In American culture, the stories shaping people’s lives have significantly changed. That is, the chapter of Modernism is turning to the chapter of Postmodernism. In… Read More »The Revolution #1: Spinning from Customary to Contextual
For whom did Jesus pray? We have some 26 references in the Gospels to Jesus’ prayer-life. Of these references, we have 10 actual prayers Jesus… Read More »Learning to Pray His Way #4: Jesus’ Prayer List
Most publications have released their “top ten” lists reflecting on the past decade. Here’s my “top ten” list of the prayers of Jesus (OK, there’s… Read More »Learning to Pray His Way #3: Top Ten Prayers of Jesus
In Luke 11 we find Jesus’ followers intrigued by Jesus’ prayer life: 1Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”(Lk. 11:1 ESV).
Joachim Jeremias (“The Prayers of Jesus”) writes that in the Judaism of Jesus’ time it was common for individual religious groups to have their own customs and practices regarding prayer (63). We know that the Pharisees and the Essenes had prayer practices unique to their groups. It appears from the text above that John’s disciples did as well. Thus, here, the disciples ask Jesus to give them their unique prayer. They want a prayer that will set them apart from the other religious groups. They literally want a “Jesus-Prayer.”
But what was the “Jesus-Prayer”? What prayer would distinguish Christ-ians from all others? What would it mean to pray in a distinctly Christ-like way?