Melissa B. Kruger on Praying for your Children

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (November 2025) it’s 5 Things to Pray for Your Kids: Prayers That Change Things for the Next Generation – helping you pray for your children ‘in line with God’s Word, aligning your heart with his purposes for them’ – which is available in exchange for an email address here.

Francois P. Viljoen and Albert J. Coetsee et al. on Prayer in the New Testament

Thanks to Alistair Wilson for the heads up on this open access volume, to which he has contributed a chapter:

Francois P. Viljoen and Albert J. Coetsee (eds.), Biblical Theology of Prayer in the New Testament, Reformed Theology in Africa Series Volume 13 (Cape Town: AOSIS Publishing, 2023).

Here’s the synopsis:

‘This publication deals with a biblical theology of prayer based on the New Testament. It forms the second of a two-volume publication on a biblical theology of prayer, dealing with the concept of prayer in the Old and New Testament, respectively. This New Testament volume begins with an introduction on prayer and worship in early Jewish tradition, followed by eleven chapters dealing with New Testament corpora. It concludes with a final chapter synthesising the findings of the respective investigations of the Old and New Testament corpora to provide a summative theological perspective of the development of the concept of prayer through scripture.

‘Prayer forms a major and continuous theme throughout the biblical text. Prayer was an integral part of the religious existence of God’s people in both the Old and New Testament. It underwent its greatest developments during, after and as a result of the Exile and was deepened and transformed in the New Testament. In both the Old and the New Testament, God is the sole “addressee” of his people’s prayer. This conviction continued into the New Testament, but was broadened with Trinitarian elements of worship, adoration and intercession.

A biblical theological investigation is chosen as methodology. Since all the biblical books form part of one canonical text, the assumption is that the various theologies about prayer being displayed in these books can be synthesised into a developing meta-theology about prayer. As the Old and New Testament form part of the canonical text, the results about prayer in the Old Testament can be brought into play with the results about prayer in the New Testament. This eventually leads toward an overarching biblical theology of prayer.’

Further information is available here, from where the book can be downloaded as a pdf.

The Old Testament volume referred to in the synopsis is available from here.

What We Pray

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service run by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: he has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem. But now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commands you gave through your servants the prophets…

Ezra 9:9–11

If the book of Ezra was just about ‘getting back in the building’, it would end with chapter 6.

In spite of setbacks and opposition along the way, God’s people have persevered. The temple has been rebuilt and dedicated. Even so, it’s not just a ‘bricks and mortar’ moment. It’s about reconnecting with the past, reclaiming their identity, and remembering God’s salvation. No wonder we read that ‘the LORD had filled them with joy’ (6:22). In truth, it would be a great place to finish the story.

But there’s more. There always is.

Ezra knew what many churches have discovered: once the building project is over, the real work starts.

Renewed worship is to lead to renewed lifestyle. But the people had lost touch with how God had called them to live. The very issues which had taken them into exile in the first place now threatened to undo them and their witness to the nations all over again. They were not only abandoning their obligations to be a distinctive people, they were also jeopardising the blessing that was designed to come through them to others.

So it is that Ezra prays.

The prayer provides a poignant window into Ezra’s heart. It’s a deeply emotional outpouring of grief to the Lord, highlighting the people’s unfaithfulness, all too aware that he stands in solidarity with them. There’s a full acknowledgement of guilt and a recognition that they have placed themselves under the searching gaze of God.

But the prayer is addressed throughout to ‘our God’. And this is the only hope for the restoration they need. Even when they stop living like his people, he will not stop loving like their God. God has ‘shown kindness’ – covenant loyalty – to them. Ezra knows that this covenant God ‘has not forsaken’ them, and that his grace is already seen in the events which have brought about their return, giving them ‘new life’.

It’s perhaps a prayer to take with us as we continue to emerge out of lockdown, whatever that might look like over the next season.

