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Daniel’s ‘Model’ Prayer

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First, let me welcome Kreig back to the “blogosphere”! Last week Kreig wrote a great post on the Jewish “tefillah”. This sparked a conversation between Kreig and I about how differently the Old Testament saints prayed than we do today. They had a grasp on the nature of prayer and also on the nature of God that we, frankly, do not have today. 

One of those prayers that comes to mind is in Daniel chapter 9. Daniel had just read the prophecies of Jeremiah, specifically where God promised that he would keep Israel in Babylonian (later on Persian) captivity for 70 years. Daniel realized that those 70 years were almost over, and so he decided to pray. It was not as if Daniel doubted God, the issue was that God’s people had still not repented of their sins, they were still as wicked as ever, and it troubled Daniel that God might prolong the bondage of His people because they were still very wicked. This led to a beautiful prayer by Daniel. In this prayer, we see a model for how we ought to pray and how we ought to view both prayer and God. Let’s look at a few key thoughts about Daniel’s ‘model’ prayer:

Lifting Up God

We see Daniel begin his prayer in verse 4. The first thing that Daniel says is in his prayer is in reference to the greatness of God. Most times, we skip ahead to the “asking God for stuff” part of the prayer. But Daniel starts by acknowledging the person of God. That is not just how he starts the prayer, but he peppers the praises of God throughout the prayer. One of the primary functions of the prayer was to lift God up!

Confessing Sin

A part of Daniel’s prayer that takes up a lot of space is his confession of sin, on a personal and a national level. Daniel realized that they were still very much wicked in the sight of God. No verse says it more clearly than verse 5, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments.” Throughout the chapter we see Daniel acknowledging his sin, and how heartbroken he was over it.

Understanding Being Undeserving

His acknowledgment of his sin led to an understanding of being undeserving. Throughout the prayer, Daniel pleads for the mercy of God, the concept of mercy is implied throughout because of what Daniel says in verse 9, “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him.” Daniel was praying that God release them of their bondage, but he did not do so with any pretense that they earned it or deserved it. So many times, we go to God and act as if we are entitled to get good things. We need to realize that we do not deserve anything good from God. Anything good that he gives us falls under the category of the Mercy of God!

Requesting God’s Glory

The conclusion to Daniel’s prayer was that God would release them out of bondage, not because they earned it, but for the glory of God. Verse 17 at the end says, “…for the Lord’s sake,” verse 19 says, “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. Daniel’s prayer was ultimately that God would be glorified. We often so get so consumed in asking God for things, that we forget that the ultimate point of prayer (and the ultimate point of the Christian life) is for God to be glorified. Glorifying God is not just saying good things about him, but it even bleeds into the very things we ask for in prayer.

The elements of this prayer ought to look familiar, because Jesus uses the same main points in his Model Prayer:

Matthew 6:9-13

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name (1. Lifting up God).

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven(4. Requesting God’s glory).

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts (2. Confessing sin), as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

As Kreig so well stated last week: prayer is not just asking God for things. It isn’t even primarily about asking God for things! That very truth is modeled in practically all the prayers in the Bible. Let’s pray in a way that is pleasing to God!

For more of Curtis King’s writing, check out his author page.

Lessons in Prayer From the Jewish Tefillah

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“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Recently I’ve been diving into studies on the ancient Jewish context of the Old Testament, especially the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament that we commonly call the Pentateuch). As Christians, we often read these books in a bit of a vacuum. We read them (and in the case of Leviticus, we skim them) in order to make it through a yearly Bible reading schedule. We engage with the action-packed stories, but our eyes tend to gloss over at the more difficult passages that depict parts of ancient near-eastern culture that are entirely alien to us.

What is all of this about Abraham making two rows of dead animals and God walking through them? Why does God seem so merciless and cruel compared to the New Testament? Many of our most difficult questions about the Old Testament stem from the fact that we are thousands of years removed from the people in those stories, and our culture is exceptionally unlike theirs was. As I have read about the patterns of Jewish life in ancient Israel, some things have stuck out to me like signal flares begging to be seen. Jewish life now, and especially in the time of Jesus and long before in the times of the kings of Israel, was centered around tefillah. Tefillah (Heb. תפילה; te-feel-ah) is the Hebrew word for prayer.

