If you are told in the bible to pray alone...

thelord's_pearl said:

then why r there things like praying together on a forum?

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Interesting question to consider...
I believe you are referring to the passage of scripture that says, "
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." (Matthew 6:5-8)

I never really took this scripture that seriously, since every time I go to church, someone is always leading people in prayer. IS this something that Jesus taught us to do? There are examples of Jesus praying out loud, like before raising lazarus from the dead, or in John 17 when He was saying His last words to His disciples before being executed. I wonder, though, if these are more the exceptions rather than the rule? It does seem to be pretty significant events that were happening that caused Him to pray to God for others to hear, but when I think about the other times the bible records Him of praying; it says that He went alone to a mountain or wilderness to pray to God, presumably in secret?

Hmmm... Interesting thought indeed to ponder.

In peace

Matthew 18:19-20 is useful, because The Holy Spirit does testify that it is a righteous request, if there is agreement:

I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

Serving Zion said:

Matthew 18:19-20 is useful, because The Holy Spirit does testify that it is a righteous request, if there is agreement:

I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

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Yes, indeed. This is a great scripture to add on to this.
So, do you think this is Jesus saying it is okay to pray out loud for others to hear as long as we are in agreement? or could He be saying something different? Maybe we can discuss what we want to pray about before going to God in our closet to pray secretly? Do you think praying in our closet has to be a literal closet, or can it also be done in our mind, since we are still praying in secret; considering others wouldn't know we are praying or just sleeping?
These are the questions that come to mind as I try to work all this out.
In peace

UnprofitableServant said:

Yes, indeed. This is a great scripture to add on to this.
So, do you think this is Jesus saying it is okay to pray out loud for others to hear as long as we are in agreement? or could He be saying something different? Maybe we can discuss what we want to pray about before going to God in our closet to pray secretly? Do you think praying in our closet has to be a literal closet, or can it also be done in our mind, since we are still praying in secret; considering others wouldn't know we are praying or just sleeping?
These are the questions that come to mind as I try to work all this out.
In peace

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It is more that those who pray in public do so in order to show others how righteous they are. It is pride. The same principle applies when they speak presumptuously (Jeremiah 23:30-32).

UnprofitableServant said:

Yes, indeed. This is a great scripture to add on to this.
So, do you think this is Jesus saying it is okay to pray out loud for others to hear as long as we are in agreement? or could He be saying something different? Maybe we can discuss what we want to pray about before going to God in our closet to pray secretly? Do you think praying in our closet has to be a literal closet, or can it also be done in our mind, since we are still praying in secret; considering others wouldn't know we are praying or just sleeping?
These are the questions that come to mind as I try to work all this out.
In peace

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It's interesting to think more about this too.. knowing that what we have as Christianity today is very different from what Jesus had in mind.

The real power of Christianity is knowing that Jesus is amidst us.. speaking to us personally as The Holy Spirit, and that is a reality of The Gospel that is lost on a majority of Christians (but not all of them).

Considering that reality, and thinking that if we are gathered together in His name, then why would we need to close our eyes and address Him formally .. it's actually more natural to address Him directly while looking Him in the eye.

In the similar way, when I perceive that He is bringing a person to speak on these forums, and I recognise it is His spirit speaking through them rather than just their flesh, ego, then I can offer words that are directed accordingly.. so it's different than prayer. In context of Matthew 18:19-20, it seems that two or three might agree that a sister whose injury is painful shouldn't be suffering pain, so the pain is taken away, but sometimes the request, though being a nice request, might not be a righteous request (eg: Proverbs 28:17) - so then there wouldn't be agreement in Holy Spirit, even if they both wanted it.. because ultimately it is God doing His work through us, as we yield ourselves as instruments to Him.

So there's something different about closing the door and praying alone.. that is time to shut out all the distractions. Going into the inner room is to deter people from accessing - they would need to be deliberate to enter two doors, and as you might find, sometimes a distraction can be just spontaneous enough that it breaks the concentration. So I think it is a bit like the figure of speech of Matthew 18:9, but for the purpose of making sure that nothing breaks that communion.

