was a supporter of the “new thinking” of the reform movement and exposed Jeanne from a young age to the reformers, she never left the Catholic Church. Marguerite interacted with Erasmus, who sought her opinion; and she invited the likes of William Farel, John Calvin, and her Reformed chaplain Gerard Roussel to the royal court. The seed of the gospel was planted in Jeanne’s heart at a tender age; and when she reached adulthood, her life story proved that God’s word does not return void (Isa. 55:11) and that a mother’s faithful guidance of children in godliness and Scripture yields the fruit of righteousness.

Jeanne’s iron will revealed itself in her preteen to teenage years. She would not allow herself to be a political pawn, used by either her father King Henry or her uncle King Francis.

They were playing a tug-of-war with Jeanne, trying to gain more land by marrying her off to either a Spanish king or William, the German Duke of Cleves. Since Uncle Francis was King of France while Jeanne’s own father only ruled Navarre, her uncle seemed to have the upper hand. Until Jeanne showed him who was boss.

“I will throw myself down a well rather than marry the Duke of Cleves!” Jeanne protested when King Francis informed her of the arrangement. She sobbed and shouted—some sources say she even endured physical punishment— refusing to bend. When King Francis moved forward with the marriage plans, Jeanne wrote an official letter of objection before her engagement day, complete with witnesses and their signatures, saying:

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The seed of the gospel was planted in Jeanne’s heart at a tender age; and when she reached adulthood, her life story proved that God’s word does not return void (Isa. 55:11).

I, Jeanne de Navarre, continuing my protests already made, in which I persist, say and declare and protest again . . . the marriage proposed between me and the Duke of Cleves is against my will, that I never have consented to it, and that I never will.

At her engagement ceremony, the cardinal asked Jeanne three times if she would marry the duke. In typical fashion, she replied, “Don’t press me.” Gutsy for a thirteen-year-old! Then the day of the royal wedding arrived with all its pomp and circumstance. The child bride did not care that officials of the Catholic Church were present, including royal representatives from England, Portugal, Venice, and Saxony.

She resisted to the last minute, refusing to walk up to the altar for the wedding to begin.

King Francis therefore commanded an official to carry her to the altar by the collar in front of

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the shocked royal court. Although the ceremony took place, the marriage was not consummated.

The duke went to his country to fight various battles, while Jeanne remained with her parents in frail health. After a few years, the marriage was annulled by the Catholic Church because of political interests on the part of her family.

As a young adult, Jeanne happily accepted an arr ange d marr iage w i t h Ant oine de Bourbon, a prince with great military achievements, charm, and affability. History would have been much different, even disastrous, had she married Henri II, another suitor who sought her hand in marriage and who later became the leader of an ultra-Catholic group and an archenemy of Queen Jeanne’s.

Like a storybook triumph, the marriage with Antoine was a love match. Although they lived happily together and had five children (only two survived) over the years, when their marriage was tested by matters of faith, the result was heartbreaking.

At first, Jeanne kept a low profile toward Reformed teachings, although she was favorable toward them. She had to balance the risk of losing her crown, having her territory confiscated and invaded by Spain, and having the Catholic Church condemn her for heresy. By this time, however, the sparks of scriptural truth she received in childhood had been fanned into flame, and she privately wrote to Viscount Gourdon, a nobleman who was proReformation, saying: A reform seems so right and so necessary that, for my part, I consider that it would be disloyalty and cowardice to God, to my conscience, and to my people to remain any longer in a state of suspense and indecision.

Her loyalty to God was soon tested. The Royal French Council asked her to arrest and hand over Reformed preachers, such as Theodore Beza and others, so they could be tried for sedition. She stubbornly resisted, and on Christmas Day 1560, she publicly declared

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herself as a Reformed queen and her territory as Protestant. Although her husband was a Protestant in word, he was not in heart. Antoine had become an immoral king and only sought political advantages and new mistresses—and the Counter-Reformation took advantage of this weak link.

Wanting to reclaim Jeanne’s territory of Navarre for the Catholic Church, they baited Antoine with promises of greater power and land if he would return to the church. Not only did he agree, but he even consented to a kidnapping plot against Jeanne so her Catholic enemies could imprison her in a fortress. Jeanne, however, learned of the plot and escaped with the help of Theodore Beza.

Within her territory of Navarre/Bearn, Jeanne constantly negotiated for the cause of the Protestants. But as the number of Protestants in her region grew to equal those of Catholics, so the persecution grew. Although she first tried using her royal power to protect the Protestants from vicious persecution, she ended up providing them with troops to defend themselves. A skilled and wise ruler, she did not violently force her subjects to submit to the Reformed faith, as she herself admitted: “I do nothing by force; nobody is condemned to death or imprisonment.” She implemented this by ordering the removal of shrines, altars, and crucifixes, and paid for twenty Reformed ministers to come to Bearn to preach.

While she was busy strengthening the Protestant root in her territory, her husband died from a battle wound while fighting Protestants in another region of France.

Surprisingly, on his deathbed, Antoine reaffirmed his Reformed faith, which was a bittersweet end to their marriage. Jeanne, who had loved her husband despite his unfaithfulness, wore mourning clothes the rest of her life.

When Jeanne had to confront threats from the papacy that she was committing heresy and bringing in new ideas, she boldly replied to a cardinal’s insidious accusations. Her reply was printed for many to read:

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“[W]hen you say that we abandon the ancient doctrine to follow apostates, take a look in the mirror. . . .

Keep the names 'heretic,' 'seditious' for you and yours; I thank God that I know how to serve and please Him without your teaching.”

As to the Reformation . . . I am most earnestly resolved, by the Grace of God to continue throughout my land of Bearn. . . . [N]either have I undertaken, as you assert, to implant a new religion, but only to restore the ruins of the ancient faith. . . .

Pull the mote out of your own eye so that you can see clearly enough to cast out the beam in your neighbor’s! First cleanse the earth of the blood of just men shed by your (party). . . . [W]hen you say that we abandon the ancient doctrine to follow apostates, take a look in the mirror. . . . Keep the names “heretic,” “seditious” for you and yours; I thank God that I know how to serve and please Him without your teaching. . . . In Bearn I recognize only God to whom I must account for the rule He has given me over His people. . . . If you can find no stronger arguments . . . you cannot convince me . . . and please stop annoying me.

For this, Jeanne was condemned for heresy and called to the Inquisition in Rome. By God’s grace, due to a complex web of interests, Jeanne was pardoned. This is because the French royals resented the overreach by the papacy,

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so Catherine de Medici (the infamous queen) intervened to prevent Jeanne from being condemned. This friendship, however, did not last long, and soon Catherine de Medici would become an archenemy.

These troubles are only a sample of what Jeanne experienced in her lifetime as she resolutely continued her work for the Reformation.

While Catholics and Protestants in France waged two civil wars, Jeanne struggled to keep control of her territory and ensure a future for her son and daughter. By the time a third civil war was brewing, Jeanne was in danger of being killed and had to flee to La Rochelle where other Protestants had taken refuge. As it was a wealthy fortified seaport city that had autonomy and could mint its own currency, Jeanne remained for three years. There she took on the many roles of administrator, chairperson, and fund-raiser, writing to many foreign sources and even to Queen Elizabeth I of England to ask for support. Generous to the needs of the poor, Jeanne managed the influx of about sixty thousand Protestant refugees who fled to La Rochelle for safety.

She also established a seminary in La Rochelle and recruited the most competent Reformed

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From Jeanne, we can learn that not only are we saved by grace, but also that this same grace empowers us to be uncompromising in the face of opposition, holding on to the truth of Scripture.

professors to teach Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, paying their salaries from her own resources.

During that time, she arranged and paid for the translation of the New Testament in a dialect of Basque to make it available to her people in their language. Because of her work and presence, La Rochelle became the intellectual and military center of the Reformation in France.

But the more the Protestants progressed, the more they had to physically defend themselves against the Catholics. When a general was killed in battle and the Protestant troops faced a great defeat, Jeanne rode out to encourage them.

Tireless in her work for the Reformation, she plainly stated that she would rather die than accept a peace that did not provide freedom of religion to the Protestants.

Over the years, Catherine de Medici began persecuting Jeanne, forcing the marriage of

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Jeanne’s son Henri with her Catholic daughter, against all of Jeanne’s wishes and attempts to stall the marriage. Jeanne died shortly before the marriage took place. Although she had struggled with tuberculosis for most of her life, some think Catherine poisoned her. On her deathbed, Jeanne affirmed her true faith in Jesus: I expect neither salvation nor righteousness, nor life from any but my Savior Jesus Christ, being assured that His merits alone are abundantly sufficient to make full satisfaction for all my sins, innumerable though they be.

Jeanne’s death on June 9, 1572, was a loss to the Protestants of France. After her son Henri married Catherine’s daughter, the slaughter of St. Bartholomew took place. But Jeanne’s legacy continued in her daughter Catherine, who displayed the same fierce mind and brave spirit and returned to the Reformed faith despite pressures. As for Henri, Jeanne’s son, he remained officially Catholic but privately held to the Reformed teachings (although it is not certain if he was truly born again). One positive result of Henri’s rule was the Edict of Nantes, which gave legal freedoms to the Protestants.

From Jeanne, we can learn that not only are we saved by grace, but also that this same grace empowers us to be uncompromising in the face of opposition, holding on to the truth of Scripture and remembering that “he who began a good work in [us] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

REBEKAH DAN is the author of two books, including a children’s picture book, Princess of the Reformation: Jeanne D’Albret (2017).

1 James Anderson, Ladies of the Reformation: Memoirs of Distinguished Female Characters, Belonging to the Period of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (London: Blackie and Son, 1857).

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All further quotes in this article are taken from Nancy L. Roelker, Queen of Navarre: Jean d’Albret, 1528–1572 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968).

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FEATURES

Prayer recognizes God’s powerful presence in every situation. We pray because we expect God is there, that he cares, and that he is able to address our situation in some way.”

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A PRAYING CHURCH

LITURGICAL PRAYER: WORDS THAT ENRICH THE HEART OF THE CHURCH

KINGDOMBUILDING PRAYER

PRAYER AND THE PRESENCE OF GOD

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PAUL E . MILLER

A Praying Church artwork by

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church in America is struggling. We’ve lost the cultural wars, and our kids are being seduced by the siren call of secularism. It’s rare to find a family where I live in the Northeast where all the grown children of Christian parents are believers. Having lost the cultural high ground, we no longer control the public narrative.

Last night one of my favorite British sitcoms, Doc Martin, mocked a missionary couple as judgmental, selfish, and greedy. That’s not just a lie, it’s a false narrative that is imprinting our youth.

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It’s no different from the false narrative that the slaveowners spun of Paul and Silas in Philipi after Paul cast the demon out of their slave girl. Trapped by the false narrative of the slaveowners (“these Jews are troublemakers”), Paul and Silas ended up beaten and in prison with their legs in stocks (which functioned like torture extenders). There in prison they embraced a “fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10) by instinctively forming a praying community.

With the cultural supports of Christendom gone, we often find ourselves in situations where we are powerless and suffering, like Paul and Silas. Only in our reenacted Gethsemanes does prayer become like breathing. That’s my hope and prayer: that as suffering increases, our churches would learn to be praying communities.

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Unfor tunately, praying Christians are rare. In our prayer seminar, we ask several confidential questions about a participant’s prayer life. After doing hundreds of seminars, we have found that about 85 percent of Christians in a typical church do not have much of a prayer life. So when someone says, “I’ll keep you in my prayers,” 85 percent of the time it is just words. There is no prayer life to keep these prayers in.

Even rarer is a praying church, where a whole community prays together. That’s the vision of this article: First, to understand the problem of prayerlessness, particularly in church leadership, then to discover the solution that centers on a new vision of the church, and finally to see what a praying church looks like. To do that, I need to go back fifty years.

THE PROBLEM OF PRAYERLESSNESS IN LEADERSHIP After my father, Jack Miller, joined the faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1968, he visited Francis Schaeffer in L’Abri, Switzerland, where he encountered something he’d never seen before—a praying community. Prayer operated at the center of L’Abri’s life. That is, the life of the community orbited around the prayer meetings. Here are Edith Schaeffer’s reflections on what a praying community looks like: Common sense Christian living takes place in an atmosphere where prayer is as natural as breathing, as necessary as oxygen, as real as talking to your favorite person with whom there is no strain, as sensible as reaching into the bag of flour for the proper supplies for making bread. To live without prayer being woven into every part of every day is stupid, foolish, senseless, or is an evidence that your belief in the existence of the Creator, who has said we are to 1 call upon Him, is an unsure belief.

Da d was an ordained minister in the

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1

QUOTES ON PRAYER

It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas which tell you, “Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that.” Such thoughts get you away from prayer into other affairs which so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day.

—Martin Luther, A Simple Way to Pray

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a seminary professor, and a newly minted PhD, yet prayer operated at the periphery of his life. He was not alone. Multiple pastors have confided in me how difficult prayer is for them. After attending three prayer seminars, one of the leaders in my denomination (Presbyterian Church in America) confided in me how hard it was for him to be faithful in his prayer life. Recently at lunch, several Southern Baptist church planters said to me, “Planting a church killed my prayer life.”

For most pastors, prayer doesn’t function at the nitty-gritty level of life the way their calendars or phones do. Apart from public prayers during worship services, they pray at the beginning of meetings, but this prayer tends to be official and lack depth. For example, when I meet with pastors, I’ll share my particular sexual temptations, how I pray about them, and how God has helped me. Then I ask, “How do you pray about your sexual temptations?”

Dead silence.

