Prayer

1.      The urgent need of the church

If I were to ask you what the most urgent, most pressing need of the church today what would come to your mind?

Just as in the political arena there are single issue groups that capture the attention of everyone, so too this happens in the church.

Back to the question- what comes to mind?

• Purity in sexual and reproductive matters?

Fornication, adultery, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases these are all serious issues even in the church.

A few years ago Christianity Today published the results of a poll showing that in several church singles groups in California—groups of unmarried and divorced people, usually between the ages of twenty and thirty-five—more than 90 percent of both men and women had engaged or were then engaged in illicit sexual affairs. Ah, you say, that is California: what can you expect? But a more recent poll published by Leadership is scarcely more encouraging. A study of teenagers from evangelical churches across America revealed that more than 40 percent of such churched young people eighteen years of age or younger had engaged in premarital sex (over against a national base of about 54 percent). [i]

These figures are alarming

God knows we need purity in sexual and reproductive matters. But let us be frank: some societies experience high degrees of sexual rectitude without much knowledge of God, without eternal life. Many Muslim nations, for instance, exhibit a far higher degree of sexual purity and a far lower abortion rate than any Western nation. Surely this cannot be our greatest need.[ii]

• Others say the church’s most urgent need is a combination of integrity and generosity in the financial arena. [iii]

How many people in the church regularly cheat on their taxes?

How many people in the church have their goal of having financial nest egg above the glory of God?

People can’t or won’t tithe because they are so far in debt trying to reach what the world views as success and happiness.

The bottom line of the recent financial collapse was greed!

This isn’t just in the US.

In some measure, of course, greed characterizes every culture in this fallen world. But the raw worship of Mammon has become so bold, so outrageous, so pervasive in the Western world during the last ten years that many of us are willing to do almost anything—including sacrificing our children—provided we can buy more. [iv]

God knows we need to be released from our rampant materialism. But candor forces us to recognize that there are societies far less devoted to the creed of “More!” than we are, but whose people do not know God. How can this be our greatest need?[v]

• What we need in this hour of spiritual decline is evangelism and church planting. [vi]

“Missions” can no longer be thought of as something that takes place “over there.” Most Western nations are growing in ethnic diversity. In America, we are told, by the year 2000 WASPs (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants) will make up only 47 percent of the population. If we ask how much effective evangelism has been done among Hispanics in Chicago, Greeks in Sydney, Arabs in London, or Asians in Vancouver, we must hang our heads in shame. [vii]

You might say well what about the big revivals, the promise keeper events, the harvest crusades, the Billy Grahams and the like? Certainly these are going to stem the tide of this spiritual decline.

When I first saw a Billy Graham event I remember seeing all these thousands of people walking to the front to repent of their sins and to acknowledge Jesus as the Lord of their life. In my naivety I believed they were at the same point I was when the Lord drew me to himself, broken at the bottom acknowledging my sin and my helplessness and my need for a savior, but that really isn’t the case for most of the people that walked that isle.

To what extent do those who profess faith at world-class evangelistic meetings actually persevere, over a period of five years from their initial profession of faith? When careful studies have been undertaken, the most commonly agreed range is 2 percent to 4 percent; that is, between 2 percent and 4 percent of those who make a profession of faith at such meetings are actually persevering in the faith five years later, as measured by such external criteria as attendance at church, regular Bible reading, or the like.[viii]

 Even such frightening statistics do not disclose the immensity of the problem. Many who profess faith seem to think that Christianity is something to add to their already busy lives, not something that controls, constrains, and shapes their vision and all of their goals. [ix]

The true cost of discipleship is not taught

Luke 9:23-26 (NASB95)
23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
25 “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?
26 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Luke 14:26 (NASB95)
26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.[x]

In short, evangelism—at least the evangelism that has dominated much of the Western world—does not seem powerful enough to address our spiritual decline.[xi]

Perhaps what we most urgently need, then, is disciplined, biblical thinking. We need more Bible colleges and seminaries, more theologians, more lay training, more expository preaching. How else are we going to train a whole generation of Christians to think God’s thoughts after him, other than by teaching them to think through Scripture, to learn the Scriptures well?[xii]

Listen to what D.A. Carson says

“I am scarcely in a position to criticize expository preaching and seminaries: I have given my life to such ministry. Yet I would be among the first to acknowledge that some students at the institution where I teach, and some faculty too, can devote thousands of hours to the diligent study of Scripture and yet still somehow display an extraordinarily shallow knowledge of God. Biblical knowledge can be merely academic and rigorous, but somehow not edifying, not life-giving, not devout, not guileless.”[xiii]

Clearly all of these things are important. I would not want anything I have said to be taken as disparagement of evangelism and worship, a diminishing of the importance of purity and integrity, a carelessness about disciplined Bible study. But there is a sense in which these urgent needs are merely symptomatic of a far more serious lack.[xiv]

2.      The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better.[xv]

When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted[xvi]

we want our felt needs met, so we have the seeker sensitive movement, we want an experience so we have the charismatic movement, we want to come to church with no bible, get our coffee, set back in a nice comfortable chair and be entertained for about 30 minutes and then go on our way, get back home where I can do what I want to do.