We move forward recognising that our celebrations of regathering are nothing without our relationship with God being in place. And we do so confident in God’s character and commitment to us, that his love is designed to bring us to a place of service, and that our future is based solely on who he is.

Echoes of Blessing #2: A Secure People

Answer me when I call to you,

my righteous God.

Give me relief from my distress;

have mercy on me and hear my prayer...

Let the light of your face shine on us...

In peace I will lie down and sleep,

for you alone, LORD,

make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:1, 6, 8

In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe conducted a study with over 5,000 patients on the connection between significant life events and illness. The resulting chart – known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – which contained 43 causes of stress in 1967, was updated to 55 causes in 2006. It appears we are finding more ways of feeling stressed! Not far from the top of the list are finances, work, family, personal concerns, relationships, and death – issues that many people face, regardless of how secure they may appear.

Stress spans the ages too, as this Psalm makes clear. Although the cause in this case is not immediately apparent, David’s prayer has a very human and contemporary feel to it – ‘Give me relief from my distress’. How recently have you prayed that for yourself?

But note how he addresses God – ‘Righteous God’, or ‘God of my right’. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, God’s righteousness is bound up with his covenant love and faithfulness to his people. It’s because he is the God who does what is right, who makes things right, that we can pray, ‘Give me relief from my distress’. It’s this God alone who can provide the compassion we seek. We pray on the basis that God is a righteous God, and has mercy on his people. Ultimately, we have no other source of hope, no other means of deliverance.

It’s completely of a piece with God’s covenant faithfulness that towards the end of the Psalm, David can use words from the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, to ask God to shine on the people, and expresses the confidence that he will enjoy peace, shalom, the wellbeing that the priestly blessing goes on to pray for. It’s the Lord alone who does this, he says; only the Lord counts.

And so he lies down to sleep. It’s not apparent that the situation has changed by the end of the Psalm, or that the cause of the stress has been removed. But praying it through has somehow put it in perspective. Prayer to the covenant-keeping God has a way of doing that. The Psalms are unrelenting in pointing us back to the one who stands at the heart of our faith – the one who still promises that his peace, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Ben Patterson on Five Ways to Pray the Psalms

In God’s Prayer Book: The Power and Pleasure of Praying the Psalms (Wheaton: Tyndale, 2008), Ben Patterson outlines five ways to pray the psalms:

1. Say Them Out Loud. Just read the Psalms slowly and thoughtfully, assenting to what they say with as much understanding as you have, intellectually and emotionally. Don’t just read them, pray them; say them from the heart.

2. Festoon Them. Think of a psalm as a Christmas tree. Read it and then festoon it with your own prayers, as you would decorate a tree.

3. Paraphrase Them. Meditate on and study a psalm until you understand it well enough to put it into your own words. Then paraphrase the psalm as you have come to understand it, and pray your paraphrase.

4. Learn Them by Heart. Memorize the Psalms – but not by rote. Rather, learn them by heart; make their words your words.

5. Marinate in Them. The soul should marinate in Scripture by repeated, thoughtful, slow, comprehensive, and Spirit-enlightened reading.

Prayer on a Vast Canvas

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world ... I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

John 17:24-26

The scope of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is huge, overwhelming even. It moves from the oneness between Father and Son ‘before the world began’ (17:5), through the mission of the Son sent from the Father, to the keeping and sanctification of the apostles as those in turn sent into the world (17:18), to those who believe through their testimony – us included – who come to participate in the eternal love of the triune God. Jesus’ prayer embraces nothing less than the whole history of redemption.

The prayer thus reflects God’s mission, and the goal of that mission – to gather a people to share in the fellowship of love and oneness that existed between Father and Son ‘before the creation of the world’ (17:24), that we might be loved by the Father with the love he has for the Son. Just bask in that for a moment.