Then I’ll probe from another direction. Most pastors struggle at times with successful businesspeople in their church who bring a wealth of practical experience. The pastors, often with little practical business experience themselves,

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"COMMON SENSE CHRISTIAN LIVING TAKES PLACE IN AN ATMOSPHERE WHERE PRAYER IS AS NAT­URAL AS BREATHING, AS NECESSARY AS OXYGEN, AS REAL AS TALKING TO YOUR FAVORITE PERSON WITH WHOM THERE IS NO STRAIN, AS SENSIBLE AS REACHING INTO THE BAG OF FLOUR FOR THE PROPER SUPPLIES FOR MAKING BREAD." —EDITH SCHAEFFER

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prayer is. I’ve represented this by graying out “prayer.” Here is a more biblical blueprint:

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need their wisdom and help, but pastors will recoil from the way these men and women exercise power in the church. So I ask, “How are you praying about strong men and women in your congregation?” Again, dead silence. So, in two of the most challenging areas of their ministry— sex and power—many pastors are functionally on their own.

There are multiple roots to prayerlessness: unbelief (the functional atheism of our public culture gets in our blood), materialism (money does what prayer does but lets you remain in control), and cynicism (what good does prayer do?). But the problem isn’t merely “sin.” Prayerlessness is pervasive in the church, and the problem has deeper roots. Something is missing.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM This chart helps define the problem of prayerlessness in the church:

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Pastor, Vision, Facility, preaching Plans, HR, $$$, Preaching, Worship

Every element in this chart is important and good. The arrows on the outside show how the church is reaching into the broader world with mission. At the core of the church are important ingredients: the pastor, preaching, plans, worship, and so on. Each item helps make a successful church. The one oddity is how weak

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The “A Praying Church” chart has all the elements in “A Normal Church,” but the elements don’t operate at the core; the Spirit of Jesus does.

Prayer becomes central because the Spirit, who carries Christ to us, is central.

Attentiveness to the Spirit of Jesus is the missing key to the church’s prayerlessness. Pastors struggle with prayerlessness not primarily because of ego or self-will or even self-discipline.

It is because of the way they view the church.

They have the wrong blueprint.

In the absence of the Spirit, what quietly moves to the center of the church life is the managerial and, to a lesser extent, the therapeutic. The good manager sees the facts, the processes, and the people the church needs.

None of this is inherently wrong, but it often misses the central fact in any church: the Spirit’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the ensuing life and power that come from their union. That blinding light shapes all other wisdom.

This biblical char t gives rise to three questions, which we will answer in the following order: Why is the Spirit of Jesus so

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important? Why is prayer so central to the work of the Spirit? And what does this look like in a church?

THE MISSING SPIRIT OF JESUS After visiting L’Abri, Dad still didn’t know why prayer was critical for the life of the church— until he took a sabbatical in Spain in the summer of 1970. In the writings of Princeton scholar Geerhardus Vos, Dad discovered that the end time had already begun on Easter morning with the resurrection of Jesus and 2 the pouring out of the Spirit. We now live in the age of the Spirit.

Dad was captured by Ezekiel’s vision of the river of grace flowing out of the new temple (Ezek. 47). Everything the river touches comes alive. The further out the river goes, the deeper it gets. Jesus picked up Ezekiel’s visions at the end of the Feast of the Tabernacles, when huge vats of water were poured out in the temple symbolizing the poured-out Spirit in “the last days.”

Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit. (John 7:37–39) At the same time as Dad, another Westminster professor, Richard (“Dick”) Gaffin, read Vos and made similar, parallel discoveries. What my dad developed practically, Gaffin developed in his biblical studies. Here’s how most translations translate 1 Corinthians 15:45 (emphases added): Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit.

But Vos and Gaffin point out that Paul really says: Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam [Jesus] became life-giving Spirit.

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PRAYERLESSNESS IS PERVASIVE IN THE CHURCH, AND THE PROBLEM HAS DEEPER ROOTS. SOMETHING IS MISSING. 25

Notice the difference. Jesus becoming a life-giving spirit merely suggests that the resurrected Jesus gives life, while becoming life-giving Spirit means that in the resurrection Jesus is so united with the Spirit that Paul can say Jesus became Spirit.

On the first Easter morning, the Spirit transformed Jesus’s lifeless body into a Spiritual body 3 (1 Cor. 15:44). The Spirit unites with Jesus so intimately that, without losing their separate identities, Jesus and the Spirit become func4 tionally one. They are so united that Paul easily interchanges “Spirit” and “Lord” or joins them in a single phrase, “the Spirit of the Lord.” So Paul writes,

IN SUMMARY, PRAYER IS NOT A MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH—IT IS THE HEART OF MINISTRY THROUGH WHICH THE REAL, FUNCTIONAL LEADERSHIP OF THE ECO­NOMIC UNION OF THE SPIRIT AND JESUS, FORMED AT THE RESURRECTION, OPERATE. 26

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:17–18; emphasis added) The Spirit now carries Christ to us. Or to put it simply, the incarnate Son of God is dependent on the Spirit not only for his life but to “get around.” Mysteriously, Jesus, as the Son of God, fills the universe, but he can only get into “the 5 rebellion” through the Spirit.

Paul repeatedly links Christ’s life by the Spirit with our life by the Spirit. If Jesus lives by the power of the Spirit, then so do we. The Spirit made Jesus’ body come alive, and he now makes Jesus’ body on earth—the church—come alive.

So what does that have to do with prayer?

PRAYER AND THE SPIRIT The apostle Paul makes a tight connection between the Spirit and prayer that looks like this: Prayer ▶ Spirit ▶ Jesus. Here’s one of the many places Paul lays out this pattern: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven

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and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith— that you, being rooted and grounded in love. (Eph. 3:14–17) Notice Paul’s pattern: he prays to the Father, for the gift of the Spirit, who in turn brings Christ. A praying community makes space for the Spirit, who in turn brings us Jesus. That is the church’s most basic need.

This explains something unusual about Paul’s gift lists. Some people are clearly better at praying than others, and yet prayer is never mentioned as a gift. Why? Prayer is so fundamental to the life of the church that it is not a gift. It’s like breathing.

It is not an option; it’s the engine.

HISTORY OF A PRAYING CHURCH From the very beginning, prayer has been fundamental to the life of the church. The first mention of the people of God defines us as a praying people: “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26).

Solomon dedicated the temple as a “house of prayer,” not by preaching a sermon but by praying about prayer. Solomon describes seven different problems (war, famine, and so on) that might confront the people of God, and each time he asks God, “When they pray towards this house, hear in heaven.” Isaiah expands this invitation to the Gentiles, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (56:7).

Solomon’s vision of the temple, as a house of prayer permeates the Gospels. Multiple events happened in the temple (sacrifices, giving, teaching), but Jesus describes the Pharisee and the tax collector as going up to the temple to pray.

Jesus clears out the temple with a whip because it had ceased to be “a house of prayer.”

This same praying spirit permeated the early church. Tertullian (AD 200) wrote: “We gather in an assembly . . . and, as if we had

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formed a military unit, we force our way up to God by prayer. This power is pleasing to God” (Apologeticus). Likewise, Augustine (AD 400) tells us that prayer was so fundamental to the church that Christians said “goodbye” by saying “remember me”—shorthand for “remember me 6 in your prayers.”

This vision of a “house of prayer” is lost to us.

At a recent gathering of pastors, I read the early church’s first job description for church leaders: “Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

(Acts 6:2-4; emphasis added) The job description is divided evenly between praying and preaching. So forty-five minutes into my talk I asked, “How much training do you have in ministry of the word?”

“Hundreds of hours,” they answered.

“How much training do you have in prayer?”

I asked.

One pastor shouted from the back, “About forty-five minutes!”

Then I showed them this illustration. “Do we look like this man?”

In summary, prayer is not a ministry of the church—it is the heart of ministry through which the real, functional leadership of the economic union of the Spirit and Jesus, formed at the resurrection, operate. The pastor’s primary

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task is to be a praying pastor who facilitates a praying church. So what does a praying community look like? Let me give you several case studies interspersed with seven principles of beginning a praying community.

DISCOVERING A PRAYING CHURCH 1. You Learn to Pray by Praying After Dad’s visit to L’Abri, he realized how prayerless his ministry was. He was particularly bothered that in the churches he’d pastored, prayer meetings had floundered. He wondered, “Who killed the prayer meeting?” Then he realized, “I killed 7 the prayer meeting!” How? By talking too much.

In other words, his unbalanced training (study of the word but not study of prayer) led to good teaching eating up space for good praying. So, Dad began to pray at prayer meetings!

Starting to pray isn’t much different from throwing a soccer ball out to a bunch of people who’ve never played soccer before, telling them the rules, and then saying “go play.” It’s a mess!

You need to endure, to push through that early stage of floundering to learn how to pray together.

2. Begin Everything with Prayer In the fall of 1970, we saw the Spirit begin to move in new ways. Revival broke out in our little church. Prayer meetings and Bible studies were jammed with hippies, drug addicts, and all sorts of people. Then in 1973, when Dad started New Life Church, he began with prayer. First the prayer meeting, then the church. For the next twenty years, the heart of the church was a four-hour weekly prayer meeting, which was led by the pastors, but anyone could attend. That was the engine that drove a sustained renewal that lasted over fifteen years.

So before you launch something, take time to ask God for wisdom, grace, and humilty. If I have concerns about a staff member, I will quietly begin to pray for them—sometimes for months—before I speak to them. Often, I see God begin to do things without me saying anything.

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FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS, THE HEART OF THE CHURCH WAS A FOUR-HOUR WEEKLY PRAYER MEETING, WHICH WAS LED BY THE PASTORS, BUT ANYONE COULD ATTEND. THAT WAS THE ENGINE THAT DROVE A SUS­ TAINED RENEWAL THAT LASTED OVER FIFTEEN YEARS. VOL.27 NO.6 NOV/DEC 2018

3. Praying As a Community Decenters Us and Makes Space for the Spirit of Jesus to Lead Dad’s decision to pray at prayer meetings was the outworking of his realization that the Spirit, not his teaching or ministry, was at the center of the church. He decreased so that the Spirit, who brings us the risen Christ, could increase.

4. The Spirit Works “Outside the Box” of Mere Management, of What Is Humanly Possible So what happens when you pray as a community?

If I had to summarize it in one word, I’d say “surprise.” Unexpected things happen. Paul mentions this as he closes his prayer in Ephesians: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…” (Eph. 3:20).

One evening in 1973 at a local church, Dad said, “The gospel can change anyone.” After a psychiatrist in the congregation challenged Dad, he went home wondering, “Do I really believe the gospel can change anyone?” He decided to find the toughest people in Philadelphia to see if the gospel could change them.

And who was tougher than the Warlocks motorcycle gang? He knew they hung out at a local ice cream stand, so he went there with one of his seminary students. He bought an ice cream cone and walked over to a gang of rowdy teenagers who regularly gathered there to drink and share drugs.

With ice cream dripping down his hand, Dad gave one of his memorable opening lines, “I’m Reverend Miller. Are there any Warlocks here?”

When they started taunting him, Dad made it worse by saying, “Actually, I’m Dr. Miller.” Just as the mocking was increasing, a tough-looking redhead—a thief, drug addict, and an alcoholic—said to the gang, “Shut up. I know this guy. He picked me up hitchhiking. We should listen to him.”

His name was Bob Heppe. Over the next six months, Dad befriended Bob, even listening to his drunken calls in the middle of the night. Dad patiently pointed Bob back again and again to

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QUOTES ON PRAYER

Wherever there is the grace of God, human beings pray. God works in us, for we know not how to pray as we ought. It is the Spirit of God that incites us and enables us to pray in a fitting manner. We are not skilled to judge whether we are worthy or capable of praying, or whether we have sufficient zeal to pray. Grace in itself is the answer to this question. When we are comforted by the grace of God, we begin to pray with or without words.

—Karl Barth, Prayer Christ. Bob now serves as a missionary to South Asians in London.

5. The Community Orbits around Its Prayer Meetings At my own ministry, “seeJesus,” the life of our mission orbits around our prayer meetings. We have three prayer meetings a week for our twenty-five staff members: thirty minutes on Monday and Wednesday, an hour on Thursday, and two hours on Friday. That comes to four hours of prayer each week. It’s open-mic time for the first fifteen minutes, when anyone can ask prayer for anything, and then we get into the work of prayer. Those meetings are the center of our life together. It’s where individual burdens become everyone’s burdens.

A kind of divine community forms around so much time in concentrated prayer. We are all aware that the Spirit is the One who does all the big things (and many of the small ones) in our work. So corporately, we are frequently celebrating surprise—the unexpected activity of the Spirit.

6. Think and Coach the Prayer Meeting Because prayer feels spiritual, as opposed to concrete, we tend not to improve in our praying

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We pray because we are weak. We don’t get stuck in weakness, however, because weak­ ness is the launchpad for resurrection power.

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skills the way we would in writing or soccer.

Since it’s “the Spirit,” it is supposed to just flow naturally, but there is so much to learn about praying together. Here are some of the problems of prayer meetings: • People jump around from topic to topic, not paying attention to one another’s prayers.

• People pray only for felt needs, such as medical problems.

• Oversharing of prayer requests results in too little time to pray.

• Some key people don’t attend prayer time.

You feel like you are all alone.

I’m not shy about coaching our prayer meetings, suggesting ways we can pray together more effectively. It’s taken time for us to not just have a jumble of prayer requests, but to listen to one another as we pray and build on one another’s prayers—almost like a conversation.

7. Praying Together Reenacts the Dying and Rising of Jesus This last point is the most important: praying together is powerful because it reenacts the dying and rising of Jesus. First, the dying. I began to pray regularly for my family twenty-five years ago because I realized that my parenting wasn’t creating Christ in them. I had failed. My sense of my own weakness over the next ten years grew as God took me through relentless suffering. When I started seeJesus, I was weak in every area of my life. Now, nineteen years later, we are still underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed. Taking four hours out of the work week to pray weakens us even more because it gives us less time to work!

But we pray because we are weak. We don’t get stuck in weakness, however, because weakness is the launchpad for resurrection power.

That’s Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 1–2. The Corinthians are doing church badly, because they don’t realize that their weakness reenacts the dying of Christ, which leaves space for the Spirit to do wonders in their midst. Dying is the launchpad for rising. When Paul mentions the Spirit, he always mentions one of these five

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words: power, life, hope, knowledge, and glory.