Mid week studies are you crazy! I am far to busy for that. Daily bible reading and prayer come on I’m not some kind of fanatic!

Then we wonder why we are spiritually stunted.

Even so, this is not a class that directly meets the challenge to know God better. Rather, it addresses one small but vital part of that challenge.

One of the foundational steps in knowing God, and one of the basic demonstrations that we do know God,

is prayer—

Spiritual, persistent, biblically minded prayer[xvii]

Robert Murray M’Cheyne declared, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.”[xviii]

Ask yourself this morning what kind of man or women are you?

We are a country, a church that has forgotten how to pray!

Two years ago at a major North American seminary, fifty students who were offering themselves for overseas ministry during the summer holidays were carefully interviewed so that their suitability could be assessed. Only three of these fifty—6 percent!—could testify to regular quiet times, times of reading the Scriptures, of devoting themselves to prayer. It would be painful and embarrassing to uncover the prayer life of many thousands of evangelical pastors.[xix]

Where is our delight in praying?

How much of our praying is just largely formulas , peppered with clichés that remind us, uncomfortably, of the hypocrites Jesus rebuked?[xx]

I do not say these things to manipulate you or to  conjure up guilty feelings. But what shall we do?

Have not many of us tried at one point or another to improve our praying, and floundered so badly that we are more discouraged than we ever were?

Do you not sense, with me, the severity of the problem?

Why is there that secret guilt in our hearts when we speak of our prayer life?

Granted that most of us know some individuals who are remarkable prayer warriors,

is it not nevertheless true that by and large we are

better at organizing than agonizing?

Better at administering than interceding?

Better at fellowship than fasting?

Better at entertainment than worship?

Better at theological articulation than spiritual adoration?

Better—God help us!—at preaching than at praying?[xxi]

If someone comes up and asks us to organize a project, its no problem but if they ask us to lead a prayer we freak out!

Shall we not agree with J. I. Packer when he writes, “I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face”?[xxii]

Can we profitably meet the other challenges that confront the Western church if prayer is ignored as much as it has been?[xxiii]

Our aim, then, in this series of meditations, is to examine the foundations again. Many different approaches might have been chosen, but the one adopted here is simple[xxiv]

Just as God’s Word must reform our theology, our ethics, and our practices, so also must it reform our praying.

The purpose of this class, then, is to think through some of Paul’s prayers, so that we may align our prayer habits with his. We want to learn what to pray for, what arguments to use, what priorities we should adopt, what beliefs should shape our prayers, and much more.[xxv]

And since lasting renewal, genuine revival, and true reformation spring from the work of the Holy Spirit as he takes the Word and applies it to our lives, it is important for you and I to pause frequently and ask that the Holy Spirit will take whatever is biblically faithful and useful in these meditations and so apply it to our lives that our praying will be permanently transformed.[xxvi]

1. Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray.

We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray[xxvii]

What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words.[xxviii]

Paul’s many references to his “prayers” (e.g., Rom. 1:10; Eph. 1:16; 1 Thess. 1:2) suggest that he set aside specific times for prayer—as apparently Jesus himself did (Luke 5:16).[xxix]

Mere regularity in such matters does not ensure that effective praying takes place[xxx]

It is also true that different lifestyles demand different patterns: a shift worker, for instance, will have to keep changing the scheduled prayer times, while a mother of twin two-year-olds will enjoy neither the energy nor the leisure of someone living in less constrained circumstances.[xxxi]

But after all the difficulties have been duly recognized and all the dangers of legalism properly acknowledged, the fact remains that unless we plan to pray we will not pray. The reason we pray so little is that we do not plan to pray.[xxxii]

2. Adopt practical ways to impede mental drift.

What’s mental drift? Let me give you an example

 “Dear Lord, I thank you for the opportunity of coming into your presence by the merits of Jesus. It is a wonderful blessing to call you Father… . I wonder where I left my car keys? [No, no! Back to business.] Heavenly Father, I began by asking that you will watch over my family—not just in the physical sphere, but in the moral and spiritual dimensions of our lives.… Boy, last Sunday’s sermon was sure bad. I wonder if I’ll get that report written on time? [No, no!] Father, give real fruitfulness to that missionary couple we support, whatever their name is.… Oh, my! I had almost forgotten I promised to fix my son’s bike today.… ”[xxxiii]

Here a few ways to help that.

