Day 159

2 Samuel 13:1-39, Acts 4:23-5:11, Psalms 71:9-18

Pray, pray and when in doubt, pray some more. We are 5 chapters into Acts and the amount of prayer has really struck me. OK, I always knew that prayer was a good thing, but most of the readings that we hear in church involve other parts of the Bible. Recently we have been seeing that Jesus prayed continually, and that the early church prayed continually. Foundation stones that the church today forgets and yet something that we need to reclaim.

The other thing tat I have noticed is that history is not a bad thing. In some of the prayers that we have been reading, Old Testament scriptures are used. In looking at the Lord’s Prayer recently I learnt that the added bit at the end that doesn’t appear in Jesus version (“for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen”) might actually be down to Jewish custom. Jews used to end all their prayers with a bit of praise to God and so it was probably added so the prayer that was handed down over the centuries would resemble that which was used after Jesus’ teaching.

The disciples’ prayer here starts “Sovereign Lord, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea”, offering praise to God, just like the doxology prayer that we use in church sometimes today – “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all creatures here below, praise him above you heavenly host, praise father son and holy ghost”.

The OT stories today just seem to be run of the mill sexual desire and murder. What struck me though was the prayer. Where it really led me, is to embracing and adapting our history. Certainly within the Methodist Church, and a number of other Christian communities, there is a history of social action that links closely with vv32-37. There are times when we can learn a lot from the past. The early church did it, Jesus did it, and there is so much within our history as a church that enriches the worship that we can offer God, both in word and deed.