The Spirit brings power and wisdom, which creates new life and glory, filling us with hope.

In our little mission, we experience these real-time resurrections from the Spirit almost continuously. We’ve seen God work in so many ways that we are all aware the Spirit is at the center, working in response to our prayers to the Father. When you are aware of this as a praying community, it fuels itself. Answered prayer creates faith, which in turn encourages more prayer.

That’s why Paul and Silas prayed and sang in prison. They were anticipating and reenacting the resurrection of Jesus. The Spirit worked through the earthquake, overturning the false narrative of Paul and Silas as troublemakers. Their little praying community first transformed the prison and then impacted the whole city of Philippi. They didn’t just survive in a world where they had become powerless; God went beyond all that they could ask or think.

PAUL E. MILLER is founder and executive director of seeJesus,

a global discipleship mission active in over thirty countries. He has released four books on the ministry’s core themes of Jesus, love, and prayer.

1 Edith Schaeffer, Common Sense Christian Living (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 205.

2 Geerhardus Vos, Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1994), 136–71.

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I’ve revised “spiritual” to “Spiritual” because Paul doesn’t mean “spiritual” in the sense of being religious or praying easily; he means we are “in step with” the Spirit or “led by” the Spirit. We are “of the” Spirit, possessed and controlled by him. A small “s” depersonalizes the Spirit.

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“Christ (as incarnate) experiences a spiritual qualification and transformation so thorough and an endowment with the Spirit so complete that as a result they can now be equated. This unprecedented possession of the Spirit and the accompanying change in Christ result in a unity so close that not only can it be said simply that the Spirit makes alive, but also that Christ as Spirit makes alive.

Specifically, this identity is economic or functional, in terms of their activity.” Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1987).

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“The life-giving activity predicated of the resurrected Christ is not predicated directly; the Spirit is an absolutely indispensable factor.

Only by virtue of the functional identity of the Spirit and Christ, effected redemptive-historically in his resurrection, is Christ the communicator of life.” Gaffin, 89.

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Peter Brown, The Ransom of the Soul (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 40.

7

C. John Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 94–106.

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Gaffin, 68–70. I added “hope” and “knowledge” to Gaffin’s “power, life, and glory.”

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by

JOHN J. B OMBARO

Liturgical Prayer Words That Enrich the Heart of the Church

artwork by

LARISSA NOWICKI

A

PHENOMENON THAT CONTINUES throughout evangelicalism is the

juxtaposing of unaided, private, individual prayer with liturgical prayer, as if the two related like oil and water. The former is seen as lively, earnest, and Holy Spirit-prompted, whereas the latter is frequently depicted as dead, perfunctory, and contrived. Wherever this contrasts exists, “free, from the heart” (ex corde) prayers are said to exemplify biblical prayer, whereas “rote” prayers, as they might be unfavorably denominated, are the product of hearts held captive to “tradition,” hearts usually devoid of a rich, personal relationship with God.

To be sure, a healthy Christ-honoring prayer life is inseparable from what Holy Scripture teaches and how the church, from apostolic times, has appropriated such knowledge. What one finds is not one kind (that is, only ex corde prayer) but a wide variety of prayers set forth in the Bible, as well as many exhortations to pray in different contexts that include both private, individual prayer and liturgical form prayer. Indeed, one even discovers that these two types of prayers are not repellant like oil and water but often deeply connected, even though they look, sound, and operate differently in the Christian life. What is more, a biblical and theological approach to prayer evidences that the foundation of all true Christian prayer, be it private or corporate, actually derives from liturgical concepts—concepts set to forms consciously Trinitarian and christological and poised to yield a rich understanding, appreciation, and love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

While that may seem surprising or perhaps counterintuitive, it shouldn’t be. In the liturgy of the Divine Service (or Divine Liturgy or Mass, and so on), we say back to God what is most certain and true by using his words from Holy Scripture. When the Lord says that we are sinners, we confess that “we have sinned against [him] in thought, word and 1 deed.” When the Lord says that we are forgiven in Christ, we say Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin 2 of the world,” and we further affirm such divine truths by

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saying, “Amen.” Likewise, in liturgical prayer, Scripture-appropriate, Scripture-saturated words, clauses, and phrases are employed in carefully crafted speech to God so that we may speak to him rightly, truly, honestly, and affectionately. The words he has given us in Holy Scripture are the surest form.

The Lutheran Service Book, for example (used by approximately 90 percent of Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod parishes), aids worshipers by annotating beside each element of the liturgy, including all of its prayers, scriptural citation, or (when adapted) inspiration. Adding the biblical referent transforms this particular presentation of the liturgy into a purposeful engagement with the Lord through “the sword of the Spirit”—namely, the word of truth. Families and individual Christians can then take the liturgy home with them and pray confidently with truthful words, with all their heart.

The framers of the Lutheran Service Book have simply traditioned the basic understanding that to pray is to speak to God our king, and therefore it behooves us to reflect on the actual words we use, especially in a corporate setting but also around the family table. This naturally prompts reflection on what we say to God in private, individual prayer. Such a reflection highlights the great value of liturgical prayer: it is purposefully didactic, inculcating Christian orthodoxy (the teaching of Holy Scripture) and manifesting it through orthopraxy (acceptable worship) that has been scrutinized and time tested.

Liturgical prayer can therefore help us, guide us, and teach us, so that all of our prayer—including our private, individual prayer—is the result of established patterns of habit (orthopraxy) that conform our passions, loves, and desires toward God in a truthful, rightly ordered way (orthodoxy) that resonates with new covenant worship (John 4:23). This is a thought worth considering—namely, that liturgical prayer can be profoundly devotional, deeply personal, and yet corporate, biblically truthful, and theologically precise; further, that liturgical prayer may be seen not as repellant to a rich relationship with God but actually an avenue by which our personal experience of God may be said to mature.

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LITURGICAL PRAYER CAN THEREFORE HELP US, GUIDE US, AND TEACH US, SO THAT ALL OF OUR PRAYER …IS THE RESULT OF ESTABLISHED PATTERNS OF HABIT. VOL.27 NO.6 NOV/DEC 2018

PRAYER IS LEARNED WORSHIP Reformer Philipp Melanchthon set forth a maxim in the Augsburg Confession (1530), stating that the highest form of worship is faith, which lays hold of God’s promises and acknowledges his holy presence. Above all, faith trusts that God is as his word and his word is as his character and nature.

Nothing, therefore, could be more God-honoring than trusting that the promise-making God has proven to be the promise-keeping God in and through Christ Jesus. For “all of God’s promises find their Yes in [Christ Jesus]. That is why it is through him that we utter our [prayerful] Amen to God for his glory” (2 Cor. 1:20).

The apostle Paul here speaks of worship— prayer as worship. God’s truth gives shape to the heart, mind, and acts of the baptized: what we have already identified as orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The two, however, are in a reciprocal relationship so that the old dictum lex orandi, lex credendi (“the rule of prayer establishes the rule of belief”) also works the opposite way. The point being that prayer is learned and shapes the way we think about God, the world, and humanity. Conversely, what we are taught about God, humanity, and the world also profoundly influences the manner of our prayers and worship. Just as every aspect of the worship event bespeaks a theology (as well as an anthropology and soteriology), so too prayers actually say something about our understanding of God. This is why getting the words—the content— right actually matters. Liturgical prayer is all about a mature, scriptural employment of the truths of Holy Scripture and setting them artistically in the mouths of the faithful.

Worship, of course, can take place in both personal and public settings, individually and corporately. Yet all worship is learned one way or another; even habits of devotional life are imbibed by way of some sort of tutelage or pedagogy, whether through imitation or advice. And even though prayer—as an act of worship—may be as instinctive as a child’s first words, it too is taught and learned, just like standing for the reading of the gospel, making the sign of the cross, and choral singing. So even while we might

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think that private, individual prayer is a uniquely personalized act of worship or engagement with God, it is formed through some sort of formal or informal educational process. Individual prayer, then, shares this in common with liturgical prayer: It is a learned act of worship by which faith in God finds requisite expression.

Keeping private, personal prayer within the boundaries of orthodoxy, however, can be a challenging matter. Sometimes it can be hasty, ill-conceived, and/or theologically gaunt or suspect (we’ve all cringed at the hearing of doctrinally incorrect prayers!), especially where fatigue, high emotions, or pressing needs may be a factor. On the other hand, liturgical prayer has been slowly processed and scrutinized by the church’s great minds, liturgists, and theologians, so that what is offered to God in prayer accurately reflects the content and teaching of Holy Scripture. Utilizing liturgical prayers in one’s private, individual prayers can help us say to God—in Spirit and in truth—what we hope to pray.

Since nearly all other religions and even the irreligious world pray, Christian prayer needs to be theologically correct, for “God does not listen to sinners” (John 9:31); that is, he does not countenance the petitions of those outside the new covenant, prayers unmediated by Christ (Heb. 8:6), or prayers without intercession of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26–27). This, too, is learned. Paul instructs Timothy, and therefore all the church’s future clergy, by insisting that prayer as an act of worship and faith must be theologically and soteriologically grounded in Christ Jesus.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men. . . . This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. (1 Tim. 2:1–6) Prayers directed to God must be ensconced within Christ, the one Mediator, through whom

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we alone have access to the living God. Jesus unites to himself the church and therefore each baptized Christian in such a way that there is an intimate bond between the prayer of Christ and the prayer of the church. And so it is in Christ alone that Christian worship through prayer may be said to be of faith, have value, and attain its appointed end.

But this cannot be whimsical. It does not happen of its own accord. Rather, the Christian is taught the boundaries of prayer, the content of prayer, and the point of praying with and in the church.

So while private, individual prayers may rightly conclude “in Jesus’ name,” liturgical prayers go several steps beyond the comparative informality and theological minimalism of private, individual prayers. In this way they enrich our private prayers a great deal, adding to them elements that resonate with the larger kingdom-of-God agenda of Christ and the wider needs of the world, according to the Scriptures.

PRIVATE, PERSONAL PRAYER AND LITURGICAL PRAYER Having established that biblical prayer is a learned worshipful act of faith that takes place “in Christ” with the Spirit, we now note that both private, individual prayer and liturgical prayer properly belong in a symbiotic relationship to each other as complementary sides of a single coin.

Private, personal prayer is fairly recognized as a more subjective kind of prayer where the pressing needs of daily life usually set the agenda.

Such prayers are highly adaptable to individual needs and wants. Virtually all prayer requests are of this sort. Persons suffering pray for relief.

Those who are grieving ask for comfort. Those with physical, material, or employment needs ask for provision. Broken relationships seek restoration. Broken hearts desire mending. Our Lord’s prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane were of this sort as he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me” (Luke 22:42; emphasis added). Both testaments encourage this kind of prayer: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver, you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps. 50:15); “In everything by prayer and

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supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6).

These prayers offer an informal opportunity to encounter our Good Shepherd, our Blessed Physician, the Sovereign Lord who provides, protects, and prepares. As such, personal prayer strengthens the bond between individuals and God through Jesus Christ with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Devotional prayer is meant to help sustain each believer as we sojourn as “strangers and aliens in this present age” (1 Pet. 2:11; Rom. 8:18), especially in our quest to “pray continually,” as urged by Saint Paul (1 Thess. 5:17). Moreover, it is also something we can do on our own, at any time, which allows us to individually engage God and convey our personal love, needs, and thanks to our Creator and Redeemer, which flow out of enjoyment of God rather than compunction. Devotional practices that utilize Portals of Prayer, My Utmost for His Highest, Our Daily Bread, Give Us This Day, and the like can deepen our private, individual prayer and render it more habitual, even broadening our horizons.

Liturgical prayer, on the other hand, is the orderly public worship of God by the church as the body of Christ. It is more formal with prescribed, usually predictable structure, employing rubrics, ritual formulas, even gestures, sometimes garments, symbols, and materials such as bread and wine, candles, ashes, palms, and oils, and is usually led by an ordained minister of God’s word and sacraments.

An example of liturgical prayer is the Litany, a series of entreaties and responses cantillated or spoken. It possesses the feel of the petitions of the importunate friend in Luke 11:5–10. The Litany includes both the “Deprecations,” which entreat God to ward off evil from among his communicants, and the “Obsecrations” that implore God on theological grounds, recalling the mystery of faith and the historical facts of Jesus’ incarnation, nativity, baptism, fasting, temptation, agony and sweat on the cross, death and burial, resurrection and ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. These are prayers “by” Jesus’ accomplishments. Only through Christ can the Christian approach the Father (John

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AS SUCH, PERSONAL PRAYER STRENGTHENS THE BOND BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST WITH THE AID OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

16:23). There are also the “Supplications,” which are prayers for a variety of situations in life in general terms. And finally, the “Intercessions” are prayers for others and on behalf of others.

They can be recited intact or augmented throughout. This exhibits flexibility while retaining inflexibility with regard to its theological and christological content, making it a great aid to private, individual prayer and also a most appropriate didactic prayer in a corporate context.

In the modern era, however, there is a tendency to view private, individual prayer and liturgical prayer as nonoverlapping spheres, emphasizing the former rather than the latter, especially given evangelical emphasis on the individual, reinforced by cultural and ideological individualism. This, however, would be a distinctly modern phenomenon, alien to ancient Semitic cultures and early Christianity throughout the first millennium and beyond.

For both communities, there was no clear division between public and private prayer or, for that matter, public and private reading.

Whether in the synagogue or on street corners (Matt. 6:5), the temple itself (Luke 18:1), or their homes, Jews tended to offer their prayers aloud. Internalization of thoughts (what constitutes much of what we experience as personal silent prayer) became normative only well after Saint Augustine in the fifth century, although it was not entirely absent in Old or New Testament times, as we find with Nehemiah’s instant prayer (Neh. 2:4) or the breathy prayer of the humble tax collector (Luke 18:6). Private life simply imitated public life in substantive ways.

There are two significant reasons for this.