One of the most useful things is to vocalize your prayers.[xxxiv]

They don’t have to be loud

It simply means you articulate your prayers, moving your lips perhaps; the energy devoted to expressing your thoughts in words and sentences will order and discipline your mind, and help deter meandering.[xxxv]

Another thing you can do is pray over the Scriptures.[xxxvi]

Christians just setting out on the path of prayer sometimes pray for everything they can think of, glance at their watches, and discover they have been at it for all of three or four minutes. This experience sometimes generates feelings of defeat, discouragement, even despair.[xxxvii]

A great way to begin to overcome this problem is to pray through various biblical passages.[xxxviii]

• it is entirely appropriate to tie your praying to your Bible reading[xxxix]
• it is essential to read the passage slowly and thoughtfully so as to retrieve at least some of its meaning and bearing on your life. Those truths and entailments can be the basis of a great deal of reflective praying.[xl]

A slight variation of this plan is to adopt as models several biblical prayers. Read them carefully, think through what they are saying, and pray analogous prayers for yourself, your family, your church, and for many others beyond your immediate circle.[xli]

Similarly, praying through the worship sections of the better hymnals can prove immensely edifying and will certainly help you to focus your mind and heart in one direction for a while.[xlii]

Journaling can be helpful as well

3. At various periods in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship.

Incidentally, if you are not married, make sure your prayer partner is someone of your own sex. If you are married and choose a prayer partner of the opposite sex, make sure that partner is your spouse. The reason is that real praying is an immensely intimate business—and intimacy in one area frequently leads to intimacy in other areas.[xliii]

It creates accountability

You are able to teach others how to pray or be taught by the other person.

If you are married it will help create a oneness with your spouse.

I know a few pastors who seek out a handful of people who will meet, perhaps early in the morning, to give themselves for an hour or more to intercessory prayer.[xliv]

The ground rules for such groups may include the following: (1) Those who agree to participate must do so every week, without fail and without complaint, for a set period of time (six months?), barring, of course, unforeseen circumstances such as illness. (2) They must be Christians without any shadow of partisanship, bitterness, nurtured resentments, or affectation in their lives. In other words, they must be stamped with integrity and with genuine love for other believers, not least the obstreperous ones. (3) They must not be gossips.

Such clusters of prayer partners have been used by God again and again to spearhead powerful ministry and extravagant blessing

[xlv]

But whatever the precise pattern, there is a great deal to be said for developing godly prayer-partner relationships.[xlvi]

4. Choose models—but choose them well.

Most of us can improve our praying by carefully, thoughtfully listening to others pray. This does not mean we should copy everything we hear.[xlvii]

Some people use an informal and chatty style in prayer that reflects their own personality and perhaps the context in which they were converted;

others intone their prayers before God with genuine erudition coupled with solemn formality, deploying vocabulary and forms of English considered idiomatic 350 years ago.

 Neither extreme is an intrinsically good model; both might be good models, but not because of relatively external habits, and certainly not because of merely cultural or personal idiosyncrasy.

When we find good models, we will study their content and urgency, but we will not mimic them exactly.[xlviii]

On a side note, your children learn how to pray from you; parents remember that you are their model.

Choose models, but choose them well. Study their content, their breadth, their passion, their unction—but do not ape their idiom.[xlix] (do not mimic them exactly.)

5. Develop a system for your prayer lists.

• You cant pray for everybody and everything
• you can try but you will end up forgetting people and things that you wanted to pray for
• you can journal

Whatever the system, use prayer lists

6. Mingle praise, confession, and intercession; but when you intercede, try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.

Both theoretical and practical considerations underlie this advice.

The theoretical considerations can best be set out by mentally conjuring up two extremes.

The first judges it inappropriate to ask God for things. Surely he is sovereign: he does not need our counsel. If he is the one “who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11), surely it is a bit cheeky (rude) to badger him for things. He does not change the course of the universe because some finite, ignorant, and sinful human being asks him to.

[l] Besides, if God is really sovereign, he is going to do whatever he wants to do, whether or not he is asked to do it.

 Of course, if a Christian adopts this line, he or she is thinking in much the same way as a Muslim: the right approach to God binds you to a kind of theological determinism, not to say fatalism.[li]

The second extreme begins with the slogan, “Prayer changes things.” Petitionary prayer is everything. This means that if people die and go to hell, it is because you or I or someone has neglected to pray[lii]

On the face of it, neither of these extremes captures the balance of biblical prayers, and both of them are reductionistic in their treatment of God[liii]

We must remember that the Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.