Prayer as Service

Tefillah is really a very generic word in and of itself, from a root word meaning intervening and executing judgment. There are a number of other Hebrew words that translate to prayer, but the Jewish people have historically gravitated to this one in particular because of the implication that it is an exercise of the heart and mind, which lines up with the Biblical command to serve God “all your heart” (Deut. 11:13). To serve God with your heart is to tefillah, to pray. Prayer becomes then a labor of worship and service to the LORD God, not just a simple ritual of words.

To serve God with your heart is to tefillah, to pray. Prayer becomes then a labor of worship and service to the LORD God, not just a simple ritual of words.

So often when we pray, we view it as simply taking a list of requests to God. We’re often hoping, like children with Santa Claus, that He gives them all to us if we’ve been nice. Or we just go through the motions, not really reflecting on the incredible act of divine communion we are participating in. Prayer for the Christian is a time when heaven and earth meet as the God of all Creation meets with His creation. Of course, prayer is about asking, but it’s also about interceding for others, about worship and thanksgiving, and overall about being intentionally in the presence of God. As Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Prayer is an act of service to God from our hearts.

Ritual Can Deepen Devotion

The passage at the top of the article is part of the origin for the tefillin, or phylacteries as we call them in English, which are the two black boxes worn on the arm and the forehead during Jewish prayer rituals. These leather boxes contain small scrolls with Scriptures relating to key passages on prayer: Exodus 13:1-10, Exodus 13:11-16, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Deuteronomy 11:13-21. More than just a tradition to be kept for its own sake, these were a literal interpretation of the instruction to “bind them [God’s words] for a sign upon thine hand” and for them to be “as frontlets between thine eyes” (Deut 6:9).

When one would perform the daily prayer rituals and strap the tefillin to their arm and forehead, thy would literally be binding the LORD God’s Words to their hand and putting them before their eyes, and in so doing, would remember those Scriptures placed inside. This outward sign was meant to be a moment of reflection on the inward truth about God’s covenant and His promised redemption of His people. The Jewish people could reflect in these moments on their relationship with God.

Similarly, we as Christians should be view our own rituals in the same light. Whether it is praying before a meal, taking the cup and bread as part of the Lord’s Table in Communion, or even just saying a prayer as you begin your day, let them serve to put our great God and Savior before our eyes and bind His Word and promises to us. Believers in Jesus should not shy away from ritual or get too wrapped up in our traditions that we forget why they exist. Rather, let us use them to remember the New Covenant that Jesus made with us and the redemption of the body that we look forward to one day.

Communion Cannot Exist Without Community

We read in Genesis 1:27 that God made humans in His image. This has a lot of amazing implications, but one of them is that we are beings made for relationships. We see this in Genesis 3 when the Lord came to walk with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and again throughout Genesis (and the whole Old Testament) when He speaks to and meets with people over and over again. The original, perfect state of humanity was one of relationship with and service to God, but also with each other. One of the first things God tells Adam and Eve is to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). He wanted us to make more people!

The Ten Commandments reflect this dual sense of relationship. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God, while the last six deal with our relationships with other people. Jesus reiterates this Old Testament emphasis when he says that the greatest commandments are to love God and love others (Matt. 22:36-40). Clearly, God intended for us to have right relationship with Him first, and then other people.

The Jewish tefillah reflects this emphasis. The prayer traditions of the Jewish people emphasize that their prayers not just be personal, but also a communal act. The Jewish Talmud (the laws added by the generations after Israel’s return to Jerusalem) speaks of those who would meditate for hours before the communal prayers. Clearly, they saw the Biblical urging to love God and love others as meaning they must be first in communion with God before being in community with people.