Serving Zion said:

It's interesting to think more about this too.. knowing that what we have as Christianity today is very different from what Jesus had in mind.

The real power of Christianity is knowing that Jesus is amidst us.. speaking to us personally as The Holy Spirit, and that is a reality of The Gospel that is lost on a majority of Christians (but not all of them).

Considering that reality, and thinking that if we are gathered together in His name, then why would we need to close our eyes and address Him formally .. it's actually more natural to address Him directly while looking Him in the eye.

In the similar way, when I perceive that He is bringing a person to speak on these forums, and I recognise it is His spirit speaking through them rather than just their flesh, ego, then I can offer words that are directed accordingly.. so it's different than prayer. In context of Matthew 18:19-20, it seems that two or three might agree that a sister whose injury is painful shouldn't be suffering pain, so the pain is taken away, but sometimes the request, though being a nice request, might not be a righteous request (eg: Proverbs 28:17) - so then there wouldn't be agreement in Holy Spirit, even if they both wanted it.. because ultimately it is God doing His work through us, as we yield ourselves as instruments to Him.

So there's something different about closing the door and praying alone.. that is time to shut out all the distractions. Going into the inner room is to deter people from accessing - they would need to be deliberate to enter two doors, and as you might find, sometimes a distraction can be just spontaneous enough that it breaks the concentration. So I think it is a bit like the figure of speech of Matthew 18:9, but for the purpose of making sure that nothing breaks that communion.

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Thinking about it further... the Christianity we see today is very different from what I read in the four gospels and what Jesus' first disciples did. What happened that caused us to go off the rails? I know the Bible prophesied this will happen, but my question is more geared towards the exact ways we are not like the first century Christians... Any thoughts?

It is a bit unclear to me your stance on the prayer thing. I agree that we can be in unity praying for someone and God could not answer this request because it is not His will.

What I don't understand is whether or not we CAN pray out loud together for someone, and if this is okay to do according to Jesus? It seems to me that is what you are saying i.e., what Jesus means by going to your closet is just a figure of speech to not let other things distract us from praying, rather than the idea that we shouldn't hear others prayers to God because Jesus said for us to do it secretly. Do you mind clearing this up for me? Thanks in advance.

In peace

thelord's_pearl said:

then why r there things like praying together on a forum?

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since you use praying together in a forum it is the verse:

"Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in My name there I am in the midst of them."

someone who is sick doesn't ask for prayer because they want to be seen by men as being righteous, they desire to be healed, so they ask prayer from others in agreement with them.

But Christians do also have quiet alone prayer time. Most Christians have a regular time of day that they go off by themselves and pray for a while alone, just them and God like Jesus did.

Everything has its own time, and it's hypocritical to pray just so others see you as righteous, but this is not what is happening when most people pray together, they are just standing in agreement before God in that point in time, and having quiet prayer time later at a different time, both instances and occurrences are scriptural.

we don't have to hide our faith, we just can't be hypocritical.

UnprofitableServant said:

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Thinking about it further... the Christianity we see today is very different from what I read in the four gospels and what Jesus' first disciples did. What happened that caused us to go off the rails? I know the Bible prophesied this will happen, but my question is more geared towards the exact ways we are not like the first century Christians... Any thoughts?

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Jesus had direct access to the faith - 100% being the man above all others and not being qualified by a human schooling system (Revelation 2:7, John 16:14-15). So His knowledge of the faith was authentic and genuine. John the Baptist was similar, but he did not endure as Jesus Christ endured, and when they met, we can see that Jesus did instruct John to baptise Him, and John conceded.

Jesus taught His knowledge to His disciples, and there are examples such as "show us The Father, that will be sufficient for us", "you are a dangerous trap to me", "tonight you will all be stumbled on account of me" etc.. that shows they didn't really grasp the faith for themselves, even though Jesus had been walking and talking to them, teaching them day after day.

Then something happened on the day of the Pentecost - when The Spirit came upon them with power. Suddenly they had received the anointing of a Christian, personally, just as He had promised, and they went forth preaching with the same power and authority as what He had - albeit with their individual knowledge that comes as a result of their individual upbringings.