In a sense, John 17 is the real ‘Lord’s prayer’, with the one recorded in Matthew 6:9-13 best thought of as the disciples’ prayer. It is Jesus’ prayer, not ours. And, as we eavesdrop on it, we hear not just his voice but his heart: his alignment with the will of the Father, his desire to complete the work given him to do, his concerns for his people. Above all, perhaps, the prayer demonstrates the intimacy between Father and Son. But it also beckons us into that intimacy, and invites us to reflect on how we will pray as a result.

John 17 helps us, not because it gives us a technique for prayer, but because it orients our praying. It shows us that prayer is addressed to God as Father and is rooted in relationship with one who knows us and loves us. It also reminds us of the centrality of God’s glory. Our prayers can sometimes be focused on ourselves with concentric circles of legitimate interests and concerns, needs and responsibilities. But Jesus puts the Father’s glory at the centre, and the circles that radiate out are to do with his will and his purpose.

As Jesus promised, answers to such prayers prayed in his name are always given (John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:24). For those who truly know him – and are one in intimate union with him and the Father – pray out of a knowledge of his will and a desire to serve his interests.

Knowing and Doing (Spring 2017)

The Spring 2017 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (here as a pdf), and contains the following articles:

Joel Woodruff

President’s Letter – Looking for Adventure?

Joel S. Woodruff, President of the C.S. Lewis Institute, encourages believers to a life of adventure. What great adventure can be found by those who commit to Jesus’ great commission and answer his adventurous call to discipleship?

George Marsden

A Biography of Mere Christianity

C.S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity has a claim to being one of the most important religious works of the twentieth century. In this article, George Marsden discusses the origins of the book and its reception, as well as the factors that give the book its ongoing vitality.

Tom Schwanda

The Emergence of Evangelical Discipleship: Learning to Walk with Jesus

In this article, Tom Schwanda discusses how the early evangelicals of the eighteenth century sought to walk with Jesus, and what we can learn from them in following Jesus as his disciples today.

Bill Kynes

Growing in Prayer Part 2: Learning to Pray to Your Father

Jesus’ disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In this article, Bill Kynes addresses what Jesus taught in response to that request.

Joe Kohm, Jr.

The Wisdom of Jane Eyre

This article considers the lessons we can learn about how to live today from reading Charlotte Brontë’s mid-nineteenth century novel Jane Eyre.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Does a Red-Faced God Sing the Blues? Emotions, Divine Suffering, and Biblical Interpretation

Kevin Vanhoozer explores how we should understand, in a clear and biblical way, divine emotional attributes as part of our overall understanding of God.

Randy Newman

First Steps to Loving and Understanding Our Jewish Neighbors

In this excerpt from his book Engaging with Jewish People: Understanding Their World, Sharing Good News, Randy Newman considers the question: Who are the Jewish people?

Thomas A. Tarrants III

The Priority of Prayer

From the time of the apostles and throughout church history, the kingdom of God has moved forward through prayer. This article discusses the need to rediscover the power of prayer, and the path for doing so.

Anvil 32, 1 (2016)

The Journal Anvil is now hosted online by Church Mission Society.

The first issue published this way ‘has three CMS commitments as its theme: learn, pray and participate’, seen as ‘the lenses or frames through which we engage with mission’.

This issue contains the below articles (summary sentences are taken from Cathy Ross’ editorial), along with a good number of book reviews, and is available as a pdf here.

John Drane

Learning for Mission

John Drane picks up the learning commitment by considering what education for mission might look like if we took engagement in mission rather than content as our primary focus and question.

Adrian Chatfield

Prayer and Mission: Entering into the Ways of God

Adrian Chatfield draws on ancient traditions and mysticism to consider the relationship between prayer and mission.

Debbie James

Faithful Presence: A Re-emerging Mission Paradigm

Debbie James reflects on the importance of partnership and presence drawing on Anglican social tradition and the concept of ‘prophetic dialogue’ as a resource to encourage participation and presence.