First, the way Jews considered themselves not as individuals, but within a dyadic framework in which their most irreducible identity was the family and which itself was derivative of ethnic-religious identification as Israel, the people of God. Consequently, no prayer was considered totally private, since it always had within it a consciousness of being Israel.

Second, there was the Jewish concept of time that was infused with the divine notion of the eternal, which militated against individualism and a self-referential prayer life.

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When the church offers prayer and praise to God in a liturgical setting, it unites itself with that hymn of praise sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven, as described by John in the book of Revelation.

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Within Christianity, these two factors— self-identity grounded in community identity (i.e., the church) and the consecration of time—profoundly influenced early Christian approaches to prayer, rendering them far more liturgical than individual, yet at the same time opening fresh avenues for personal devotional prayer.

For instance, carried over from the Jewish tradition and seen acutely in the life of Christ, the earliest Christians viewed life as “a living sacrifice,” in which every aspect is informed by the active presence of God, even amid the mundane routines of daily life. Indeed, this was so much the case in Judaism that the Christian concept of time itself was brought into the rhythm of life by melding the seasonal calendar with the events of Christ’s life and, later, the lives of the saints with whom sacramental union and communion continue. In this sense, the whole of life was committed to prayer, and it was exemplified through the observance of the canonical hours, services of praying Scripture that punctuated the day, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours. With an acknowledgment of the Eucharist as the center of the church’s life, and a highlighting of baptism as a model for discipleship, prayers associated with the services of Matins, Vespers, Compline, and the like were increasingly seen as extensions of these monumental community-forming sacraments that stretched throughout the day, week, and indeed the entire Christian life.

This view of chronological time infused by kairotic (eternal) moments of divine redemptive and re-creative activity was reinforced by the overlap of heaven and earth manifest in the church itself. Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension bridged the gap between the two dimensions of our one reality, so that “individual” Christians always understood themselves in terms of the great cloud of witnesses in heaven, throughout history, and at home. Different from the way private, individual prayer is conceived today, early Christian prayer was always in the body of Christ, as explained earlier, making it impossible for a Christian to pray entirely privately, for their basic worldview understood that

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they ever participated in the saving events and organism of Christ and his body, the holy church.

This idea finds early expression in Hebrews 15:15: “Through [Christ Jesus] let’s offer to God an unceasing sacrifice of praise”—unceasing in the sense that the catholic church with saints in heaven and on earth form a contiguous existence.

The kingdom of God transcends time and space and thoroughly eclipses individuality.

This last point warrants further explanation.

Liturgical prayer facilitates praying and praising God with the saints in heaven. The idea here is that prayer is the voice of the bride addressing her bridegroom, where the bride is one, whether on earth or in heaven. When the church offers prayer and praise to God in a liturgical setting, it unites itself with that hymn of praise sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven, as described by John in the book of Revelation. By participating in such liturgies, Christians receive a foretaste of this prayerful song. Our close union with the portion of the church in heaven is given effective voice when we all, “from every tribe and tongue and people and baton redeemed by Christ’s blood” (Rev. 5:9), gather together into the one church to entreat, receive, and glorify the Triune God. Here, the liturgy moves praying Christians out of their private world and connects them to the grand, wider world of God’s kingdom and kingdom people.

The liturgy of that one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church also has its origins in the liturgical practices of the Jews in the first century.

When Luke tells us in Acts 2:42 that the earliest Jewish followers of Christ in Jerusalem “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, to the communion in the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers” (emphasis added), not only is this “communion in the breaking of the bread” the Eucharistic adaptation of the Passover Haggadah, but they also drew their formulas from the synagogue services for prayer—hence, Luke’s recognition of the prayers; that is, the established, liturgical prayers of synagogue and temple worship.

Generally speaking, the liturgical prayers of the years AD 100 to 313 knew only one source— the psalter—and even these were thoroughly

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Christianized by Jesus’ teaching that he was their subject (Luke 24:44) and by adding the doxology at the conclusion of each psalm.

This Jewish carry-over into Christian worship quickly found its way into Christian homes as devotional prayer books. Christians prayed the psalms in church and at home, the former yielding the latter by way of example and established catechesis.

Likewise, although the earliest versions of liturgical prayers drew upon the Jewish berakah formulas (which we find stretched throughout Ephesians 1–3), they quickly became enmeshed with Christian themes based on the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and leached into Christian homes as models of prayer. Thus domestic liturgical prayer was normative and thoroughly christocentric, incorporating Christianized Jewish prayer forms from the corporate gathering of believers, with canonical texts sanctioned by the church. It was safe and hallowed ground by which to verbally commune with God, heightening the expectation of God hearing the church and acting on its behalf.

The most important features of the corporate gatherings—the assembly of believers—centered on the core features of the kingdom of God: (1) an acknowledgement of the Eucharist as the center of the church’s life, unity, and prayer; (2) holy baptism as the model for Christian discipleship with its themes of death and resurrection; (3) scriptural catechesis; (4) cross-bearing servitude; and (5) prayerful missional engagement for the salvation of the world and the preservation of Christ’s kingdom. It was precisely these features, these distinguishing marks of the church it taught and practiced in its liturgy, that were brought into domestic, devotional 3 prayer. Liturgical prayer was at home in the believer’s home. So much so that the physical gestures that established conformity of belief and practice—signing the cross, kneeling, bowing, kissing—also became habituated in private, individual prayer, thereby establishing a graphic, conscious connection with the body of Christ and so prompting prayers on its

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behalf, resonating with the will of God found, for example, in the Lord’s Prayer.

OBJECTING TO LITURGICAL PRAYER Some demur at employing liturgical prayers: for example, reciting the Lord’s Prayer (much less other liturgical prayers such as “The Jesus Prayer,” “Angelic Trisagion,” “Gloria,” and so on) and other parts of the established Eucharist Liturgy, because of what has been perceived as an injunction in Matthew 6:7: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (KJV). The prohibition concerns “vain repetition,” such that those who customarily, even daily, pray the Our Father are engaged in the empty practice of heathens, which was condemned by Christ himself.

Consequently, liturgical prayer is unbiblical, tantamount to paganism—or so it is thought.

The ESV gives a better rendering of the verse, offering the following: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” The Greek word in question, battalogein (“vain repetition” in the KJV), found only here in the New Testament and nonextant in all other contemporary manuscript evidence, suggests either “nonsensical” words or a large quantity of words, or both. In its historical context, pagans used incantational prayer to appease the gods within a transactional theology that required exactitude in recitation, similar to uttering a conjuration from The Book of Spells within the Hogwarts Library.

In the very next verse, Jesus says, “Do not be like them,” because (1) you need not repeat in vain since you pray to the living God who hears, as opposed to having to repeat prayers to a nonhearing nothing; (2) Christ himself mediates between God and humanity, and so such repetitious appeasement is in vain (that is, to no avail); and (3) Jesus gives us infallible words that actually comport with the will and ways of God. Further, since Jesus does not contradict himself on this subject by his own practice, the interpretation derived from the KJV is

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incorrect. Jesus, for example, repeats a prayer three times in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–39; cf.

Matt. 26:44). He also employs set prayers, time and again, by prayerfully invoking psalms (e.g., Ps. 22:1 in Mark 15:34; Ps. 31:5 in Luke 23:46).

In addition to his example, he of course gave the church the gift of the Lord’s Prayer, directing them with “When you pray say [this]” (Luke 11:2; Matt.6:9). In Luke 18:1–14, he furnishes a parable extolling the importunate representing of the same prayer with earnest expectation of our heavenly Father to answer such prayers consistent with his good will for the kingdom of God and his kingdom people.

What is more, Scripture provides numerous examples of sanctioned prayer forms that are repeated. Consider the prayers of the angels in Revelation 4:8: And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES OF THE CORPORATE GATHERINGS—THE ASSEMBLY OF BELIEVERS— CEN­TERED ON THE CORE FEATURES OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

These “four living creatures” refer back to the Seraphim of Isaiah 6:1–3 who repeated the same song of prayer over and over. Likewise, Psalm 136 is a classic example of a highly repetitious responsive prayer, repeating the words “for his steadfast love endures forever” twenty-six times over twenty-six verses.

The idea, then, that liturgical prayers are unbiblical cannot be established. Instead, Christians can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16) through prayers that Scripture itself offers.

JESUS TEACHES LITURGICAL PRAYER Earlier we noted that all prayer, individual and liturgical prayer, is taught and learned. The teacher par excellence for biblically sound, theologically correct, God-pleasing prayer is, of course, Christ himself. In the Sermon on the

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Mount, Jesus not only encouraged his disciples to pray (Matt. 6:1–18; 7:7–11), but he also taught them how to pray (Luke 11:1–3) by giving them a model prayer: the Lord's prayer, also known as the Our Father or Pater Noster (Matt. 6:9– 13). In fact, it may be seen as both a form prayer or prayer formula set in the Jewish tradition of liturgical prayers. Luke records the Our Father as something to be straightforwardly repeated: He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say…”

In Matthew, however, the Pater Noster is more formulaic, allowing for both plagiarism and innovation, saying: “This is how you are to pray” (6:9; emphasis added), rather than “this is what you are to pray.” In both ways, we have received a gift from Christ: perfect words from the perfect One to speak to God, and a perfect model for prayers that comport with the Lord’s highest priorities and our greatest needs.

It is also important to know from the example of Christ that he also prayed the psalms and knew them from memory (e.g., Matt. 27:46 [Ps. 22]; Luke 23:46 [Ps. 31]; Matt 21:16 [Ps. 8:2]; John 10 [Pss. 23, 95]), continuing an ancient Jewish practice that reaches back to David. Note the example of Ezra, who prays by means of the psalms in 9:6 (Ps. 106:6) and 9:8 (Ps. 13:3). The “hymn” Jesus and his disciples prayerfully sang at the conclusion of the Passover (Matt. 26:30) was the Great Hallel from Psalms 115–118. Immediately, the early church followed this pattern of praying the psalms as seen in Acts 4:23–31, where the church prays the second psalm. Paul, likewise, describes the worship life of the early church as involving “singing psalms” (Col. 3:16), for in the psalter we also have divine content for our prayers that can be spoken, chanted, or sung. And that, too, is something liturgical prayer can add to private, individual prayer: the beauty and affectation of prayerfully singing to God, especially with the psalms. Such

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THE TEACHER PAR EXCELLENCE FOR BIBLICALLY SOUND, THEOLOGICALLY CORRECT, GOD-PLEASING PRAYER IS, OF COURSE, CHRIST HIMSELF. VOL.27 NO.6 NOV/DEC 2018

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rayers of confession or repentance in the corporate setting teach us that we are called to repentance daily, even in our private settings.

his lifetime (Matt. 15:22; Mark 10:46–52; Luke 17:13).

Special petitions can be inserted by the celebrant, congregation, or private individual.

The Agnus Dei, the “Lamb of God” anthem, is a highly memorable prayer of praise perfectly suited to those devoted to Holy Communion.

The Collect of the Day helps parishioners focus on a central theme drawn from the readings of the day, which they may be following at home or in their own devotional reading. In Gathered Guests, Timothy Maschke writes, “In many ways these collects remind us that our prayers are not ours alone, but they are

The Kyrie Eleison (“Lord, have mercy”) is an ancient biblical prayer recalling petitions for help and healing spoken to Jesus during

prayer songs expand and emote prayer as a faith act of worship and continue the earliest of Jewish-Christian traditions of tunefully praying and reading.

For the Christian, to pray the psalms is to pray them in Jesus’ name, because the voice in the psalter is Christ’s own voice; he is their referential center (Luke 24:44). This is also learned from the liturgical practice of punctuating the end of each psalm with the doxology: the name of the blessed Trinity given to us by Christ in Matthew 28:19.

A BIGGER PICTURE Significantly, liturgical prayer was purposed for the salvation of the world. Praying for the salvation of humanity was and is considered

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the prayers of the whole church—past, present, and future” (125).

The Eucharistic prayer derived from 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 conforms to God’s injunction to “give thanks” before the Lord’s Supper.

The Eucharistic Prayer consists of anamnesis and epiclesis (“remembering” and “invoking”). We remember the great work of redemption accomplished

by Christ on the holy cross, and we ask for the Spirit’s continuing aid in making us worthy recipients of the

sacraments—that is, to strengthen our faith.

The Lord’s Prayer was particularly associated with Holy Communion in early Christian worship practice, and so praying it privately brings to mind its seven petitions that have their fulfillment in Christ’s gracious rule and provision.

The post-Communion canticle Nunc Dimittis (Simeon’s Song from Luke 2:25–32), or “Thank the Lord,” is a beautiful prayer of satisfaction, suitable for any blessing in one’s personal life.

to be among the primary duties of the church.

According to theologian Timothy Maschke, this marks “a vast, albeit frequently unrecognized, difference between personal prayer and 4 liturgical prayer.” Maschke cites Pius Parsch (1884–1954), a Roman Catholic priest and leading figure in the Liturvgical Movement, to explain: “In private prayer I pray, mostly for myself and my own affairs. It is the isolated person who stands in the center of the action, and the prayer is more or less individualized. But in liturgical prayer . . . it is not primarily I who am praying, but the Church, the Bride of Christ. The object of her prayer is broader, too: all the needs of God’s kingdom here on earth. In liturgical prayer, I feel more like a member of

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a great community, like a little leaf on the great living tree of the Church.”5 The content of liturgical prayer is determined by what the church has found to be God’s will, rather than what the minister or even individual worshippers consider to be important. It takes its missional agenda from Scripture and has the entire church in view. Such praying is every bit as important as the personal prayers we speak privately to God, for in this way our hearts are open to the whole of God’s people and their needs and to the concerns God himself places into our prayers.

This is why the “Prayer of the Church” before Holy Communion in the Divine Liturgy consciously resembles Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer (John 17:1–26) and therefore the will of God in prayer. One function of the Jewish high priest was to offer the annual sacrifice for all the people of Israel (Lev. 15). In fulfillment, at the Last Supper Jesus prayed to God the Father in the presence of his disciples about his own sacrifice of himself for all people (see esp. vv.

