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| COMMENTARY • February 2006 |
Professor says: ‘There is no power in prayer’
By Bill Ellis
CHRISTIAN EXAMINER- Opinion |
College mathematics professor, Mark Ellis, (no relation) said, “There is no power in prayer.” Recently, I read that medical patients who are prayed for may recuperate more quickly than those who are not prayed for.
Charles Stanley, prolific writer and powerful preacher, in his Zondervan book, “A Touch of His Power,” states: “The power of prayer is the backbone for a vigorous, profitable Christian life. I don’t know of any spiritual exercise more experientially powerful than personal, prevailing prayer. Anyone can pray. At anytime. About anything. Prayer works.”
Ken Hemphill, a seminary president and author of “The Prayer of Jesus,” by Broadman & Holman, makes this statement: “Prayerlessness makes absolutely no sense, yet just about all of us have been guilty of it—and of foolishly putting the blame on God for not answering prayers we never pray.”
How do we reconcile those statements by Stanley and Hemphill with the college professor who says, “There is no power in prayer?”
“The power is not in what we say or pray, but in the God to whom we pray,” the professor said.
This thoughtful teacher is correct in his analysis.
It is possible to pray prayers that are phony, hypocritical, frivolous and powerless. I recall reading the words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount:
“Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. I assure you: They’ve got their reward!” (Matthew 6:5, HCSB).
There is absolutely no power in some prayers.
Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of hearing Steve Chiles, nationally known speaker and motivator, deal with this simple question, “Why Don’t We Pray?”
It was about an experience in a garden near the Mount of Olives. Jesus was there and praying—as His disciples should have been doing. He woke them up with these words: “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray, so that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:46, HCSB).
Chiles in his brilliant presentation, suggested at least five possible answers to the question, “Why Don’t We Pray?”
1. “Presumably, we do not pray because we do not believe in prayer.”
2. “It is not a part of our habit patterns.”
3. “Many times we really do not want God’s opinions. If Jesus is Lord, it means Jesus is boss.”
4. “We do not know how much God cares for us.” Chiles asked his audience to remember the words of Psalm 103 which names numerous blessings from God as verse 2 suggests: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (NIV).
5. “We forget how much God needs us to pray.”
Steve Chiles concluded his words about why we do not pray with this bit of advice: “When you do pray, make your prayer more about God than about you.”
Hank Hanegraff, a Christian apologist, writes in his book, “The Coverting—God's Plan to Protect You From Evil (W Publishing Group):
“It is to the armor what oxygen is to the lungs. Prayer is the given, the foundation, the first principle of spiritual warfare. Little wonder then that the apostle Paul urges us to ‘pray in the Spirit on all occasions.’” (Ephesians 6:18 NIV)
The power of prayer is not in our words, but in the God to whom we direct our words that we call prayer. Thanks to Mark, the math professor, and Steve, the preacher, for giving us helpful insight into the meaning of prayer. We should not hesitate to pray to the God of all power. Speak to God and then spend a lot longer just listening to Him. What God says to us will be infinitely more important than anything we may say to Him.
Bill Ellis, a syndicated columnist, and convention and conference speaker, is a contributor to Assist News Service, who supplied this commentary. He lives in Scott Depot, W.V.
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