Sue Butler

Re-defining Threshold

Sue Butler... reflects on her experience at Thirst, her missional community. Themes of prayer, hospitality, and threshold are explored as ways of encouraging people into a relationship with Jesus.

Luke Larner

Catching the Wind: Exploring Missio Dei in Context

Luke Larner reflects on the impact of missio Dei as part of his learning on the Pioneer Leadership course at CMS and how this has transformed his understanding of mission in his context in Luton.

Jon Soper

A Mission Statement

Jon Soper tells Nigel’s story to illustrate what they have been learning about missional participation in their context in Exeter.

Book Reviews

Knowing and Doing (Winter 2016)

The Winter 2016 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (here as a pdf), and contains the following articles:

Joel Woodruff

President’s Letter

Joel S. Woodruff, President of the C.S. Lewis Institute, suggests a simple way to bring unity among believers from different churches, races, political parties and professional backgrounds is to share our spiritual journey with others.

Randy Newman

The Gift of Music: Common Grace and Common Ground

Music is a great gift, with the power to take us to another world. Though music can move us so much, it makes a poor god! In this article, Dr. Newman expounds on both the common grace and the common ground that can be found through the gift of music.

Bill Kynes

Growing in Prayer Part 1: Hindrances to Prayer

A life of prayer is something to which we are all called and to which we should all aspire. Dr. Kynes discusses what it would mean for us to devote ourselves to prayer, to ‘pray continually’ as instructed by Apostle Paul.

Sandy Smith

Surprised by Belfast: Significant Sites in the Life of C.S. Lewis, Part 4, Queen’s University Belfast and the Surrounding Area

This final article in the “Surprised by Belfast” series focuses on an area that’s often referred to as the University Quarter. More specifically, Queen’s University Belfast is located in this sector – though C.S. Lewis did not study at Queen’s, his mother did. The fact that Lewis’s mother graduated from Queen’s and attended school at Methodist College is reason enough for Lewis enthusiasts to visit the University Quarter in Belfast.

Thomas A. Tarrants, III

Being Led and Transformed by the Holy Spirit

What does the New Testament mean by the phrase led by the Spirit? What is the fruit of His leading in one’s life? This article explores such questions on being led by the Holy Spirit.

Time with God: An Interview with J.I. Packer

This is an excerpt from an interview with J.I. Packer during a C.S. Lewis Institute event held September 26, 2008. J.I. Packer sat down and answered questions from C.S. Lewis Fellows and pastors in the Washington, D.C. area.

J.C. Ryle

What is True Practical Holiness?

In this excerpt from J.C. Ryle’s classic book Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, Ryle presents twelve points to create a picture of practical holiness.

Learning from the Christmas Animals

This article highlights C.S. Lewis’s poem, The Nativity. We are reminded that, like Lewis, we should also seek after the strength, patience and innocence symbolized in the animals of the Christmas story as we approach this Christmas season. This is a reprint of December 2014 “Reflections”.

Joel S. Woodruff

Scrooges, Traditionalists and Nicholases

This devotional reminds us that this Christmas season, we are to remember that the Scrooges and Traditionalists are in need of a Savior. We need to commit to be more like St. Nicholas who shared his love for Jesus through both his words and gift giving.

9Marks Journal 13, 2 (2016) on Prayer in Church

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available here as a pdf and here in other formats, is devoted to the topic of ‘The Church Praying’.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘Abraham prayed. Moses prayed. David prayed. The prophets prayed. The apostles prayed. Jesus himself prayed.

‘But do our churches pray when they gather together?

‘My own experience suggests, not much. There might be a few cursory upward glances through the course of a church service. But there are almost no studied, careful, extended times of prayer – little to no adoration, confession, thanksgiving, or supplication. And that lack of praying, when you think about it, is embarrassing. Do we actually think that we can change the leopard spots, or bring the dead to life? Any thing that a church does that will be eternally worthwhile must be done by the Lord, which is to say, through prayer.’

