Prayer and Luke 10.17-24

 * Notes from a recent Bible Study on Prayer.

The Lord's Prayer--a Bible Study

“The Lord’s Prayer”—Matthew 6.5-15

 

1.    How NOT to pray: Matthew 6.5-8

 

a.    Not like a hypocrite: for outward show

 

                                               i.     Error: Selfishness—obsessed with themselves

 

                                              ii.     Christians focus on God

 

b.    Not like a Gentile (unbeliever): mechanical or magical

 

                                               i.     Error: Mindlessness—just babbling on and on without thinking of what he is saying is doing

 

                                              ii.     Christians engage in prayer with humble thoughtfulness

 

2.    How to pray: “The Lord’s Prayer”

 

a.    Breaks down into two sections

 

                                               i.     vv. 9-10: God-centered focus

 

                                              ii.     vv. 11-13: Human need

 

b.    “Our Father who art in heaven…” (who we pray to)

                                               i.     “Father” (17xs in Sermon on Mount)

 

1.    Relational term

 

2.    Protector and provider

 

3.    Other passages to consider: John 1.12-13; Romans 8.14-17; 2 Corinthians 6.18 (“sons and daughters to me”); Galatians 4.4-7; Ephesians 1.4-5; 1 John 3.1

 

·     Acts 17.28 is a special case; “we also are his children” refers to the fact that God as Creator has made everyone.  Quotation by a pagan poet.

 

4.    “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his father.  If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”  --J. I. Packer[1]

 

                                              ii.     “… in heaven”

 

1.    Place of power and authority: Psalm 115.1-3

 

2.    Not far removed or unconcerned

 

c.     God-centered focus: petitions relating to God’s name, kingdom, and will

 

                                               i.     “Name” = God’s nature and person

 

                                              ii.     “Hallowed”

 

1.    Seen as good and glorious

 

2.    All peoples everywhere to understand who God is and respond rightly

 

                                            iii.     “Kingdom”—God’s rule and reign

 

1.    Already/Not yet

 

2.    “To pray that his kingdom may ‘come’ is to pray both that it may grow, as through the church’s witness people submit to Jesus, and that soon it will be consummated when Jesus returns in glory to take his power and reign.”  --John Stott[2]

 

                                            iv.     “Will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

 

 

d.    Human focus—our needs

 

                                               i.     “Daily bread”

 

1.    All the things we need to sustain life

 

2.    What does it mean to pray for “daily bread” in the midst of plenty?  

 

a.    Deuteronomy 8: read whole chapter

 

                                                                                                     i.     Verses 11-14: full bellies can produce proud, forgetful hearts

 

                                                                                                    ii.     Verses 16-18: 

 

1.    v. 17: “Otherwise, you might say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.”

 

2.    v. 18: “…for it is he who is giving you power to make wealth…”

 

b.    An antidote to pride and forgetfulness is gratitude and thankfulness!

 

                                                                                                     i.     1 Thessalonians 5.17-18

 

Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks…

 

                                                                                                    ii.     Colossians 4.2

 

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving

 

                                                                                                  iii.     Philippians 4.6

 

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

 

                                              ii.     “Forgive us our debts”

 

1.    We need forgiveness

 

2.    1 John 1.9

 

                                            iii.     “Do not lead us into temptation”[3]

 

1.    Main issue: Asking God not to lead into areas of testing in which we will fail and be overcome by the enemy.

 

2.    “So behind these words that Jesus gave us to pray are the implications that the devil is too strong for us, that we are too weak to stand up to him, but that our heavenly Father will deliver us if we call upon him.”  --John Stott[4]

 

 

                                            iv.     The last three requests of the Lord’s Prayer presuppose something about as us, the praying people…

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

“It will be seen that the fundamental difference between various kinds of prayer is in the fundamentally different images of God which lie behind them.  The tragic mistake of Pharisees and pagans, of hypocrites and heathen, is to be found in their false image of God.  Indeed, neither is really thinking of God at all, for the hypocrite thinks only of himself while the heathen thinks of other things.  What sort of God is it who might be interested in such selfish and mindless prayers?  Is God a commodity that we can use him to boost our own status, or a computer that we can feed words into him mechanically?

 

“From these unworthy notions we turn back with relief to the teaching of Jesus that God is our Father in the heavens.  We need to remember that he loves his children with most tender affection, that he sees his children even in the secret place, that he knows his children and all their needs before they ask him, and that he acts on behalf of his children by his heavenly and kingly power.  If we thus allow Scripture to fashion our image of God, if we recall his character and practise his presence, we shall never pray with hypocrisy but always with integrity, never mechanically but always thoughtfully, like the children of God that we are.”  --John Stott[5]

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     [1]J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1973), 182.