Looking to the New Testament, we see the writers of the letters to the churches also emphasize this dual communion/community focus. While there are numerous calls to pray and be devoted to God personally, there are also a number of times where we are reminded not to forsake the gather together of God’s church (Hebrews 10:25). We also see in the early days of the church that after a great moment of worship that shook the place where they were meeting, the next event we see happening was service those in the body of Christ that were in need (Acts 4). 1 John chapter 1 tells us that God wants to fellowship with us. But then it tells us that right relationship with Him results in fellowship (community) with the other believers. There can be no right relationship with people without right relationship with God, and right relationship with God always results in right relationship with people. Prayer is a huge part of that, as we often see the church in Acts pray together.

There can be no right relationship with people without right relationship with God, and right relationship with God always results in right relationship with people.

These are just three lessons from looking at the Jewish prayer traditions which started all the way back in ancient times, but they should challenge us to not take prayer for granted. In fact, prayer should be an act of worship and service to God which not only deepens our own faith in Jesus but also strengthens our bonds with our brothers in sisters in Christ. When we view prayer this way, we can approach with that boldness of the book of Hebrews, and leave changed and ready to be light and salt to a world greatly in need.

3 Things To Do When God Seems Far Away

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In the book of Esther we see that Esther and Mordecai are in a strange land filled with wickedness. God seemed very far away from them, especially as they were strangers in the Medo-Persian Empire as a punishment for their sins as a nation. God seemed so far, in fact, that Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not explicitly mention God. However, we see 3 things that Esther and Mordecai did during this time of silence from God that we ought to also do during seasons of difficulty in our life:

Stand Firmly

Mordecai stood when everyone else bowed to Haman. Now, as we stated in the podcast, there could have been several reasons why he did not bow to Haman, and this one act does not erase some of the bad things that Mordecai had done. However, it is undeniable that what Mordecai did was the righteous thing to do. This one act set the rest of the book of Esther in motion. And Mordecai takes his place among the likes of Daniel, Hananiah, Meschial, and Azariah as one who stood for what was right even when there was pressure to just “go with the flow”.

Even when God does not seem near, it is important for us to stand on truth, to stand on our Biblical convictions, even in a world that is growing increasingly evil.

Pray Fervently

Upon hearing of Haman’s plot, Esther advises Mordecai and all the Jewish people to fast and pray. This was a very serious matter that they could not handle on their own, they needed to seek the strength of God.

I appreciate from this passage the emphasis that is put on fasting. Fasting, traditionally, is giving up food for a set amount of time to pray over something specific and important. I would describe fasting as giving up something important (like food) to express the serious nature of your prayer to God. When I fast, every time I feel a hunger pain reminds me of what I am praying for. It adds a fervency to my prayer, and it adds a frequency to my prayer! Oh Christian, when it seems like God is nowhere to be found, do not forget to pray, do not forget to SERIOUSLY pray!

Live Courageously

Esther walked into Xerxes’ court. She knew she could be killed for doing so, but she did it anyway. She knew what she had to say, and the task that was given her, was of the most importance. Esther acted courageously. The passage does not show the amount of gumption that it took for Esther to walk into the king’s court. Esther was terrified! But courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to act despite the fear. We cannot stop doing big things for God during seasons of trouble.

We cannot stop living courageously just because we are struggling. It is easy to be courageous when everything is going well, but it is important to live courageously during difficulty. We make the greatest impact when we are courageous in the face of great difficulty. Do you want to make a difference? Be courageous even when it is hard.

Why do these things? Because although God may not SEEM near, that does not mean that He isn’t near. In the Book of Esther, although God is never mentioned, He is constantly working behind the scenes. The presence of God is all the more glaring in the book of Esther because his name is not mentioned but his actions are so pronounced. Was it a coincidence that Haman’s lot landed on the Pur? Was it a coincidence that Xerxes could not sleep and the records that were read were about Mordecai? No! It was the hand of God. Remember, even in our darkest of times, we must remember that God is near; and, in so doing, we must stand firmly, pray fervently, and live courageously!