1–2, 19). In the “Prayer of the Church,” led by the celebrant or presiding minister, individual Christians are assembled as a priesthood of believers and engage in their priestly duty where one, the pastor, speaks with the voice of all, and responsively all speak with the voice of one, bringing requests and petitions to God’s heavenly throne (Matt. 18:19). Their concern is for all people (1 Tim. 2:1–4), following the teaching of Christ and Saint Paul, but also Solomon in 2 Chronicles 6:12-42, where in a stately, repetitive manner he prays for the nation and unbelievers. Paul continues that tradition and sets forth God’s will: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” of authority (1 Tim. 2:30).

Liturgical prayers are found throughout the Divine Service and set a big picture view of the Christian life, in which each element of the liturgy can be suitably brought into one’s private, individual prayer. It can then be expanded proportionally and offered as a doctrinally correct

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pathway to personalized requests, petitions, contrition, intercessions, and praise—especially when we fail as individuals to find the words we want or need. More often than not, the liturgical prayers have already provided them. [See the sidebar on page 43, “Using Liturgy for Private Prayer”—Ed.] Liturgical prayer and devotional payer are meant to work together to lift our minds and hearts to God. Private, individual prayer allows us to develop our personal relationship with the Lord according to the way that best suits each of us. That is why the type of devotional prayer one chooses is subjective; even the manner of praying the same form may vary from one person to the next. But once we have established that personal relationship with the Lord in our devotional prayer life, we bring it to liturgical prayer, especially when words fail us, where it is then united with the others in the church and incorporated into the celebration of Holy Communion, the remembrance of baptism, and the needs of the world.

Commingling private, individual prayer with liturgical prayer will manifest believers’ complementarity, elevating their spiritual life by bearing the cares of God for the church and the world.

CONCLUSION Our endless need of God’s care and provision means that our prayers never cease, and so we always need to enhance and expand our prayers and to mature in prayer—which includes increasing our appreciation and use of liturgical or form prayers.

This is why we look to Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. Worship as an act of faith expressed through prayer is in fact something our Lord Jesus taught, encouraged, and extolled as a central aspect of Christian life—indeed, as one of the primary duties of the individual Christian and the church as a whole. In doing so, Jesus advanced an already well-established Jewish tradition of teaching prayer and providing set forms and alterable

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HIS TEACHING INTENTIONALLY FOCUSES OUR HEARTS AND MINDS ON THE THINGS OF GOD—THE DIVINE WILL AND WAYS CONCERN­ ING THE GROWTH, PROVISION, AND PROTECTION OF HIS KINGDOM (JOHN 17)—AND SO IT ELICITS FAITH FROM THE BAPTIZED. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

formulas of prayer. His teaching intentionally focuses our hearts and minds on the things of God—the divine will and ways concerning the growth, provision, and protection of his kingdom (John 17)—and so it elicits faith from the baptized. It is the God who keeps his promises in Christ whom we trust, who evokes faith once bestowed by the water and the word.

Therefore, far from being antithetical, personal devotional prayer and liturgical prayer are complementary—with the former being particularly expanded and enriched by the generally Scripture-determined content and form of the liturgy, purposely engaging in petitions that resonate with the expressed will of God, the mission of the church, and the needs of the world, as opposed to the private individual. Employing or mimicking carefully crafted liturgical prayer helps safeguard the biblical soundness and theological accuracy of our personal prayers, keeping them within the God-honoring boundaries of Trinitarianism and orthodox Christology and soteriology.

Our prayer in the liturgy may be objective and physical in nature, reflecting the complexity of our engagement with the world around us, including our sense of perception, intuition, and memory. When this is the case, and the liturgy’s wonderful content is brought into our private, personal prayer lives, we begin to find that liturgical prayer incorporates us into the united voice of God’s people and thus transforms us, since it belongs not to any individual but to the church universal.

REV. JOHN J. BOMBARO, PhD (King’s College London) is senior pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, San Diego, and USN Chaplain serving with the Marine Corps.

1

Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 2006), 151.

2

The words of the Agnus Dei are taken from John the Baptist’s declaration in John 1:29.

3

It is worth noting that domestic life during this time was radically dissimilar to ours. Rarely did anyone live alone or have personal time. Families typically were extended and resided together as a clan for the duration of life, while tutelary trades clustered together.

4

Timothy Maschke, Gathered Guests: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 2003), 365.

5

Pius Parsch, The Hours of the Divine Office in English and Latin (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1963–64), 1, cited in Maschke, Gathered Guests, 365.

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by

MICHAEL S. HORTON

Kingdom-Building Prayer artwork by

LARISSA NOWICKI

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RAYER IS NOT SOME battering ram by which we gain entrance to God’s

treasury,” wrote Herschel Hobbs in his commentary on Matthew.

“It is a receptacle by which we receive that which He already longs to give us.” So far, our Lord, in such simple profundity, has given us a systematic theology of prayer. We have access to the one true God, Creator of heaven and earth, because through the saving sacrifice and mediation of Christ we have been made children of God and coheirs with Christ. Paul put it this way:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in him,” heading the list with election, adoption, redemption, faith, and sealing, with the Holy Spirit given as “a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:3–14). Therefore, we can call God “Father.” “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.

And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15).

He is our Father in heaven, and this spans the gulf between God and us, the Creator and the creature. Beyond the matter of our sinfulness, our mere creatureliness puts a distance between God and us, just as even the greatest masterpiece of Rembrandt is still not Rembrandt. As we raise our eyes

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toward heaven—where the anchor of our hope still holds, where Christ the Advocate intercedes for us, and where we ourselves are seated with him—all earthly hopes, relationships, and inheritances obtain their proper, sane appraisal and perspective.

Like the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer begins with petitions concerning things heavenly, and directly concerned with our relationship to God: petitions that his name would be held in honor and sacred esteem; that his kingdom would grow, like the mustard seed, until it became a tree providing shade to the nations; and that his will would be realized in earthly, concrete terms. Then the prayer turns to petitions for oneself: for daily providence in material needs, for forgiveness of sins, and for deliverance from temptation and evil.

Thus in this one prayer, our Lord has given us a theology of prayer, anchored in adoption, the holiness of God and his name, eschatology (the unfolding purposes of God and his kingdom), providence, redemption, and sanctification. While there is a category in the prayer for petitions concerning earthly needs (“Give us this day our daily bread”), notice how rich and broad prayer really is, as it concerns first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then descends from heaven to earth, from God to us, from spiritual blessings in heavenly places to earthly concerns.

How easy it is to even fail to raise our eyes toward heaven—to be earthbound—even in our prayers! This is why we must be taught how to pray. Like a wild vine needing a trellis, our hearts and minds must be guided from viewing things according to our own imaginations and orientations. Prayer is not merely useful as a means of getting things from God, but it is a means of worship and training as our hearts and minds learn to become concerned with those matters that most concern our heavenly Father.

The doxology—“For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen”—appears in later manuscripts and may not have been a part of the original prayer. Regardless, it summarizes the prayer, and we have no reason to

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judge it contrary to Scripture, even if there is a chance that it is not, in fact, such.

Although God withheld from King David the privilege of building the temple, David was able to get the ball rolling for his son Solomon to whom this privileged task was given. After the officers and leaders of the families volunteered their labor and consecrated themselves to the task, David offered the following doxology (1 Chron. 29:10–13), which closely parallels the Lord’s Prayer: Praise be to you, O Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things.

In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

Even by petitioning God for “our daily bread,” we are acknowledging that “everything in heaven and earth” is the Lord’s. By confessing our sins to God, we acknowledge what God judges as wrong. By petitioning him for forgiveness, we acknowledge that he alone is the judge and the justifier of the ungodly; and by asking him to keep us from evil, we acknowledge that he alone is our Sanctifier and Defense against the creature who has made it his sole objective to undermine the glory of God and the faith of the elect. In short, prayer should always be a “declaration of dependence,” as much in things earthly as in things heavenly.

When we come to the doxology (from doxa, “to glorify or praise”), we are, so to speak,

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wrapping up our box of petitions in suitable paper, recognizing that the source of every good gift is God, the ground of every good gift is the righteousness of Christ, the instrument or means of obtaining every good gift is faith in the gospel, and the goal of every good gift is the glory of God and advancement of his kingdom in this world. The doxology alone should measure our prayers, to determine whether they are fit for a heavenly audience.

THINE IS THE KINGDOM David learned the hard way that the kingdom of God is just that—God’s kingdom. When it came time to give Solomon the charge to build the temple, David confessed, “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. . . . He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’”

(1 Chron. 22:6–10) Israel was, like Eden, the union of church and state, a “theocracy” through which God himself directly spoke, judged, and acted out the unfolding purposes of redemptive history on the stage of Israel. The kingdom of God was Israel, not merely as a spiritual people (that is, believers in the promise) but as a nation. Nevertheless, in the new covenant, the kingdom is not associated with Israel or any other earthly nation; it takes on an entirely spiritual character in which the Jews and Gentiles are brought together through the peace of Christ’s sacrifice.

Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture

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3

QUOTES ON PRAYER

We know not what to pray for as we ought in regard to tribulations, which may do us good or harm; and yet, because they are hard and painful, and against the natural feelings of our weak nature, we pray, with a desire which is common to mankind, that they may be removed from us.

But we ought to exercise such submission to the will of the Lord our God, that if He does not remove those vexations, we do not suppose ourselves to be neglected by Him, but rather, in patient endurance of evil, hope to be made partakers of greater good, for so His strength is perfected in our weakness.

—St. Augustine, Letter to Proba

foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Gal. 3:7–9) “In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom. 9:8). The designation of Israel as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6) is now applied to the New Testament church, comprising all Abraham’s children, Jew and Gentile (1 Pet. 2:9). In fact, Paul tells the Galatian church, composed of both Jews and Gentiles, that they are “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16).

Therefore, the kingdom of God is specifically defined as the reign of Christ as prophet, priest, and king, and it is advanced through the preaching of the word, accompanied by the Holy Spirit, and by the administration of the

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sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

It is not a kingdom that derives its source from human authority, nor does it depend on any worldly factor for its success. It is the kingdom of God that creates the people of God, not vice versa. The kingdom comes upon us as a fog or as the wind (John 3:8) and sweeps us into it. Or to use the analogy Jesus gives in John 3:3, it is to be born a second time, to die to one’s identity (“in Adam”), only to be raised to a new one (“in Christ”). Thus as the Spirit blows, with his word going before him through his Spirit-filled messengers (all believers), a new community is created, heaven comes to earth, and the kingdom of God spreads its shade across the nations.

While the kingdom of God is not identified with any nation in the new covenant, God’s sovereign rule through providence is implied here. For instance, not only did David learn that God owned Israel, but the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar also learned that God owned Persia! While he was boasting about the kingdom he had built as a testimony to his glory and splendor, God made Nebuchadnezzar insane.

The king shared meals with the animals, was drenched with dew each morning, and his nails grew like claws and his hair like feathers. This picture Daniel gives is close to the biography of Howard Hughes, and it is not at all far-fetched to see how self-intoxication can so upset one’s balance and perspective that insanity is inevitable.

As Paul said of those who exchange the glory of God for the “glory” of created things, “Seeking to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22).

Nevertheless, Nebuchadnezzar learned that his kingdom really belonged to someone else: “At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.

“His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases

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with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’ “…Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (Dan. 4:34–37) One wonders if the church today needs to learn this lesson again: That the kingdom is created by, sustained by, and exists for God and his glory. To the extent that we shift the focus of the kingdom from God to man, it will simply become a social institution. To the extent that we believe that the source of the kingdom is power (economic or political crusades), or marketing (principles of business success), our message and methods will be concerned not with “our Father in heaven” but with “our Audience on earth.” And for those who think that the nature of the kingdom is temporal and earthly, their activity will be more concerned with imposing their own will on society in pursuit of the “Christian Nation” idea of the kingdom.

The new apostles will be the founding fathers, regardless of the fact that many of them were open critics of orthodox Christianity. They think the new gospel will be the salvation of the chosen nation by moral clean-up and social legislation.

Or, for those who agree with the temporal nature of the kingdom but think more in the vein of the church-growth movement, the Spiritempowered preaching of the transcendent word will be replaced with practical pep talks, and the administration of the sacraments will be replaced with any number of new practices and designed to entertain and inspire. Evangelism will be edged out by self-oriented programs designed to make us a bit more comfortable with this world. To reinforce this, the congregation at worship will become the audience at play. The music will be happy and as “down-to-earth” as shampoo jingles, and they will focus on me and my personal experience rather than on God and his work in Christ.

Whose kingdom are we building? Have we become so “down-to-earth” that we have

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snapped the cord that connects us to the heavenly realities? And is the goal of this kingdom we are building God’s glory? Whatever goals we might consider worthwhile (providing a sense of community and fellowship; assisting families in building good, solid homes; improving the moral and spiritual climate of the country; meeting felt needs; or even building big churches) are, as a distraction, in competition with God himself. And, like David and Nebuchadnezzar, anyone can be humbled. Yes, even Americans. We are in desperate need of recovering our eternal perspective—raising our eyes toward heaven, so that our sanity may be restored and God’s kingdom, power, and glory might once again occupy the attention of the church and the culture.

God’s kingdom, power, and glory are advanced chiefly through the gospel in which the brilliant rays of his wisdom, mercy, justice, holiness, and power are captured all at once. Through this gospel, the holy God is able to establish a just relationship with unholy creatures. It establishes his kingdom on righteousness, as he is the just and the justifier of all who believe. It shows his power, “for [the gospel] is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16), and it exalts his glory because salvation “does not depend on man’s decision or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Nowhere is the sinner justified in taking any glory to himself.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. (1 Cor. 1:27–30) There is not one shred of holiness, no sparkle of righteousness, no ray of glory in the believer or in the church that comes from us; it is all the kingdom, power, and glory of God in his word and sacraments.

