Chapter 5:  What Is Prayer?

Grudem makes an interesting organizational choice:  he locates the subject of “Prayer” immediately after “Creation” and before ‘Angels & Demons’ and especially Satan himself.

For this reason, our review of this chapter will focus on prayer in the context of the great Enemy of the Gospel and of each of us followers of Jesus Christ.

The the first pdf attached below outlines Grudem’s three key points on prayer, namely:

1. The Reason for Prayer
2. The Effectiveness of Prayer
3. Our Attitude in Prayer

Following this, we consider perhaps incongruously the word “Blessed,” which keynotes all the Psalms, being the very fist word in the very first Psalm, namely:  Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, noir sits in the seat of the scornful.”  (Psalm 1:1 NKJV)  In the LXX, the Greek OT widely used at the time of Christ including by quotation in the NT, that word “blessed“–namely makarios(ma KA rios)–is the very keynote word used eight times by Jesus Christ to open His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5).

In our culture, the words “bless” and “blessed” and ‘blessing” have very elastic, and very unbiblical meanings.  Makarios (blessed) does not mean riches or prosperity in any ordinary sense of such meaning.  Nor does it mean some general state of ‘goodness.’  It’s very deep meaning conveys the wondrous connection, communion between the Creator of Universe, and Lover of our souls, with our apprehension (grasp) of such connection, being the deepest, most meaningful satisfaction / joy we are able to reach this side of eternal glory in the very literal presence of God Himself.  If we experience any measure of such blessedness, everything else in this tinsel town space-time existence will be unworthy  of any comparison.

I raise this key word blessed here because it is the joy awaiting us in eternity and experienced in some measure by our access to God across the Space-Time barrier by the power of prayer.

Here is the pdf of the aforementioned outline of Ch. 5:

christian-beliefs-grudem-ch-5-prayer

Now I would like us to turn our attention to the enemy of all of us, especially those who belong to Christ, Satan himself.  The best writing I know of on this subject was done by English Puritan author Thomas Brooks, whose dates are 1608 to 1680.  He was for many years a chaplain at sea during the early years of the emergence of the English naval fame. He wrote many books, perhaps during slack time on sailing voyages.  Among his most beloved books is the one of our present interest:  Precious Memories against Satan’s Devices.

It has a unique organization very unfamiliar to our modern book format.  Brooks writes in tightly organized outline form, collecting his observations and commentary in concrete headings of sequential points.

In the pdf below, I have shortened his Precious Remedies book to include only the table of contents, which is quite extensive and so useful in its own regard, his letter of introduction to us the reader, and the very final section of the book which appears as “Appendix 4.”  It is such Appendix 4 that develops in 10 stages a crescendo of observations concluding with the essential and unique power of prayer.  At each stage, as we will see by a careful reading prayer is an unspoken agent of our well-being in the face of great adversity.

One final point made evident in Psalm 1 and the introductory chapters of Prov. 1, and that is we live in an intensely adverse environment, a kind of powerful downhill ‘current,’ coupled with our own fallen natures not yet eradicated and which we often even yet cherish, that makes the work of Satan even more adverse and effective upon us.

Here’s the abbreviated Brooks book pdf:

brooks-precious-remedies-edited

Finally, for those who are encouraged to read the entire Brooks’ book Precious Remedies, which is highly recommended, below is a pdf of the entire book.  There are many other formats of this book including an excellent version for Kindle.

brooks-precious-remedies-pray

Here’s a brief biography of Thomas Brooks, from www.digitalpuritan.net, a great resource for Puritan literature:

Thomas Brooks

 

Chapter 6 study–What Are Angel, Satan, and Demons?–is here: