What does Christ mean, when he teaches us to pray, ‘Your kingdom come’?
According to Augustine (ACCS), we should not think of this petition as implying that God is not now reigning:
…‘“Come”…is to be understood in the sense of “manifested to humanity.” Just as light that is present is absent to the blind or to those who shut their eyes, so the kingdom of God, though it never departs from the earth, yet is absent to those who know nothing about it.
Summarising ch 11 of Theology of Prayer, by B.M. Palmer
1. Prayer deepens the channel of our religious nature
‘It is the moral and religious element which draws the final distinction between man and the brute.’ In the animal there is the faint trace of reason and affection.
If man’s highest activity is the religious activity, then prayer deepens the channel of this supreme function. ‘Prayer lifts the soul into the immediate presence of God, to feel the power and bear the imprint of all the divine perfections, singly and combined.…
B.M. Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 12
Chapter 12 The Dignity of Prayer
1. All the constituent elements of our complex being are distinctly united and exercised in prayer
In prayer, all the faculties or the mind are exercised – memory, reflection, judgment and reason. ‘Before a man can lisp a syllable of prayer, he must recognise something to pray for. He must know to whom the prayer shall be addressed, and he must consider the relations in which he stands to the Benefactor whose favour he solicits.…
B.M Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 3
Confession and supplication. These together form the language of guilt, with which we must all approach the Almighty.
Man’s first duty is obedience to the law. Now, having transgressed the law, his first responsibility is to repent and confess.
In Greek, Latin and English, the word literally means, ‘to speak together’. In confession, God and man unite in an agreed declaration concering sin.
Psa 137:7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
They said, “Tear it down, tear it down,
right to its very foundation!”
137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated!
How blessed will be the one who repays you
for what you dished out to us!
137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies
and smashes them on a rock!
These sentiments seem far removed from the ethics of Christ’s kingdom. …
Richard Baxter wrote about contemplation in A Christian Directory and The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.
Following Baxter distinguishes between the contemplative life and the active life:
…‘Every active christian is bound to somewhat of contemplation; and all contemplative persons are bound to obedience to God, and to so much of action as may answer their abilities and opportunities. But yet some are much more called to the one, and some to the other; and we denominate from that which is most eminent and the chief.
A short, repeated, prayer which takes the form of ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’, or some reduced version of this (such as ‘Lord Jesus have mercy on me’).
It is based on the plea of the two blind men in Mt 20:30–31 and the tax collector’s prayer in Lk 18:13.
Its usage by the Eastern branch of the church dates back to the 4th or 5th century.
It has also been used in Roman Catholic devotion (often in the form of ‘Lord, make haste to help me.…
You say, ‘Eucharist’; I say, ‘Holy Communion’. You say, ‘Priest’, I say, ‘Minister’. You say, ‘Spiritual formation’, I say, ‘Discipleship’. You say, ‘Contemplative prayer’; I say, ‘Communion with God’.
Is it as simple as that? Are these just different names for the same things?
To focus the question: Is contemplative prayer compatible with (or even essential to) evangelical faith, or inimical to it? Does the contemplative life represent a departure from, or a deepening of, the evangelical life?…
NET: “Stop your striving and recognize that I am God!”
NIV: ‘Be still and know that I am God’.
The text misunderstood
In popular piety and Christian song, this injunction is often (mis)understood to be a call to quiet meditation.
The following well-known worship song (whose author and composer are unknown) is based on Psa 46:10, and is described here as a ‘meditative, chant-style hymn’:
Be still and know that I am God,
Be still and know that I am God,
Be still and know that I am God.…
This is the title of a recent post by Ian Paul. What follows is based on that article.
We might well think that prayer, if it is to be regarded as distinctively Christian prayer, should be Trinitarian.
But what, then, are we to make of the Christian’s model prayer, which does not mention the Holy Spirit at all.
Ian Paul suggests that the Holy Spirit is indeed ‘present’ in the Lord’s Prayer, even though not mentioned.…