All of this might run counter to a church that is so worldly its believers have become

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“lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:1–5). We even have high priests of the new gospel who—like the medieval champions of the kingdom, power, and glory of man—resist any notion that robs man of his pretended glory. For instance, in Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (Word Books, 1983), Robert Schuller declared that “the Reformation erred in its insistence that theology be God-centered rather than mancentered” and said that its notion of sin is “insulting to the human being” (65). The glory has left the church because the gospel has left the church—or, rather, has been dismissed.

It is not because God has been “ejected” from the public schools, but because his name, his kingdom, his power, and his glory have been replaced with our own agendas, priorities, goals, and self-glorifying interests.

My greatest prayer for the church today— indeed, for myself—is that we would raise our eyes to heaven and look to the hills from which our salvation comes, and to spend ourselves in good works (in our calling, in our relationships, in our families) to the glory of God. Only then—when we are heavenly minded—will we be any earthly good. Only then will the kingdom advance in the power and glory of God. Remember, it was J. S. Bach who signed his compositions Soli Deo Gloria (the Reformation slogan “To God alone be glory”), and it was this slogan that even still graces the old buildings in the great cities of northern Europe. One might say that at the Reformation, the kingdom, power, and glory of Rome met the kingdom, power, and glory of God, and we can only expect a similar confrontation within the church in our own time.

May God give us the grace to make the correct alliance.

MICHAEL S. HORTON is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

This article originally appeared as “Thine Is the Kingdom” in the July/August 1993 issue of Modern Reformation.

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From The Temple

By George Herbert (1633)

Prayer (I)1

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angel’s age, God’s breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth; Engine against th’ Almightie, sinners towre, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six-daies world transposing in an houre, A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear; Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse, Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best, Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest, The Milkie way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud, The land of spices; something understood.

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Prayer (II)2

Of what an easie quick accesse, My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly May our requests thine eare invade!

To shew that state dislikes not easinesse, If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made: Thou canst no more not heare, then thou canst die.

Of what supreme almightie power Is thy great arm, which spans the east and west, And tacks the centre to the sphere!

By it do all things live their measur’d houre: We cannot ask the thing, which is not there, Blaming the shallownesse of our request.

Of what unmeasurable love Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die, 3 Wert fain to take our flesh and curse, And for our sakes in person sinne reprove, That by destroying that which ty’d thy purse, Thou mightst make way for liberalitie!

Since then these three wait on thy throne, Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so, That were I to leave all but one, Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go; I and deare prayer would together dwell, 4 And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.

1

Source: https://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Prayer1.html.

2

Source: https://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Prayer2.html.

3

“fain”: willing/glad.

4

“ell”: an old measurement equal to 45 inches.

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by

ERIC LANDRY

Prayer and the Presence of God artwork by

LARISSA NOWICKI

A

LTHOUGH I’M NOT a very good joke-telling preacher, one of my favor-

ites is about the news reporter newly assigned to Jerusalem. His editor asked him to write a story to give the readers back home a sense of what life was like in that ancient city. So, one day the reporter wandered down to the “Wailing Wall,” the last stones still standing of the Jewish temple that had been destroyed in AD 70 by Roman troops. There, every day, Jews line up at the wall to pray. The reporter noticed a very old man finishing his prayer and requested an interview. “What does it feel like, praying at this wall every day for so many years?” the reporter asked.

“What does it feel like?” the old man repeated back. He sighed and answered, “It feels like I’m talking to a wall!”

I like that story because it is brutally honest about the frustration that deeply pious people often feel about prayer. Many Christians I know can identify with that old man’s sense of loneliness and futility in prayer. Identifying with the joke allows us to talk honestly about an issue that causes many Christians to doubt the sincerity of their faith or the maturity of their pilgrimage. I am often frustrated by prayer, and I suspect I am not alone. Prayer is, for many Christians, the spiritual exercise they hate to love. That is, they know they should pray. They even want to pray! But the actual act is sometimes difficult and confusing, and it may not result in any super-spiritual experience at all.

For some of us, prayer has become a means of discouragement rather than a means of grace.

PRAYER IN EVERY SEASON OF LIFE In James 5:13–18, the apostle uses real-life examples to teach us about prayer: Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick?

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Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

In this passage, James calls on us to pray in seasons of trouble and happiness, and in times of sickness and health. His point is that in every circumstance, situation, and season of life, prayer is a means of grace by which the presence of God is made manifest among us.

The first real-life situation recalls one of James’s favorite subjects: suffering. In verse 13, he asks, “Are you suffering?” That’s a very practical question. His answer, however, is the sort of impractical advice you’d expect a minister to give: pray! What do you pray for when you are suffering? I pray for relief and rescue from my suffering. If that doesn’t come quickly enough, I pray for strength to endure suffering.

In moments of greater spiritual clarity, I pray that God would be glorified in my suffering.

Prayer recognizes God’s powerful presence in every situation. We pray because we expect God is there, that he cares, and that he is able to address our situation in some way. If we do not pray, we are telling ourselves and others that God is not there, or that he does not care about our suffering, or that God is not able to do anything about our suffering.

Do you struggle with those thoughts? I do. I am sometimes tempted to think of prayer as nothing more than religious platitudes. Then I am ashamed of my doubts, which drives me even deeper into prayerlessness. But God calls us to bring those doubts to him in prayer. When we do, we honor God and we also build up our

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faith as we cry out to God for comfort and help in understanding his purpose for our suffering.

James then moves to the opposite end of the spectrum: “Are you cheerful?” He tells us to sing praise when life is good. Our songs of praise are prayers themselves as we extol and worship God. Prayer does not always have to include petitions.

Sometimes it can simply be adoration. Just as an appropriate response to suffering is prayer, so also prayer through praise is an appropriate response to a good life. This, of course, is a good argument for memorizing the songs of the church—they can become for us a template of prayerful praise!

We see James’s second real-life situation in verse 14 when he asks, “Is anyone among you sick?” This puts us on more familiar ground.

We often promise to pray for those in our lives who are ill, and our prayer lists are filled with distant relatives of good friends who face various types of sickness. James tells the church’s leaders to be on call for those who are sick. But then he makes a surprising connection: sometimes sickness is a result of sin (v. 15). James is a good biblical theologian. He knows that our bodies are subject to corruption due to the Fall. Every one of us bears the rotten fruit of Adam’s rebellion against God in our physical bodies. James has a full-orbed understanding of the vulnerability of the justified life. Just because you are Christian doesn’t mean that you are free from disease. God sometimes allows us to feel the corruption of sin long after he frees us from the guilt of sin.

James insists that when the elders of the church pray for those who are sick, God will both raise the sick person up and forgive his or her sins. Here he echoes Jesus’ own words about the keys of heaven being given to the disciples to forgive or retain sins: “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). God’s ministers, upon praying for one of the sheep in the congregation, may also absolve and assure that person of the forgiveness of sins. This assurance may be even more heartening than physical recovery.

Facing such remaining weakness in our lives, James calls on the church to support one

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“THERE IS NO TIME WHEN GOD DOES NOT INVITE US TO HIMSELF: AFFLICTIONS OUGHT TO STIMULATE US TO PRAY; PROSPERITY SUPPLIES US WITH AN OCCASION TO PRAISE GOD.” — J O H N CA LV I N

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THE RIGHTEOUS PERSON IS ONE WHOSE LIFE IS CHARACTERIZED

BY A COMMITMENT TO GOD AND A DESIRE TO DO HIS WILL. THAT PERSON CAN OFFER PRAYER GROUNDED IN RIGHT BELIEF ABOUT GOD. THAT PERSON CAN OFFER A PRAYER THAT PRESUPPOSES, ABOVE ALL ELSE, THE LORD’S WILL. 58

another. In verse 14, James calls on the leadership to anoint and forgive, to serve the body through their prayers. The rest of us are also called to act: we are the “one-anothers” of verse 16. James says to confess our sins and pray for one another. This kind of personal body ministry is a key characteristic of a healthy church, because it is necessary for our own spiritual growth and development.

God calls us into his presence, no matter what our situation is in life. In his commentary on James, John Calvin picks up on the implicit promise of James’s exhortation when he says: “There is no time when God does not invite us to himself: afflictions ought to stimulate us to pray; prosperity supplies us with an occasion to praise God.” God uses prayer in every circumstance of our lives to reveal himself to us and to help us know and experience his presence.

POWER IN PRAYER Whenever we talk about prayer, we run the risk of falling into cultural superstitions. No doubt you’ve heard people confidently declare “There’s power in prayer!” without explaining how that power expresses itself or where it comes from. Junk science is sometimes cited by other well-meaning people to prove that prayer (presumably to any god) has tangible, medical benefits. I’ve even seen an enterprising entrepreneur “borrow” a trade-marked logo to use on a t-shirt: “Just pray!”

James says it takes a specific kind of prayer for prayer to work. He calls it “the prayer of faith” (v.

15). James has already talked about faith in his letter. Recall that in 1:6 he defined faith as “not doubting” and “not being tossed like a wave of the sea.” Instead, faith is confidence in the Lord who does not change (1:17). This means that the prayer of faith can be offered only by a righteous person (5:16). James isn’t talking about a supersaint. The righteous person is one whose life is characterized by a commitment to God and a desire to do his will. That person can offer prayer grounded in right belief about God. That person can offer a prayer that presupposes, above all

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QUOTES ON PRAYER

Always respond to every impulse to pray.

The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this—always obey such an impulse. Where does it come from? It is the work of the Holy Spirit.

—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers

else, the Lord’s will. The righteous person does not presume to lecture God but instead asks and receives from God’s hands as a gift.

The result, James says, is “great power.”

Prayer is powerful and does marvelous things through its powerful work. But prayer’s power is not inherent—it does not belong to the act of praying. Nor do you pray to manipulate the deity: prayer is not divine currency we spend to make God do something for us. Prayer’s power belongs to God to whom the prayer is addressed.

In verse 17, James tells the story of Elijah to prove his point. Elijah was a great figure in Jewish literature: he was a preeminent prophet and miracle-worker. But James does not appeal to him because of his great piety or miracleworking. Instead, he wants us to see how Elijah was a human like us—prone to doubting, complaining, and fear. First Kings 19 tells the story of how at one point in his life, Elijah ran away in fear from the wicked queen Jezebel and bitterly complained to God, “I’m the only faithful servant you have left in Israel!”

This man, so fragile in some ways, was also a mighty man of prayer. The story James tells comes from 1 Kings 17 and 18 when Elijah was ministering under the reign of the wicked King Ahab, who refused to recognize the power and the presence of God. God therefore told Elijah to pray that there would be no rain—and there wasn’t. Then to prove to Ahab that his idol

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worship was worthless, Elijah called on God to consume an altar doused with water. After proving God’s power over the false prophets, Elijah told Ahab that rain was coming—and it did!

Elijah’s prayer called on the God who was present, and that’s the lesson James is teaching us. God may not answer your prayers in all the ways you think are best for you. But he will always answer your prayers by showing his presence with you in every stage of life. How can we know that God will be with us? It’s his promise! Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, is with you just as he promised in his High Priestly Prayer in John 17:26, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Prayer is the opportunity God gives us to remind us of this new reality when all our other senses are overwhelmed by life. It is the means by which God actively communicates his grace to us. That’s why the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Question 88) calls prayer a means of grace: What are the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption? The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Along with the word and the sacraments, prayer is a way Christ pours his strength into us, equipping us for our pilgrimage.

What life situation confronts you today?

James tells us to pray and ask God to show us how he is present. We’re not talking to a wall!

We’re communing with the living God who loves us.

ERIC LANDRY is executive editor of Modern Reformation magazine. He also serves as the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Austin, Texas.

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KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE T H E A RT A N D S C I E N C E O F defending the faith is more

important than ever. We live in a pluralistic age where our faith “competes” with religions from around the world that have swept into the public square. Militant atheism, the rise of the “nones,” and the hollowing out of evangelicalism requires faithful Christians to be firmly rooted and ready to defend the faith.

Sadly, beyond a few key facts about Christianity and a testimony to the personal effect of believing in Jesus in their own lives, many modern Christians are unable to speak to those who stand outside their own religious circles.

Our hope with these resources is to bring together some of the best work that White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation have produced over the last quarter century. May God bless us with courage to step in front of the unbelieving world—into whatever personal Areopagus we find ourselves—and bear witness to the incarnate God, Jesus Christ, who died so that we might live.

ESSAYS ON Equipping Christians

FROM THE EDITORS OF

to answer the questions of our age

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DEFENDING THE FAITH DEFEND THE FAITH

MICHAEL S. HORTON AND ERIC LANDRY

EDITED BY

A COLLECTION

KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE AND WHY YOU BELIEVE IT

of

15 A R T I C L E S

and

INTERVIEWS

APOLOGETICS

HELP US PREPARE CHRISTIANS TO MAKE A DEFENSE FOR THE HOPE THAT IS IN THEM. Give a gift of support and receive our Defend the Faith resources. Your gift now will help us continue our work. Go to whitehorseinn.org/defend to learn more.

This Modern Reformation book contains fifteen articles, and the White Horse Inn digital audio collection contains thirty-one White Horse Inn episodes.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews 64

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Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation

The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics

Trinity Psalter Hymnal

by Jonathan King

by Peter Marshall

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

Harrison Perkins

Micah Everett

Jonathan Landry Cruse

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Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation

by Peter Marshall Yale University Press, 2018 672 (paperback), $25.00 eter Marshall has written a massive account of how the Reformation took place in England, and it is bound to become a standard introduction to the topic. Containing sweeping vistas, this book is not for the faint of heart, for it certainly does not gloss over the details of how Reformation thinking spread into and took root among the English people. Readers will not feel shortchanged if they endeavor to take on Marshall’s narrative of England’s transfer from medieval ritualism to the early years of Reformed thinking.