Leaven 22, 1 (2014) on Christian Spiritual Formation

Leaven is published quarterly by the Religion Division at Pepperdine University. The issues are normally thematic, and often carry some interesting articles. The latest issue to be posted online is devoted to ‘Christian Spiritual Formation’, containing the following main essays:

David W. Wray

Sacred Rhythms: Harmonizing Work and Prayer

Earl Lavender

My Story, Our Story, God’s Story: the Function of a Livable Narrative in Spiritual Formation

Timothy H. Robinson

The Role of Nature in Spiritual Formation

Darryl Tippens

Spiritual Formation and the Dance of Embodiment: Lessons from James K.A. Smith and Augustine

Houston Heflin

A More Productive Harvest Through Adolescent Spiritual Formation

Chet Butterworth

Spiritual Formation as Seminary Curriculum: A Personal Perspective

Shirley D. Straker

What Has Happened to Me

Lisa Durr

Companionship for the Journey: The Gift of Spiritual Direction

S. Wesley Horn

Formed By Time: Living the Liturgical Year

Jackie L. Halstead

Silence and Solitude: Encounter with God

Jackie L. Halstead

Spiritual Formation: Annotated Bibliography

Credo Magazine 4, 4 (November 2014)

The current issue of Credo is out, this one devoted to ‘How Then Shall We Pray? The Necessity of Prayer for the Christian Life’.

According to the editorial blurb:

‘Church history shows that for Christians who came before us, private and corporate prayer was essential, assumed to be a necessary staple for the Christian and the church. After all, it is the God-given means by which we have fellowship and communion with God himself. Should we neglect prayer we actually neglect God, and the consequences are spiritually fatal. But should we set aside time to pray to God, we will benefit greatly, finding God to be a refuge and a shield in the midst of a chaotic, consuming, and demanding world.’

The magazine is available to read here, from where a 13.8 MB pdf of the whole issue can also be downloaded.

Use Words

A friend and colleague has drawn my attention to Use Words, an initiative launched today, backed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

According to the website: ‘The word “evangelism” means sharing good news. For Christians, it means sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ – what he has done for us, and what he continues to do in our lives.’

It’s being launched with a call to prayer for evangelism, but is careful to say that ‘this is not a one-off, or a campaign, or a PR stunt. It’s about praying continually that more and more people will become followers of Jesus Christ – and asking God to work among us to bring about this transformation in other people’s lives.’

Evangelical Alliance on Discipleship

The latest report in the 21st Century Evangelicals Series from the Evangelical Alliance UK highlights research about discipleship.

The full report – Time for Discipleship? – is available as a pdf here.

This is what the EA says:

‘This report has found that evangelicals see God at work in their lives, are using smartphone technology to help them read the Bible on the go, and really value their Church and home groups. But the research shows that challenges remain; including low prayer levels, a widespread feeling that churches are not doing well at discipling new Christians, and evangelicals saying they do not feel equipped to share their faith.’

PowerPoint presentation and discussion questions for churches are linked to from this page.

Andrew Williams on Biblical Lament and Political Protest

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Denis Alexander:

Andrew Williams, ‘Biblical Lament and Political Protest’, Cambridge Papers 23, 1 (March 2014).

Here is the summary:

‘This paper considers the pastoral and political role of biblical lament in the Christian life. The theology and practice of lament is often neglected in congregations, despite its prominence in the biblical text. Such neglect deprives churches of a pastoral resource and moreover, as this paper highlights, diminishes the church’s capacity for prophetic critique and political activism in the face of social injustice. This paper argues lament is needed in corporate worship and prayer, not only to give spiritual expression to faith wrestling with pain, but also to re-energise communities of believers to name injustice, recognise political agency and sustain prophetic action.’

Interpretation 68, 1 (2014) on Prayer, Power, and Politics

The main essays in the January 2014 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, are devoted to the theme of ‘Prayer, Power, and Politics’.