     [2]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 147.

     [3]For a fuller study on this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer see Lead Us Not Into Temptation but Deliver Us from Evil--a Bible Study.

     [4]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 150.

     [5]John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1978), 152.

Living in an Alien Culture: Daniel 4

Living in an Alien Culture

Daniel 4

·     Some Summary Thoughts on Daniel 1-3

o   Public faith and theology—not merely a privatized faith

"Daniel's story is one of extraordinary faith in God lived out at the pinnacle of executive power in the full glare of public life.  It relates pivotal events in the lives of four friends--Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah--who were born in the tiny state of Judah in the Middle East around two-and-a-half thousand years ago.  As young members of the nobility, probably still teenagers, they were taken captive by the empereor Nebuchadnezzar and transported to his capital city Babylon in order to be trained in Babylonian administration.  Daniel tells us how they eventually rose to the top echelons of power not only in the world empire of Babylon but also in the Medo-Persian empire that succeeded it....

"What makes the story of their faith remarkable is that they did not simply continue the private devotion to God that they had developed in their homeland; they maintained a high-profile public witness in a pluralistic society that became increasingly antagonistic to their faith. That is why their story has such a powerful message for us today.  Strong currents of pluralism and secularism in contemporary Western society, reinforced by a paralysing political correctness, increasingly push expression of faith in God to the margins, confining it if possible to the private sphere.  It is becoming less and less the done thing to mention God in public, let alone to confess to believing in anything exclusive and absolute, such as the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour.  Society tolerates the practice of the Christian faith in private devotions and in church services, but it increasingly deprecates public witness.  To the relativist and secularist, public witness to faith in God smacks too much of proselytizing and fundamentalist extremism.  They therefore regard it more and more as a threat to social stability and human freedom.

"The story of Daniel and his friends is a clarion call to our generation to be courageous; not to lose our nerve and allow the expression of our faith to be diluted and squeezed out of the public space and thus rendered spineless and ineffective. Their story will also tell us that this objective is not likely to be achieved without cost."[1]

o   Bringing value to an alien culture andchallenging idolatry 

o   Creative resistance for the honor of God

o   Focus, Dependence, and Worship in regards to the Sovereignty of God

o   Both daily faithfulness over years andmoments of public confrontation and manifestation of God’s power

o   Prayer: a great view of God should lead to great, empire-shaking prayers

Daniel 4

·     Sovereignty of God

o   Book-ends the chapter: vv 1-3 and vv 34-37

o   Deep theology expressed by a pagan ruler

o   “Nothing is more important, especially at this point in the history of theology, than for God’s people to be firmly convinced that Scripture teaches God’s universal control over the world, and teaches it over and over again.”[2]

·     v. 8: “… Belteshazzar according to the name of my God…”

o   “Nebuchadnezzar’s polytheism is still not far from the surface.  He is a man on a journey: still confused, but wishing nevertheless to testify to what Daniel’s God has done for him.”[3]

·     Imagery of the tree: vv. 10-12, 20-22

o   Imagery of kingdom 

§ See also: Ezekiel 17.22-24; Matthew 13.31-32

·     God’s action against Nebuchadnezzar: to humble and instruct him

o   v. 17: “… in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men.”

§ “in order that” speaks of purpose; the reason why God does this

§ “know” speaks of knowledge; God wants to impart an accurate knowledge of himself and reality

§ “ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes”

·     God is powerful

·     God is active in human history (not Deism!)

§ “the lowliest of men”—even the greatest of rulers are considered lowly in light of God!

·     Isaiah 40.23-24  ²³He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.  ²⁴Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but he merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.

·     v. 19—Daniel is disturbed; not rejoicing at the news of Nebuchadnezzar’s judgment 

o   “The dynamic between Daniel and the king is a remarkable one, considering that this is the king who destroyed Jerusalem, but God’s prophet shows concern for the well-being of the king, not vindictiveness.”[4]

o   Q: Why does Daniel respond this way?    

·     Judgment pronounced on Nebuchadnezzar (vv. 23-25, 32-33)

o   Becomes like an animal—not fit to rule (cf. Genesis 1.26-28; Psalm 8.5-8)

§ Something distinctive about humanity in comparison to animals[5]

§ Some comments from Wesley Smith’s book A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement (New York: Encounter, 2010).  