The first section of this book paints a picture of what medieval Christianity was like in England. Their theology was focused on ritual. In a time when various parts of the world were still isolated from one another, particularly in rural areas, the people essentially depended on the liturgical calendar for their awareness of the passing of time. It was the movement of the church year that gave pattern and cycle to their seasons and years. Marshall argues that this liturgically driven lifestyle may have been the most obvious fit for the agricultural communities of England (12–13). In this context, it was the clergy who drove the religious life of the country. There was mixed enthusiasm among the laity about the ability of the clergy to lead and teach them.

Yet, there were also subversive influences within the Church of England that would shake the status quo. John Wycliffe (1330–84) can be

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credited with bringing a concentrated presence of resistance to established English orthodoxy (100–02). He used philosophical realism to oppose the doctrine of transubstantiation and argued for the translation of Scripture into the people’s language. From the vantage point of his contemporaries, he was a heretic. From the perspective of later Protestants, he was a trailblazer. Wycliffe and other “Lollards” who stood up against traditional medieval doctrines indicate that the religious landscape of the late medieval period was multifaceted and almost primed for reform efforts (119). These would come in the Reformation.

The second section focuses on the many important events that took place during the reign of Henry VIII. His rule was marked by controversy of almost every kind. His many marriages, whet her t hey ended in divorce or death, were a constant source of political intrigue in the early 1500s, and they were certainly causes of tension between the English government, the English church, and the papacy. Henry readily broke from papal authority and declared himself head of the English church in order to achieve his personal goals for his monarchy. Despite the crucial political aspects that led to the break with Rome, the influence of Martin Luther also made inroads into English theology. Those who wrote England’s earliest independent confession, the Ten Articles, even tried to incorporate Protestant teaching into it.

The last two sections cover the massive changes that happened with lightning speed during the reigns of the last three Tudor monarchs. Part three examines the multiple religious identities that emerged under Henry VIII and continued to develop in the tumultuous

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reigns of Edward VI and Mary I. The first saw real victory for the Protestant cause, but the latter is famous for its reimposition of Roman Catholic doctrine and ceremony, as well as the heavy-handed punishments divvied out to those who opposed the re-catholicization of the English church. Part four looks at the establishment of Protestantism during the rule of Elizabeth I. Although the Protestants achieved tremendous political favor in this time, it appears that no one really achieved their ideal state of reform or purification of the church during the Elizabethan period.

There are many strengths to this book. It gives real attention to the multiple causes behind the English Reformation. Scholars of a previous era would have focused on the financial or material causes to the Reformation; and although Marshall takes these causes seriously, he does not neglect theological developments happening in the sixteenth century. There were serious political considerations that shaped Henry VIII’s decision to break communion with the papacy, and Marshall provides an excellent account of those events that largely motivated the early monarchy to move for reform. Still, there were many theologians who actually were active to bring about doctrinal change within the English church. Marshall gives actual treatment to those theological issues along the way, although they are certainly not the centerpiece of his narrative. His work is probably the most exhaustive account of the political interactions in the period of England’s Tudor Reformation(s). He concludes that the Reformation was “principally about religion,” and to his credit he recognizes that real belief was the driving force behind the continuing efforts to reshape the English church (xi).

Marshall’s is a well-written and very readable narrative that expertly traces the interactions between various spheres of influence in England in the sixteenth century. It is a wealth of information that covers the gamut of issues that arose in the Tudor period and that contributed to various reform efforts.

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It helps us grasp how truly earth-shattering the Reformation was across the world. Protestantism was something that revised almost every aspect of English life and caused multiple controversies.

There are also a few things for readers to note as they engage with this text, although these are not necessarily negative aspects of the book.

Since Marshall writes about controversial figures from the perspective of the times in which they lived, this means that—according to the notions of their day—many of the Protestant Reformers were considered heretics. Marshall often writes in these terms, whereas readers of this magazine would likely think the very opposite about figures such as John Wycliffe and Thomas Cranmer. There is something to appreciate about this, though, in that it helps us grasp how truly earth-shattering the Reformation was across the world. Protestantism was something that revised almost every aspect of English life and caused multiple controversies that ended in death for many. Additionally, it is sometimes difficult to keep up with the overall narrative of this book. It is a long work, and there are lots of figures and details that support Marshall’s proximate arguments. It may be helpful from time to time for the reader to take account of what section of the book they are reading and how that relates to what they have already read.

In the end, Marshall’s account is a rewarding read and a valuable resource about the English

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Reformation. It will enlighten readers about the various factors that led up to and furthered Reformation efforts. Although it is a book that takes some time to work through, it will bring a deeper appreciation for the real and difficult work that went into reshaping the church, thus bringing the Reformation to the Church of England. These are efforts from which Protestants still benefit, and this work will give readers better insight into the struggles and victories that went into obtaining those benefits.

HARRISON PERKINS is a postgraduate research student in the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast.

The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics

by Jonathan King Lexham Press, 2018 424 pages (paperback), $24.99 s a teaching and performing musician seeking to carry out a secular vocation in a Christ-honoring manner, I have read multiple books whose authors have sought to expound and apply the teachings of Scripture in the areas of music, the arts more broadly, and aesthetics. To write such a volume is surely a difficult task, given the paucity of scriptural data in these areas, at least to a surface-level reading.

Certainly, there are passages such as Exodus 28:2 where the furnishings of the tabernacle and temple and the garments of those who served therein were made “for glory and for beauty.”

There are occasional descriptions of beauty and splendor elsewhere in the Scriptures, but aesthetic concerns are not a primary focus of the biblical text. Authors exploring the intersections of Christianity, the arts, and aesthetics often end up focusing on the use of art and music in corporate worship, with the resulting works

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consisting of defenses of or attacks upon certain “worship styles” in which engagement with Scripture itself is sometimes shallow. Even those seeking applications beyond corporate worship tend to read the Scriptures through the lens of their own aesthetic and philosophical biases, thus failing to present a view of aesthetics that takes God’s word as its source, rather than as an appendage to opinions largely formed elsewhere. The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics excels because its author avoids such pitfalls—instead effectively asking throughout his treatise, “What does the Bible have to say about aesthetics?”

Jonathan King, currently a lecturer at the Universitas Pelita Harapan in Indonesia, received his doctorate from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where his dissertation “With Unveiled Beauty: Christological Contours of a Theological Aesthetic Approach to Theology” was the original presentation of the material in this book. While books born out of doctoral research are sometimes criticized for being difficult to read, both King and the editorial team at Lexham Press are to be commended for producing a book that does not conform to this stereotype. The large number of footnotes reflects King’s painstaking research, yet he presents his arguments in compelling prose that is scholarly in character without sacrificing readability.

In the acknowledgements preceding the main body of his text, King credits his professors at Westminster Seminary California (where he received his MA) with encouraging his initial exploration of “how beauty pertains theologically to the core doctrines of the Christian faith” (viii). This began with his studying the works of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88), who figures prominently in the present volume, along with Irenaeus of Lyons (130–202), Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), and Karl Barth (1886–1968). King thus draws from a wide spectrum of theological thought from various

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traditions and throughout the history of the church. The level of agreement among such disparate authors is remarkable, especially given that this topic receives such limited mention in the Scriptures. By drawing from such a varied collection of authors, King avoids the trap of allowing his thinking on aesthetics to be defined by the concerns and controversies peculiar to his own time and place. He instead finds the wonderful objectivity that C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) wisely admonished us to seek in “old books.”

While King’s synthesis of these and other theologians’ works is helpful and commendable, his primary focus is determining what the Bible teaches in the realm of aesthetics. Early in his book, he criticizes much of the prior work in this area, complaining that “the core weakness of theological aesthetics throughout the history of its various developments has been the primary neglect of a specifically biblicaland systematic-theological treatment” (7). When summarizing his thoughts at the end of the book, he further states that “theological approaches to the subject of aesthetics are varied and most of the theological scholarship on aesthetics is being done in the way of religious aesthetics or theology of the arts” (332). While there is nothing wrong per se with such studies, the questions that interest King are more fundamental. He is not asking how the church should view or even use the arts, or how aesthetic principles can be applied to worship or to Christian life more broadly. King wants to know what beauty is. We speak of the relationship between “the true, the good, and the beautiful” (as the teaching of Philippians 4:8 is so often summarized); but the last of these three is often neglected in theological studies, and when it is mentioned it is subjectivized.

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While not denying the importance of the subjective perception and appreciation of beauty, King insists that “the quality of beauty inherent in any given thing exists independent of any creaturely percipient, that is, whether or not it is perceived.” He further quotes Augustine: “If I were to ask first whether things are beautiful because they give pleasure, or give pleasure because they are beautiful, I have no doubt that I will be given the answer that they give pleasure because they are beautiful.” (354–430) He then concludes that “beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, though it is not reduced to that” (13–14).

King is certain that the Bible has something to say about beauty and aesthetics, that there are objective categories that should inform our thinking in this area, and that this teaching has been largely (but not totally) neglected in the development of Reformed and evangelical theology. In seeking to remedy this lack, King rightly focuses on the person and work of Jesus.

Throughout the book, readers encounter phrases such as “the christological contours of beauty,” which is King’s term for “a biblicaland systematic-theological characterization of God’s beauty—notably in and through the Son as incarnate redeemer and with respect to humans as divine image-bearers—in relation to the principal phases of the theodrama: creation, redemption, and consummation” (23–24). A key concept is that of “fittingness”: that the beauty of the Lord Jesus and his work on our behalf is expressed largely in his unique and exclusive suitability to create and redeem a people for himself, and then to bring this work of creation and redemption to a glorious consummation at

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the end of the age. King even goes so far as to suggest that Christ’s beauty was not veiled at his incarnation, but rather that his becoming man in a humble condition in order to fulfill his redemptive purpose is itself most fitting and thus beautiful. Such proportion and balance, such rightness, such fittingness are seen throughout the “theodramatic comedy,” as King puts it, as God’s purposes are worked out with perfect “creational-recreational symmetry” (92–93). Even the damnation of the reprobate is consistent with these ideas of fittingness and symmetry according to King, though the author treads lightly when speaking on this topic and is reticent to speculate too much.

While Bavinck, Barth, and others have identified God’s beauty as an expression of his glory or as a characteristic of one or more other attributes, King goes further and identifies beauty as one of God’s attributes in its own right. He explores this idea in a largely Christocentric fashion, but the Father and Spirit are by no means neglected. Indeed, the beauty inherent in the economic relations within the Trinity is explored at length. Whether discussing the beauty of the Triune God or exploring God’s works around, in, and for us in creation, incarnation, the cross, and re-creation, King fully demonstrates that all of God’s works are characterized by “the three essential qualities of beauty, namely, proportion, integrity, and clarity” (83–84; emphasis original).

With The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics, Jonathan King has done the church a great service. Those looking for just another book on “art and the Bible” or “music in worship” will not find that here. Instead, they will find a view of aesthetics—theological aesthetics—in which the teaching of Scripture is primary, which always directs readers to the Lord Jesus Christ, our beautiful, fitting, glorious Savior, and his works of creation, redemption, and consummation. Do these teachings have implications for how we view art, music, architecture, and other aesthetic concerns? Of course they do, and Christians should continue

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to think, speak, and write about such things.

King’s book will, one hopes, enable future discussion in this realm to proceed with stronger biblical moorings.

MICAH EVERETT is associate professor of music at the University of Mississippi. He and his family are members of Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oxford, Mississippi.

Trinity Psalter Hymnal Great Commission Publications, 2018 (hardcover), $23.00 roducing a printed worship book, including a full psalter, in an era of screens and me-centered “praise” songs could seem like a fool’s errand. Yet, in a bold effort to reclaim and even reintroduce God-centered, Bible-filled, musically excellent, and theologically robust songs to the modern church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) have joined together to create the Trinity Psalter Hymnal (TPH). In many respects, the TPH is unlike any other songbook ever created because of its goal, scope, and overall content. But in order to truly appreciate all it has to offer, it’s important to know how best to use the book.

First, begin by reading the editorial introductions. In fact, the two articles “A Musical Introduction” and “Preparing Our Hearts” are worth the price of the book. They explain and explore the power of music, why our making melody matters to God, and how we can be better at it.

Next is the psalter, found within the first 150 songs of the TPH. That might seem obvious, but it is a new feature compared to the CRC’s (Christian Reformed Church) and URCNA’s 1976 Psalter Hymnal. For example, in this version, “O God, to Us Show Mercy” is song number 121, a setting of Psalm 67, and found on page 139.

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In the TPH, it is simply designated as “67A,” with the song number corresponding to its respective psalm. Letters are used to differentiate secondary tunes, partial or paraphrased versions, as well as to divide the twenty-two stanzas of Psalm 119.

A remarkable contribution to the psalter portion of the TPH is that each psalm (except Psalm 119) has at least one full metrical setting; and for those that are full psalms, the biblical verses are superscripted within the text. Having musical versions of the entire psalm will aid in biblical competency and memorization, with verse numbers making it easier to track the flow of the original psalm while singing.

The user-friendly formatting is a distinct feature.

Wherever possible, the editors have spared us from reading additional stanzas grouped outside and away from the musical notation. For example, in The Psalter of 1912, “The Unfailing Faithfulness of God” (Psalm 105) has nineteen stanzas. Only five fit within the musical staves, and the remaining fourteen are stacked in two columns on the top of the next page. This makes it difficult for musicians and singers to follow both text and tune, rendering the unity of corporate worship liable to confusion and disruption.

In contrast, the TPH’s 105B has fifteen stanzas spread over three pages. Each page replicates the sheet music note for note, dividing the text up evenly for five stanzas on each page. For a project that seeks to produce entire psalm settings, entailing in some instances upward of twenty metrical stanzas, this is a crucial feature.

However, since this formatting is uncommon, it is important to be aware of this before singing.

While you may think you have reached the end of the psalm, it continues onto the next page or two.

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The creators of the TPH should also be applauded for their extensive efforts to wed each text with an appropriate tune (which is true for the hymns as well). Take Psalm 79, for instance.