Rodney A. Werline

Prayer, Politics, and Power in the Hebrew Bible

This essay applies current anthropological methods to selected texts in the Hebrew Bible in order to investigate the place of prayer within relationships of power. Power does not simply exist as an ideal, but in the ability of humans to influence the actions of other humans. Ritual theorists have recently argued that, in part, ritual functions as a way that people negotiate, mediate and enact power within these relationships. A reading of prayer texts from the Hebrew Bible from this perspective casts new light on the role of prayer in the micro-politics of everyday life and reveals the way in which biblical authors attempted to tie this to Israel’s larger story.

Reuven Kimelman

Prophecy as Arguing with God and the Ideal of Justice

Biblical prophecy seeks both to reconcile people to God and to reconcile God with people. Close examination of the roles of Abraham (Genesis 18), Moses (Exodus 32) and Elijah (1 Kings 19) demonstrates that prophets must always bear this dual responsibility, especially in arguing with God, lest they be unworthy of their loyalty both to the people and to God.

Michael Joseph Brown

The Lure of a Proposition: The Erotic Nature of the Lord’s Prayer as a Contradiction to Coercive Power

The vision of the kingdom of God (basileia) outlined in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is a proposition meant to lure us into greater relationship and more harmonious feeling. The Christian idea that God is love must move beyond simple agapic language and embrace an erotic understanding as well. The desire to be in deeper relationship – the core of erōs – is at the core of the Christian message.

Mun’im Sirry and A. Rashied Omar

Muslim Prayer and Public Spheres: An Interpretation of the Qur^ɔānic Verse 29:45

This essay examines the various meanings and efficacies attributed to the Muslim prayer (ṣalāt) by its practitioners as well as by observers. The key questions that form the main concern of this article are: How is the ritual of prayer brought to life by its practitioners? What constitutes an efficacious prayer? What meanings do observers draw from the practice of prayer among Muslims in diverse localities as well as from their interpretive discourses? The essay brings together ethnographic studies on Muslim practices of prayer and exegetical discourses on what prayer should contribute to the ethical conduct of Muslims in public spheres.

Nico Koopman

Prayer and the Transformation of Public Life in South Africa

This essay discusses the meaning of prayer, worship, and liturgy for the transformation and renewal of public life. As a crucial practice of the church, prayer creates, enhances, and nurtures a vision of a new society of holiness and justice. Prayer fosters courageous criticism of individuals and institutions where this vision is betrayed. Prayer thirdly forms and transforms humans into people of virtue and character who seek the good society through concrete obedience, quests for solidarity and justice, as well as practices of suffering and active and hopeful waiting upon God. I investigate the role that prayer played in the resistance against the apartheid regime, and spell out some implications of this threefold task of prayer for contemporary South Africa.

Prayer on a Vast Canvas

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world... I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

John 17:24-26

The scope of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is huge, overwhelming even. It moves from the oneness between Father and Son ‘before the world began’ (17:5), through the mission of the Son sent from the Father, to the keeping and sanctification of the apostles as those in turn sent into the world (17:18), to those who believe through their testimony – us included – who come to participate in the eternal love of the triune God. Jesus’ prayer embraces nothing less than the whole history of redemption.

The prayer thus reflects God’s mission, and the goal of that mission – to gather a people to share in the fellowship of love and oneness that existed between Father and Son ‘before the creation of the world’ (17:24), that we might be loved by the Father with the love he has for the Son. Just bask in that for a moment.

In a sense, John 17 is the real ‘Lord’s prayer’, with the one recorded in Matthew 6:9-13 best thought of as the disciples’ prayer. It is Jesus’ prayer, not ours. And, as we eavesdrop on it, we hear not just his voice but his heart: his alignment with the will of the Father, his desire to complete the work given him to do, his concerns for his people. Above all, perhaps, the prayer demonstrates the intimacy between Father and Son. But it also beckons us into that intimacy, and invites us to reflect on how we will pray as a result.