The Humanity of the Christmas Story

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If you are anything like me, the last few days you have been thinking a lot about the Christmas story. The birth of Christ is one of the most beautiful, picturesque stories in the entire Bible. Luke 2 captures the events of Christ’s birth perfectly. However, I would argue that it almost does so too perfectly.

Now, I am not saying that the Bible is messed up or incorrect, my claim in this post is that we, in our 21st century minds, have sanitized and sterilized the story of Christ’s birth so much that we forget that Luke 2 is about real people that are dealing with real life problems. Luke 2 is not a fairy tale, it is a real event that deals with real people with real emotions. In fact, when we dive into the Christmas story, you might see how it is more “human” than many other stories of the Bible!

Why Were They In Bethlehem?

In Luke 2, everyone went back to their city of origin to be taxed. Now, this was more than just a yearly income type tax, this was a major census. Caesar Augustus (v. 1) wanted to take stock of how many people lived under his rule, the verse says the “whole world should be taxed” as in, the whole Roman Empire. It is amazing that the events that got Mary and Joseph into Bethlehem were not some strange, cosmological happenings where all the stars lined up perfectly and then POOF they were there. Christ was born in Bethlehem because of a tax and a census. The next time you are tempted to complain about taxes, don’t forget that it was a tax that got Jesus to Bethlehem. Ok, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, we will ALL still complain about taxes!

Why Was There No Room In the Inn?

Kreig and I deal with this some in our latest Christmas episode, so I will not belabor this point too much. However, we need to cut this “innkeeper” some slack. First off, this person had no way of knowing that Mary was pregnant with the Son of God. Besides that, there were literally no vacancies in this establishment. People from all over the world were traveling back to Bethlehem for this taxing. It is likely that people were not just sleeping in bedrooms, but also in hallways, in the kitchen, in whatever space they could find. “No room” literally meant, “There isn’t even a small corner for y’all to squeeze into!”

This makes the actions of the innkeeper the more generous. Although there was no room indoors, he did have room in his stable. In the stable, Mary and Joseph would have had some privacy and some room. Was it a 4 star hotel? No. But it was a place to crash. Plus, consider this. If you have ever had a baby before (I have not, but my wife has) would you rather have a baby in the middle of a bunch of total strangers with little to no room to move or would you rather have a baby in relative privacy? In this situation, the stable was a more preferable place, in some way, than in the inn.

Difficulties Concerning the Pregnancy

Now, I am not saying that Mary had some physical difficulties that made pregnancy harder, but I am saying that there were some external forces that made this pregnancy very difficult.

First, Mary was not married, she was espoused to Joseph, but she was not married. The most logical, truthfully the ONLY logical explanation for Mary having a baby was that she had committed fornication. If the baby were Joseph’s, it would have been outside of marriage and still wrong. If the baby was not Joseph’s then that would add the layer of cheating on a “spouse”. Although not stated, we can assume that Mary was mistreated and judged during her pregnancy. In fact, Joseph could have had her stoned and most of society would have agreed that he had made the right choice. Mary was willing to sacrifice her godly reputation in order to follow the will of God in her life.

Second, and this is something that I thought about just the other day, Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem during Mary’s third trimester of pregnancy. Now, I have never been pregnant before, but observing my wife being pregnant and other women being pregnant, I can make a pretty educated guess that Mary was MISERABLE. Who wants to go on a road trip, riding on a donkey, when you are just days away from having a baby? Again, this wasn’t even a fun road trip, but one that was centered around being taxed. Woohoo!! I am sure that Mary did not have the nicest things to say about Caesar Augustus during this road trip.

Conclusion

Why do I bring these things to light? What significance does all of this add to the Christmas story? Not much by itself, but it does reinforce the truth that Jesus left so much to come to this world. He left the ivory palaces of Heaven to dwell amongst man with all of our human problems. He could have at least been born in a palace with a crib made out of gold; instead he choose a manger of wood and straw. The humanity of the Christmas story just makes the name Emmanuel, God with us, even more precious.

Merry Christmas, folks!