In the Psalter Hymnal, this text lamenting God’s seeming absence and the triumph of Israel’s enemies is set to the infectious, cheerful tune of “Hyfrydol”—a choice that results in cognitive dissonance when singing. The TPH sets the same psalm to the German tune “O Mein Jesu, Ich Muss Sterben” (as in “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted”).

This pairing allows one to grasp the meaning of the text more readily and sing with apt feeling.

It is evident that in producing the psalter, scriptural fidelity was paramount. The versions that made the cut were first and foremost faithful to the original Hebrew poetry, and matters such as familiarity or popularity were secondary if not tertiary considerations. Where there were no preexisting settings that met this standard, the committee penned their own.

I m p r e s s i v e l y, t h e T P H includes over 150 original metrical psalm texts. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this, and time will prove that the TPH leaves an indelible mark in the history of the church by adding these new songs to the corpus of its sung psalmody. The psalter concludes with 150C, a rousing OPC/URCNA composition set to the tune of “All Creatures of Our God and King,” and we move right on to the hymnal.

The TPH contains what the committee has deemed to be the best hymns available to the English-speaking church today (over four hundred of them), split into three categories of worship, faith and life, and service music, with useful subcategories found on the top of each page and in the index.

A concerted effort was made to include hymns that span the entire history of the Christian

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BOOK REVIEWS

church. The fourth-century Te Deum is present, as well as hymn texts by the Cappadocian father Gregory of Nazianzus (also fourth century) and sixth-century Gregory the Great (father of the Gregorian chant). Both a Trinitarian hymn and a Christmas carol from Ambrose of Milan (fourth century) make the cut, as do two Easter hymns by Syrian monk John of Damascus (eighth century). New to most congregants will be Thomas Aquinas’s communion hymn “Zion, to Thy Savior Singing” (ca. 1260).

The TPH reflects the songs of today as well, boasting over thirty pieces written in the past thirty years. Modern classics such as “In Christ Alone” (2002) and “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” (1995) are included alongside lesser known (at least for now) hymns of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century church.

Notably, the renowned preacher and pastor James Montgomery Boice is represented by five hymns that he penned in the last year of his life.

Overall the hymns are rich in theology, beautiful in poetry, and most importantly, saturated in Scripture. Of the more recent contributions, there are hymns based on biblical texts such as Isaiah’s servant songs (“Behold, My Servant”), Revelation 22 (“Come to the Waters”), and a prayer of illumination taken from John 6:60–70 (“O Spirit, Fill Our Hearts”). There are also settings of each of the canticles in Luke’s birth narrative.

As the editors combed through the Psalter Hymnal and both editions of the Trinity Hymnal (1961/1990), songs that were musically, poetically, or theological weak (one thinks of the Trinity Hymnal’s 1970s pop song “My Tribute”) were cut in favor of the robust settings found in this new collection. Watts, Havergal, Newton, Bonar, Wesley, and other favorite authors are safely attested. In fact, the TPH delves into the works of these luminaries to bring us songs omitted from previous books: for example, Watts’s adoption hymn (“Behold, the Amazing Gift of Love”) and Newton’s firstperson poem on the pains of sanctification

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(“I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow”) are welcome additions to classics such as “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Amazing Grace.” Also recovered are additional stanzas to “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “For All the Saints,” and others; and songs such as “Be Thou My Vision” and “O God Beyond All Praising” have been reharmonized to accommodate singing in parts.

Lastly, the TPH’s contribution to the church goes beyond music, for it also provides an extensive selection of creeds, confessions, and catechisms for congregational and personal use.

It is the first songbook to include the doctrinal standards from both the Presbyterian and the Reformed tradition, the Westminster Standards and Three Forms of Unity—a historical accomplishment that will be nestled together in church pews around the world for years to come.

In terms of formatting, the TPH is unquestionably the cleanest and clearest songbook available to the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions to date. The musical notation is enlarged from the Trinity Hymnal and the typeset is more readable than the thin text of the Psalter Hymnal. Measures are given room to breathe, with no more than sixteen syllables fit onto a single line. The result is a crisp and easily accessible product.

Conversely, this claims more space and will undoubtedly mean that a beloved hymn or psalm setting is absent. When first using the TPH, readers may be tempted to jump immediately to what is missing or to think of the superiority of a hymnal they have cherished for years. A new work like this will take some getting used to.

But to truly appreciate it, readers must see it for what it is: an invaluable aid in letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. Truly, here is a worship resource that will edify saints and glorify God for generations to come.

JONATHAN LANDRY CRUSE is the pastor of Community

Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a hymn writer whose works can be found at www.HymnsOfDevotion.com.

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GEEK SQUAD

A Simple Way to Pray

by Martin Luther

artin Luther used the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as a form to instruct his friend, Peter, on how to pray. The following comes from Luther’s “An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen” (1519).

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“OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME” “Yes, Lord God, dear Father, hallowed be thy name, both in us and throughout the whole world. Destroy and root out the abominations, idolatry, and heresy of the Turk, the pope, and all false teachers and fanatics who wrongly use thy name and in scandalous ways take it in vain

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and horribly blaspheme it. They insistently boast that they teach thy word and the laws of the church, though they really use the devil’s deceit and trickery in thy name to wretchedly seduce many poor souls throughout the world, even killing and shedding much innocent blood, and in such persecution they believe that they render thee a divine service.

“Dear Lord God, convert and restrain [them].

Convert those who are still to be converted that they with us and we with them may hallow and praise thy name, both with true and pure doctrine and with a good and holy life. Restrain those who are unwilling to be converted so that they be forced to cease from misusing, defiling, and dishonoring thy holy name and from misleading the poor people. Amen.”

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“THY KINGDOM COME” “O dear Lord, God and Father, thou seest how worldly wisdom and reason not only profane thy name and ascribe the honor due to thee to lies and to the devil, but how they also take the power, might, wealth, and glory which thou hast given them on earth for ruling the world and thus serving thee, and use it in their own ambition to oppose thy kingdom. They are many and mighty; they plague and hinder the tiny flock of thy kingdom who are weak, despised, and few. They will not tolerate thy flock on earth and think that by plaguing them they render a great and godly service to thee. Dear Lord, God and Father, convert them and defend us.

Convert those who are still to become children and members of thy kingdom so that they with us and we with them may serve thee in thy kingdom in true faith and unfeigned love and that from thy kingdom which has begun, we may enter into thy eternal kingdom. Defend us against those who will not turn away their might and power from the destruction of thy kingdom so that when they are cast down from their thrones and humbled, they will have to cease from their efforts. Amen.”

“THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN” “O dear Lord, God and Father, thou knowest that the world, if it cannot destroy thy name or root out thy kingdom, is busy day and night with wicked tricks and schemes, strange conspiracies and intrigue, huddling together in secret counsel, giving mutual encouragement and support, raging and threatening and going about with every evil intention to destroy thy name, word, kingdom, and children. Therefore, dear Lord, God and Father, convert them and defend us. Convert those who have yet to acknowledge thy good will that they with us and we with them may obey thy will and for thy sake gladly, patiently, and joyously bear every evil, cross, and

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adversity, and thereby acknowledge, test, and experience thy benign, gracious, and perfect will. But defend us against those who in their rage, fury, hate, threats, and evil desires do not cease to do us harm. Make their wicked schemes, tricks, and devices to come to nothing so that these may be turned against them, as we sing in Psalm 7[:16].”

“GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD” “Dear Lord, God and Father, grant us thy blessing also in this temporal and physical life.

Graciously grant us blessed peace. Protect us against war and disorder. Grant to our dear emperor fortune and success against his enemies. Grant him wisdom and understanding to rule over his earthly kingdom in peace and prosperity. Grant to all kings, princes, and rulers good counsel and the will to preserve their domains and their subjects in tranquility and justice. Especially aid and guide our dear prince N., under whose protection and shelter thou dost maintain us, so that he may be protected against all harm and reign blessedly, secure from evil tongues and disloyal people.

Grant to all his subjects grace to serve him loyally and obediently. Grant to every estate— townsman or farmer—to be diligent and to display charity and loyalty toward each other.

Give us favorable weather and good harvest. I commend to thee my house and property, wife and child. Grant that I may manage them well, supporting and educating them as a Christian should. Defend us against the Destroyer and all his wicked angels who would do us harm and mischief in this life. Amen.”

“FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US” “O dear Lord, God and Father, enter not into judgment against us because no man living is

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justified before thee. Do not count it against us as a sin that we are so unthankful for thine ineffable goodness, spiritual and physical, or that we stray into sin many times every day, more often than we can know or recognize (Psalm 19[:12]).

Do not look upon how good or how wicked we have been but only upon the infinite compassion which thou hast bestowed upon us in Christ, thy dear Son. Grant forgiveness also to those who have harmed or wronged us, as we forgive them from our hearts. They inflict the greatest injury upon themselves by arousing thy anger in their actions toward us. We are not helped by their ruin; we would much rather that they be saved with us. Amen.” (Anyone who feels unable to forgive, let him ask for grace so that he can forgive; but that belongs in a sermon.)

“AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION” “O dear Lord, Father and God, keep us fit and alert, eager and diligent in thy word and service, so that we do not become complacent, lazy, and slothful as though we had already achieved everything. In that way the fearful devil cannot fall upon us, surprise us, and deprive us of thy precious word or stir up strife and factions among us and lead us into other sin and disgrace, both spiritually and physically. Rather grant us wisdom and strength through thy spirit that we may valiantly resist him and gain the victory. Amen.”

“BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.” “O dear Lord, God and Father, this wretched life is so full of misery and calamity, of danger and uncertainty, so full of malice and faithlessness (as St. Paul says, “The days are evil” [Eph. 5:16]) that we might rightfully grow weary of life and long for death. But thou, dear Father, knowest our frailty; therefore help us to pass in safety through so much wickedness and villainy; and, when our last hour comes, in thy mercy grant us

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a blessed departure from this vale of sorrows so that in the face of death we do not become fearful or despondent but in firm faith commit our souls into thy hands. Amen.”

Finally, mark this, that you must always speak the Amen firmly. Never doubt that God in his mercy will surely hear you and say “yes” to your prayers. Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone; rather think that the whole of Christendom, all devout Christians are standing there beside you and you are standing among them in a common, united petition which God cannot disdain. Do not leave your prayer without having said or thought, “Very well, God has heard my prayer; this I know as a certainty and a truth.” That is what Amen means.

You should also know that I do not want you to recite all these words in your prayer. That would make it nothing but idle chatter and prattle, read word for word out of a book as were the rosaries by the laity and the prayers of the priests and monks. Rather do I want your heart to be stirred and guided concerning the thoughts which ought to be comprehended in the Lord’s Prayer. These thoughts may be expressed, if your heart is rightly warmed and inclined toward prayer, in many different ways and with more words or fewer. I do not bind myself to such words or syllables, but say my prayers in one fashion today, in another tomorrow, depending upon my mood and feeling. I stay however, as nearly as I can, with the same general thoughts and ideas. It may happen occasionally that I may get lost among so many ideas in one petition that I forego the other six.

If such an abundance of good thoughts comes to us, we ought to disregard the other petitions, make room for such thoughts, listen in silence, and under no circumstances obstruct them.

The Holy Spirit himself preaches here, and one word of his sermon is far better than a thousand of our prayers.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483–1546) was a German monk, priest, professor, theologian, and reformer.

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B AC K PAG E

The Loneliness of Self-Righteousness

by Eric Landry

hristians are used to a certain loneliness that comes with godliness. After all, Jesus told his disciples that they were to be not of the world (John 17:14). That means we must refuse to participate in sinful thinking and acting, and we should not be surprised when a culture at odds with God shuns us. Sadly, however, many of us isolate ourselves by our own unique form of ungodliness: selfrighteousness. Self-righteousness is inherently lonely because it lacks the virtues of grace, selfawareness, and forgiveness.

True righteousness is a gracious gift given by God (2 Cor. 5:21). Self-righteousness, however, is generated by the imposition of customs, rules, and expectations—which may have some similarity to God’s moral law but are grounded in the flesh. Self-righteous people, then, judge others against their own performance, ability, and success. By becoming the standard, they no longer join others at the foot of the cross, equal recipients of God’s grace. Their elevation of their own righteousness puts distance between them and everyone else.

That loneliness is compounded by their inability to be self-aware, or at least to admit to others their need for an alien righteousness.

Self-righteous people are a danger to themselves and others. Having made themselves the standard of righteousness, they cannot afford to have anyone look behind the curtain and see the reality of sin remaining in their lives. They cannot, however, endure that duplicity for very long.

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It will either crush them, or they will deceive themselves by embracing a delusion that redefines sin and righteousness in terms that enable them to believe their own lies. With a false sense of their own inherent righteousness and an inability to see the reality of their own remaining sin, their loneliness is cemented by their lack of forgiveness. In their minds, this makes perfect sense. After all, right living is merely a matter of the will; if they can do it, then why shouldn’t others? Forgiveness in this scheme is extended only to those with true contrition who endeavor to change their ways—to become more like the self-righteous ones. Understandably, few are willing to engage these self-righteous people at such a level. They have already been tried and found wanting by these self-righteous ones, so they retreat to a safe distance.

The withdrawal of family and friends, however, will not shock the self-righteous out of their delusion. Only a God who draws near can pierce this veil. “Where are you?” God called to Adam and Eve when sin drove them into hiding. “Where are you?” God calls to us when we wander into the wilderness of our own making. God’s life-giving speech opens the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. It breaks open the graves of the dead and knits together the dried-out bones on the valley floor. It rescues us from our delusions and reunites us with the community of the faithful.

ERIC LANDRY is the executive editor of Modern Reformation magazine.

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THE GOSPEL OF JOHN E X P L O R I N G T H E P E R S O N A N D W O R K O F J E S U S C H R I S T. In 2019, we’re diving into a yearlong study of the Gospel of John. Next year, every episode and issue of White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation will grapple with life-changing questions such as, “How do we know John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record?,” “Did Jesus ever claim to be God?,” and “What does it mean to be ‘born again?’” Partner with us as we explore and learn from this rich book of Scripture.

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