 Unless we perceive this, and learn how to act on these simultaneous truths, not only will our views of God be distorted, but our praying is likely to wobble back and forth between a resigned fatalism that asks for nothing and a badgering desperation that exhibits little real trust.[liv]

Prayer is his ordained means of conveying his blessings to his people. That means we must pray according to his will, in line with his values, in conformity with his own character and purposes, claiming his own promises. [lv]

How do we do that?

(Rom. 8:26–27). When we pray, our intercessions may be off the mark; on many matters we do not know the Scriptures well enough, we do not know God well enough, to be confident about what we should be praying. But the Holy Spirit helps us by interceding for us with unuttered groanings offered to the Father while we Christians are praying.7[lvi]

We must frankly admit that the task of tying as many petitions as possible to the Scriptures is challenging.

Christians who grow in their ability to do this will learn that there are countless situations in prayer where we must simply rely on the Holy Spirit to intercede on our behalf. But having conceded these points—indeed, having insisted upon them—it is essential to pursue this discipline. How else shall we learn what our heavenly Father wants, what he expects us to ask for, and why, and how to approach him?[lvii]

7. If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers.

if at any point you pray in public as a leader, then work at your public prayers.[lviii]

It is not a question of pleasing our human hearers, but of instructing them and edifying them.[lix]

You might be thinking is that biblical?

The ultimate sanction for this approach is none less than Jesus himself. At the tomb of Lazarus, after the stone has been removed, Jesus looks to heaven and prays, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me” (John 11:41–42). Here, then, is a prayer of Jesus himself that is shaped in part by his awareness of what his human hearers need to hear.[lx]

The point is that although public prayer is addressed to God, it is addressed to God while others are overhearing it. Of course, if the one who is praying is more concerned to impress these human hearers than to pray to God, then rank hypocrisy takes over. [lxi]

Writing them out may be helpful

That does not necessarily mean writing them out verbatim (though that can be a good thing to do). At the least, it means thinking through in advance and in some detail just where the prayer is going, preparing, perhaps, some notes, and memorizing them.

Public praying is a responsibility as well as a privilege

[lxii]

8. Pray until you pray.

That is Puritan advice. It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much of our praying[lxiii]

If some generations need to learn that God is not particularly impressed by long-winded prayers, and is not more disposed to help us just because we are wordy,

our generation needs to learn that God is not impressed by the kind of brevity that is nothing other than culpable negligence.

He is not more disposed to help us because our insincerity and spiritual flightiness conspire to keep our prayers brief.[lxiv]

Our generation certainly needs to learn something more about persistence in prayer[lxv]

Even so, that is not quite what the Puritans meant when they exhorted one another to “pray until you pray.”

What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying.

[lxvi]

We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty. To enter the spirit of prayer, we must stick to it for a while.[lxvii]

for many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.

Pray until you pray.

[lxviii]

If we “pray until we pray,” eventually we come to delight in God’s presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will.[lxix]

Questions for Review and Reflection

1.     List the positive and negative things you have learned about praying by listening to others pray.

2.     List practical ways in which you will commit yourself to improve your prayer life during the next six months.

3.     What do Christian preachers and teachers mean when they encourage us to “meditate prayerfully on the Word of God”?

[lxx]

----

[i]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 11

[ii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 12

[iii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 13

[iv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 13

[v]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 13

[vi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 13

[vii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 14

[viii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 14

[ix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 14

[x]  New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995

[xi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xiii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xiv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 15

[xvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 16

[xviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 16

[xix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 16

[xx]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxiii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxiv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 17

[xxvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 18

[xxvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 19

[xxviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 19

[xxix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxx]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxxi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxxii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxxiii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxxiv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 20

[xxxv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xxxvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xxxvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xxxviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xxxix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xl]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xli]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xlii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 21

[xliii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 22

[xliv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 24

[xlv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 24

[xlvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 25

[xlvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 25

[xlviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 25

[xlix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 27

[l]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 29

[li]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 30

[lii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 30

[liii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 30

[liv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 31

[lv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 32

7 For a defense of this interpretation, see Peter T. O’Brien, “Romans 8:26, 27: A Revolutionary Approach to Prayer?” The Reformed Theological Review 46 (1987): 65–73.

[lvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 33

[lvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 33

[lviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 34

[lix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 34

[lx]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 34

[lxi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 35

[lxii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 35

[lxiii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 35

[lxiv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 36

[lxv]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 36

[lxvi]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 36

[lxvii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 36

[lxviii]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 37

[lxix]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 36

[lxx]Carson, D. A.: A Call to Spiritual Reformation : Priorities from Paul and His Prayers. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1992, S. 38