1.     “…the term ‘animal rights’ actually denotes a belief system, an ideology, even a quasi religion, which both implicitly and explicitly seeks to create a moral equivalence between the value of human lives and those of animals.” (p. 3)

2.     Ingrid Newkirk (the head of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA) in 1986: “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.  They are all mammals.” (p. 3)

3.     Alex Pacheco (cofounder with Newkirk of PETA): “The time will come when we will look upon the murder of animals as we now look on the murder of men.” (p. 36)

                  

4.     Peter Singer in his 1976 book Animal Liberation speaks of “speciesism” as: “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.” (p. 19)

5.     “To avoid speciesism we must allow that beings who are similar in all relevant respects have a similar right to life—and mere membership in our own biological species cannot be a morally relevant criterion for this right…. We may legitimately hold that there are some features of certain beings that make their lives more valuable than those of other beings; but there will surely be some nonhuman animals, whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.  A chimpanzee, dog, or pig, for instance, will have a higher degree of self-awareness and a greater capacity for meaningful relations with others than a severely retarded infant or someone in a state of senility.  So, if we base the right to life on these characteristics we must grant these animals a right to life as good as, or better than, such retarded or senile human beings.”  Peter Singer (p. 27)

6.     R. G. Frey (bioethicist at Bowling Green University):

“I know of nothing that cedes human life of any quality, however low, greater value than animal life of any quality, however high.  If, therefore, we are going to justify medical/scientific uses of animals by appeal to the value of their lives, we open up directly the possibility of our having to envisage the use of humans of lower quality of life in preference to animals of higher quality of life.” (p. 29)

“If ... not all human life has the same value, then the possibility arises that the quality of life of a perfectly healthy baboon can exceed that of a human.  So, if one is going to appeal to human benefit to justify animal research, and if the benefit in this case can be realized either through experimenting on the baboon or the human, then why use the baboon in preference to the human?  A quality-of-life view of the value of a life gives a consistent answer over taking a life and saving a life; so, if either the baboon or the human has to be used in order to realize the benefit, the human must, all other things being equal, be used.  Clearly, my view on the value of life is not speciesist.” (p. 30)

7.     “[I]n 1991, David Larson, the co-director of the Center for Christian Ethics at Loma Linda University, suggested taking the hearts of disabled children to keep monkeys alive.  Asked about the ethics of the Baby Fae case, the first human to receive a heart transplant from a baboon, Larson replied, ‘If a primate’s capability was higher than that of the human—say a severely mentally handicapped child—I think it would be appropriate to support the opposite approach of a Baby Fae, a transplant from a child to save the life of a healthy baboon or chimpanzee.’”  (p. 30)

o   New Testament: 2 Peter 2.12, 16, 22; Jude 10

·     v. 27—Daniel’s counsel to Nebuchadnezzar in light of the coming judgment

o   Break away from sins and iniquities (negative)

o   Do righteousness and show mercy to the poor (positive) 

o   Issue of pride

§ Daniel 4

·     v. 26—“after you recognize that it is heaven that rules”

·     v. 30—“Is this not Babylon the great which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

·     v. 37—“… and he (God) is able to humble those who walk in pride.”

§ Nations and national leaders

·     Obadiah 2-4

·     Acts 12.20-23

o   v. 23—“And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.”

§ Individual life

·     1 Peter 5.5 (quoting Proverbs 3.34)

·     James 4.6 (quoting Proverbs 3.34)

·     1 Corinthians 4.7

·     vv. 34-37

o   “my reason returned to me” (vv. 34, 36)

§ Living with the grain of God’s reality: Proverbs 1.7; 9.10; 21.30; 28.4-5

§ Living against God and his reality brings intellectual darkness: Romans 1.21-25; Ephesians 4.17-19

o   Sovereignty of God

§ Q: How does the sovereignty of God affect our view of our nation and its political rulers?

§ Q: How does the sovereignty of God affect our prayer lives?  Does it dampen it or enflame it with passion?

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     [1]John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Monarch Books, 2015), 1-2—emphasis added.  Also see my essay “Courts and the Cause of Christ: Why Christians Need to Care”—online: https://www.academia.edu/37984947/Courts_and_the_Cause_of_Christ_Why_Christians_Need_to_Care.

          [2]John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), 76.  For a listing out of some of the biblical material on the sovereignty of God see my blog post “God’s Comprehensive Control” White Rose Review(December 8, 2015)—online: https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2015/12/gods-comprehensive-control.html.

     [3]John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Monarch Books, 2015), 154.

     [4]Tremper Longman III, Daniel—NIVAC (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1999), 120.

     [5]See my blog post “Animal Rights: Some Quotations and Resources” White Rose Review(January 7, 2014)—online: https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2014/01/animal-rights-some-quotations-and.html.