4. The First Step of Prayer
Today, many people think of prayer as asking – asking for help or asking for something we need – but for the first followers of Jesus, this was not the case. The first Christians viewed prayer not just as petition, but primarily as worship and praise.
We see this in the fact that the word used for prayer more than any other in the New Testament is proseuche – not the word for asking for things, but a word that more often connoted praise and worship. That is the second word in Paul's list of the four aspects or dimensions of prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1 and the word for prayer that he and the other writers of the New Testament used the most frequently.
Proseuche is the word used when Jesus said "This, then, is how you should pray" (Matthew 6:9), so proseuche can mean prayer in a general sense. It can certainly include petitions, but its meaning is much broader; and the underlying usage of the word was one which usually focused on worship and praise.
A Word is Born! A little bit of history can demonstrate this for us. In the centuries before the time of Jesus, Jewish scholars produced the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek – the language most people understood and used at that time. When it was appropriate, the translators used the normal Greek word for prayer, euche, which meant making a religious vow – as we see in Job 22:27: "You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows."
But the Jewish scholars knew that in many cases this word did not fit the underlying meaning of prayer in the Hebrew Bible – which often focused more on worship and praise.
For those many cases, the translators of the Septuagint coined a new word, proseuche, which combined the idea of prayer, euche, with the word pros – meaning "to" or "toward." By simply adding this prefix to the normal word for prayer, the focus of its meaning was moved away from the one vowing or praying to the One to whom the prayer was offered.
When we get to New Testament times, we find that although the old Greek word euche was used twice to mean "vow" in the Christian Scriptures (Acts 18:18; 21:23), the term the New Testament writers primarily chose to speak of prayer was that newer word proseuche – the word which focuses on God himself and which includes our worship and praise of God. Prayer and the Temple For the people of ancient Israel living in Old Testament times and the people of Roman Judea in New Testament times, prayer was primarily associated with the temple in Jerusalem. Three times in the day – when the sacrifices were made – or at other times, many devout people went to the temple and offered their personal prayers (Acts 3:1). Prayer of this type was not an ongoing stream of asking for things – petitions – but primarily a daily expression of worship and praise.
We see this fact in a psalm of King David when he wrote: "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name" (Psalms 100:4). The "gates" and "courts" of which David speaks are the gates and courtyards of the temple and to "enter" them with praise is to begin our prayers, our worship, with praise.
In a similar way, in the New Testament we are told that after the resurrection of Jesus the disciples "… joined together constantly in prayer …" (Acts 1:14) and that "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts … praising God …" (Acts 2:46-47). What we see here is the early Christians continually joining together not to ask for things, but to worship and offer praise.
Prayer Begins with Praise These examples and many others show that for the Jews and the early Christians worship and praise were at the heart of what regular prayer was all about. So we should not be surprised that in the Lord's Prayer the words that Jesus gave his disciples to begin their prayers were: "Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name" (Luke 11:2 NKJV) – offering the worship and praise that is implicit in addressing God in this way and affirming our desire that his name always be honored.
We see this pattern of beginning communication with God with worship and praise in many other prayers in the Bible. As we will see later, time and again in the Psalms King David begins his prayers with praise followed by requests, thanksgiving, and other aspects of prayer. But for now, notice two other examples. When David prayed after collecting gifts to build a temple to God, we find his prayer begins with seven verses of praise (followed by only two verses of the rest of the prayer!). Here is how David began that prayer:
David praised the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, "Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name" (1 Chronicles 29:10-13). If you look closely, you will see that this introduction to the prayer of David corresponds quite closely to a number of points in the Lord's Prayer. David gives thankful praise for many of the same things mentioned in Jesus' prayer, but what is important for our present discussion is to see the clear way in which praise and worship formed the introduction to David's prayer.
Later, at the dedication of the temple of God once it was completed, David's son Solomon also offered a prayer which consists of specific requests for God to bless the temple and the people, but which also begins in praise:
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven and said: "Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today" (1 Kings 8:22-24). We find this pattern throughout the Bible. Not only do many prayers consist entirely of worship and praise, but a great many – if not most – of the prayers recorded in Scripture begin with these aspects. The lesson for us is obvious: the biblical concept of prayer rests directly on our worship and praise of God, and we can be sure that our prayers are being offered in a manner pleasing to him if we pray with these aspects firmly in mind. The Lord's Prayer shows we should begin our prayers with worshipful praise, and many other biblical examples show that it is right for us to return to this theme and to close our prayers with it.
But why is this? Why is praise and worship so vital to successful prayer? The answers may surprise you, and we will take a look at them next.