Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
The point was that the only prayer given as a "do it this way" did not suggest most of the things that we so often cling to. It was very well thought-out. And it was to the Father without reference to Jesus or the Spirit.
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I like this point, because the so-called "Lord's prayer" in the gospels is actually quite formulaic; it is very well thought-out, as
OBW put it. But nowhere in the subsequent scripture or church history do we see people (except for a few extremists, possibly) insisting not to go beyond this.
So we have a well-structured template given to us, for safety, encouragement, and guidance, but are nowhere told not to deviate from the formula. I find all of this quite heartening.
In my own case, though my prayer life is limited, when the word of God does come alive in me, it often does such that my mouth spontaneously opens and I find myself declaring the word back to God. This may sound like the "pray-reading" idea, except that it's simultaneously less structured (not limited to,
"Oh Lord Jesus, 'salvation'; amen, 'salvation'; yes, Lord, 'salvation'; praise the Lord, 'salvation'!") but at the same time it's much more constrained. Because I'm not interested in declaring Witness Lee's words, nor those of some other minister. The 'interpreted word' for me contains only a fraction of the power of scripture itself.
That was why I got so miffed at WL & Co for telling us to ignore the words of scripture, as in the bulk of the Psalms, for example, as "natural concepts" of their sinful human authors. If WL had repeatedly told us that the centrality and universality was found in Christ, why was not Christ also in the Psalms? Especially given that with Jesus, with Paul, in the epistle to the Hebrews, and in subsequent church history all this was repeatedly affirmed and encouraged? Why rob us of the intrinsic power of scripture, that it may come alive, and into our hearts and "dwell in us richly"? If this word spoken from God does indeed live and move and act within you richly, don't you think your prayer life would increase in power?
Then it's the "Christ within you" praying to the "Christ standing before the Father's throne", and the reality of the Son of Man astride the earth, with an opened heavens, with angels ascending and descending, becomes your daily existence. Why rob people of this experience, substituting instead your hermeneutical grid (God's economy, the ground of the church, etc) upon scriptures and then the flock? When your interpretations cause you to downplay, ignore, and suppress the Word of Christ, then I suggest you re-examine the thought process that got you to that point.