That's a major part of our reality .. that we each have a unique character and basic knowledge, so we have differences - some strengths, some weaknesses, some things right and some things wrong.

Now, St. Paul was similar to Jesus in that way, that he was a pioneer - having not received his teaching from being a disciple of Jesus Christ in the flesh, but by his transformation into a disciple of The Holy Spirit (the ambassador of The Risen Lord). He wrote of his ministry to the churches as though he was personally trying to make disciples of them, similar to how Jesus had the twelve, but we also know that he was spread thinly among the churches and was persecuted a lot.. so he had to rely on delegating the task to others that he had been close to (Onesimus, Barnabus, Timothy etc).

So it goes to show that everyone has to learn Christian knowledge from a starting point .. and there are the two ways to do that: one is to receive a human-led curriculum (as a church would teach), another is to be a student of The Master but not constrained by a group. It is possible to be a student of The Master within a group too, but basically I am showing the difference between sheep and shepherds - as the type of person who is a leader or a follower. (Most people are sheep by nature. They like to belong to a group, to be led well, fed well and cherished, while there are far fewer leaders).

Authentic Christianity is always, at it's heart, about following The Master though .. that is, The Holy Spirit who is in our midst when we are gathered .. and yet, that is a thing that a person cannot see unless he is born again (remember that Nicodemus said "we know that God is with you because of the signs you perform" and Jesus said "unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God").

So there are a great number of Christians who don't have that perception, because while they have some beliefs that are enough for them to think that they know what Christianity is all about, they are still carnal - they are not perceiving The Holy Spirit in their midst (1 Corinthians 2:14-15), and consequently, whenever they perceive a conviction, they can only see that the judgement is coming from the human "vessel" - so they are provoked to think it is a power struggle and that is where personality conflicts and fights begin (James 4:1).

So, a lot of the leaders are in fact carnal! .. just as St. Paul was describing in Philippians 1:7, for instance.. and when people are preaching of their carnal efforts, they are using their intelligence to solve problems and to answer questions, and they tend to run into problems that way because chances are that if they have become professors of a religion without being followers of God, they are of the type in John 10:1 that did not enter the sheepfold by the gate. Having climbed in some other way, they do not have the anointing of The Holy Spirit, so there is something of the deceiver in their perspective.

If we go looking at the scriptures with the wrong perspective, we are distorting what the scriptures say, and then we get all sorts of logical problems because the meaning we are reading from the scripture is not the same as what the words really say. That's why it is important for everyone to question their beliefs - why do I have this belief? Where did I get it from, and is it a good belief to have? .. and yet, most people don't do that, but rather they get locked into whatever beliefs that have comprised their present identity.. and it's very frustrating to try and show them that they're being ignorant, because they are fighting with their whole effort to avoid seeing that the words don't say what they think they say!

UnprofitableServant said:

It is a bit unclear to me your stance on the prayer thing. I agree that we can be in unity praying for someone and God could not answer this request because it is not His will.

What I don't understand is whether or not we CAN pray out loud together for someone, and if this is okay to do according to Jesus? It seems to me that is what you are saying i.e., what Jesus means by going to your closet is just a figure of speech to not let other things distract us from praying, rather than the idea that we shouldn't hear others prayers to God because Jesus said for us to do it secretly. Do you mind clearing this up for me? Thanks in advance.

In peace

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sure! .. well, I remember that Jesus had given thanks at the last supper. So, there is obviously a context of group prayer that is appropriate for everyone being in agreement as a formal address to God .. and I suppose that the only real thing that could possibly be objectionable in that context, is irreverence.. just as Jesus was saying, that sometimes people do use prayer in order to draw attention to themselves.

If you look through this booklet you'll find that it's full of that perspective too! .. it's a pretty important topic, although it only scratches the surface, really

thelord's_pearl said:

then why r there things like praying together on a forum?

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Praying alone and praying with others and praying for others
today is mostly as taught and practiced by man's tradition
not obedience.

thelord's_pearl said:

then why r there things like praying together on a forum?

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1 Thessalonians

16Rejoice at all times. 17Pray without ceasing. 18Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

We are to pray individually and in groups, anywhere, anytime.