Communing with God: The Posture of Prayer

What is prayer?

In and of it self, the concept of prayer is ‘NOT’ communication with God but a reaching for God.

outside of God’s covenant people, prayer can me likened to invocation and petitions done through coersive tactics, like magic, etc.

As a practice of believers in the one True God, Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies. Q 178 of WSC

little to no access leads to little to no communication

What is Communication?

etymology- early 15c., "act of communicating, act of imparting, discussing, debating, conferring," from Old French comunicacion (14c., Modern French communication) and directly from Latin communicationem (nominative communicatio) "a making common, imparting, communicating; a figure of speech," noun of action from past-participle stem of communicare "to share, divide out; communicate, impart, inform; join, unite, participate in," literally "to make common," related to communis "common, public, general" (see common (adj.)). Meaning "that which is communicated" is from late 15c.; meaning "means of communication" is from 1715. Related: Communications; communicational.

-un is the stem for ‘one’. We may take for granted the multiplicity of ways we have to communicate with others today and because of our position in Christ today, we may take for granted what Christ has done to bring about common ground and oneness in direct communication to God. (John 17:3, 6, 9, 11-12, 17-19, 21)

Though we may have many ways to communicate today, we can still imagine how difficult it is to find common ground in communication with someone with whom speaks a foreign language, has different customs and mannerisms, and different ways of doing things. We may sometimes grasp at straws trying to figure out how to get through to someone from a foreign land, we may result to finding a medium (translator) to speak through to be able to communicate.

After the fall and before Christ, loss of direct access resulted in loss of clear, and direct communication.

people ‘began’ to call on the name of the Lord (Gen 4:26)

‘began’ in 4:26, implies something different is taking place. Its clear that communication via conversation between God and man before the fall was uninterrupted until the fall

As implied in Genesis 4:26, it is unclear when and through whom redemption for man will take place, and consequently restoration of communion with God, after the loss of Cain (by exile) and Abel (by death).

God’s response to the tower of Babel incident led to more ‘uncommon’ ground.

Scholars suggest that, in accordance with ANE backgrounds, the people attempted to build a ziggurat in order for God to descend. This may indicate that they were trying to make a name for themselves by attempting to have access to God that has not existed before.

medium access leads to medium communication

1. In the OT access to God is given via God’s grace by his installing of mediators.

The office of King, Priest, and Prophet were installed for the governance and flourishing of Israel. The office of priest especially, was created as a mediatory kind of office.

You’ll find many instances where even prayer is mediated through the office of priest. see Hannah’s prayer.

It is by faith that the OT faithful had their prayers responded in favor. Their faith gave access God and access was made possible because God justifies the ungodly by their faith. Other ways would be done by the priesthood who stood as mediators between God and his covenant people.

full and direct access leads to full and direct communication

In the eschatological age (Christ’s first coming til now), we have a type of mediation that paradoxically gives us direct communication with God.

Christ as our mediator, stands as a greater mediator than the OT mediators, and as a mediator who mediates in a different way.

He not only gives the final sacrifice that is fully pleasing to God but works in the tabernacle as a tabernacle as he tabernacles in and among us and we in him.

Christ tears the veil that separated us from direct access to God and by implication give us a clear communication with God by our status as children of God by way of the Holy Spirit. (Rom 8:15-16,26)

Our Father

1. “Our Father”- understanding of these two words as believers brings about our proper disposition and consequently, the right posture in prayer.

“Our”

Prounoun, personal, first person, genitive, plural - It is through this first word that we will create the framework within which we pray to God, i.e. our prayers, even when they are about our individual lives, should emanate a spirit of communal solidarity. (Matt 6:11-13)

As he does in the very next verse after the prayer to continue teaching his disciples, as well as in numerous other places in the Gospels, the Lord could have used singular pronouns to address you. However, he uses the proper eschatological setting of renewed relationship between the people of God and God to frame the prayer.

Strikingly, Jesus does in this prayer what no other Jew, Rabbi, or Priest has ever done. He personalizes the language of the prayer by making ‘father’ a term of possession. No where in jewish literature until the 10c AD has God been personalized as father. We can find ‘the father’ in ancient texts but never ‘my or our’. “Our” is a blessed eschatological phrase, for we find ourselves, as believers, in the true son of God as adopted children of God.

“father”

In one sense God is father of all creation because he is the creator. But this is only in relation to God being creator and we his creatures or the fact the we owe our being to his Being. More appropriately God is father to those who abide in him and he in them. He is father in the most intimate relational sense.

As previously stated in 1.A ‘Our Father’, encompasses a filial and familial relationship which also shines light on God as one who ‘quiver is full’. In other words, God is the greatest of fathers because of his loving successful production of children.

The difference between a dead beat biological dad and a father who takes you as his own by support, love, inheritance, etc.