John 17 helps us, not because it gives us a technique for prayer, but because it orients our praying. It shows us that prayer is addressed to God as Father and is rooted in relationship with one who knows us and loves us. It reminds us of the centrality of God’s glory. Our prayers can sometimes be focused on ourselves with concentric circles of legitimate interests and concerns, needs and responsibilities. But Jesus puts the Father’s glory at the centre, and the circles that radiate out are to do with his will and his purpose.

As Jesus promised, answers to such prayers prayed in his name are always given (John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:24). For those who truly know him – and are one in intimate union with him and the Father – pray out of a knowledge of his will and a desire to serve his interests.

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

[I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It’s the sixth in a series on the Lord’s prayer.]

Moses said... ‘It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: Each one is to gather as much as they need...’ The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it... the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Each one had gathered just as much as they needed. Exodus 16:15-18

After the far-reaching requests about honouring our heavenly Father’s name and longing to see his reign exercised on earth as it is in heaven, the next line in the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Give us today our daily bread’ (Matthew 6:11) – can come as something of a jolt in its seeming mundaneness. And yet it reminds us that God is concerned with the nitty-gritty aspects of life. ‘Bread’, in this sense, is always an appropriate topic for prayer.

For starters, praying this line enables us to become aware that we depend on God for everything. It fits with what Jesus says later about not being anxious about basic necessities, since ‘your heavenly Father knows that you need them’ (Matthew 6:32). In the daily practice of gathering manna in the wilderness, Israel was to learn to trust that God would supply their needs. Like them, we do our bit to bring it in, to turn it into something that nourishes, but we do not forget the ultimate giver in the process of doing so.

Then, we are to ask for bread, as the Israelites were to gather manna, on a daily basis – reminding us that we live in constant reliance on God. Although it is not true for many people in the world, the daily provision for most readers of this email is usually guaranteed ahead of time. For us especially, perhaps, the regular discipline of reaching out to God who reaches out to us will allow us to foster a sense of dependence and thankfulness.

Moreover, that it is our daily bread means I pray it for others too. The work of farmers, bakers, truck drivers and supermarket sellers mean that none of us eats alone. The prayer is an acknowledgement that I am not a self-sufficient automaton. It may also lead me to take some responsibility for making sure others have enough, particularly when I have an excess. Paul makes this clear to the Corinthians in encouraging them to support their poorer brothers and sisters in Christ. Drawing on the account of the manna, he notes that ‘your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need’ (2 Corinthians 8:14).

No less than the opening lines, praying this deceptively simple request becomes a powerful shaper of our everyday lives as disciples of Christ.

Workplace Prayer

LICC recently launched its PrayerWorks initiative, seeking to encourage prayer for the workplace by providing creative ways of praying and developing pathways of prayer for Christians to experience together.

So, it was with some interest that I read a piece on the Missional Communities blog on workplace prayer and mission in the 19th Century.

In 1857, a Dutch missionary called Jeremiah Lanphier employed by Fulton Street Church to minister to the unchurched in New York, issued the following invitation.

‘A day of Prayer-Meeting is held every Wednesday from 12 to 1 o’clock in the Consistory building in the rear of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets. This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers and businessmen generally an opportunity to stop and call on God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations.

‘It will continue for one hour; but it is also designed for those who find it inconvenient to remain more than 5 or 10 minutes, as well as for those who can spare a whole hour. Necessary interruption will be slight, because anticipated.

‘Those in haste often expediate their business engagements by halting to lift their voices to the throne of grace in humble, grateful prayer. Mr. Lanphier set the very first meeting for noon September 23rd 1857 in the lecture room on the third floor of the Consistory Building of the North Reformed Protestant Dutch Church.’

The rest of the post goes on to describe the structure of the meetings and the impact they had in contributing to what has been called ‘the third great awakening’.