Although they will sometimes use other metaphors like “prayer is the breathing of the soul”[1] or prayer as “a letter we send to” God[2], for the Reformed prayer is normally talking to God. Prayer is “an earnest talk with God.”[3] The Bible is God speaking to us; in prayer we speak back to him. Thus our relationship with God is a kind of dialogue, a conversation, as we respond with words to his written Word. Cyprian of Carthage said: “in prayer you speak to God; in reading God speaks to you.”[4]
Matthew Bingham identifies
three priorities for Protestant prayer:
(1) Prayer must be
thoughtful. Prayer normally consists
of thoughtfully chosen words. God is a speaking God and he wants us to speak to
him. Which is of course not to say that our prayers must be eloquent for God to
hear them. And when we do not know what to pray for as we ought, the Spirit
graciously helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26f).
(2) Prayer must be
heartfelt and sincere.
(3) Prayer must be
tightly tethered to Scripture.
Bingham, A Heart Aflame
(Crossway, 2025) esp pp175-190
[1]
Thomas Blake, Living Truths in Dying Times, p100-1; Bingham p167
[2]
Matthew Henry, Directions for Daily Communion with God; Bingham p173
[3]
Thomas Beacon, the first English Protestant to write a treatise devoted to prayer,
in his catechism on 1548. Ryrie, Reformation Britain, p99. Bingham, p171
[4]
Bingham, p179 citing Marian Raikes, A Step Too Lar: An Evangelical Critique of
Christian Mysticism (Latimer Trust, 2006), p41
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