Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
You have an example of continual prayer that refers in any way to the number of times? You keep talking as if there is some constant set of references to prayer in terms of how many times to pray. Yet almost all the examples I can find just mention that they prayed and say nothing about the number of times anything particular was prayed for.
What you are failing to grasp is that you have one example of Christ praying three times out of many examples of Christ praying at all. And in those cases there is no mention of the number of times he prayed for any particular thing. It doesn't say is prayed only once, and it doesn't say he didn't pray more than three. It just doesn't say. That fact alone should create significant doubt that the meaning of the three was about something that the account does not indicate it is about.
Even if I accept your overlay as having any relevance, it is only meaningful that they considered their prayers complete. There is nothing in it that suggests that more prayer could not be required in other cases, or that to pray more is to somehow run afoul of an unstated principle that puts the whole of the person's prayer in jeopardy of becoming "in vain."
Besides, when the bible uses a number like this to imply completeness, the purpose is not to make the number a rule, but to use the number to make a statement about what it is associated with. So the number 3 is associated with a particular prayer, so the number 3 is brought into the account to underscore that the prayer was somehow considered complete. But that does not cause there to be a principle that 3 prayers with respect to any particular item is "complete" and that more are vain.
And that is why I mentioned the thing about the number of persons listed in genealogies. 10 from here to there. There were actually more. But by distilling it down to 10, something was added to the discussion that was otherwise not simply in the list of names. But it doesn't mean that there are actually only 10 names between X and Y, or that it is meaningful that the number between X and Y is 10. Rather, it is like adding a statement to the discussion that really has nothing to do with the number. Rather it is implied because the number was invoked.
So in the case of Christ's prayer, the number is not intended to imply a rule (or principle) about how many times to pray, but rather to demonstrate that the actions that Jesus was about to embark on was truly the will of God because he thoroughly prayed about it as implied by the use of the number 3 in the account.
And despite your vague references to other accounts of people praying 3 times, you actually have provided nothing that was not already in discussion — the singular accounts concerning specific prayers by Jesus and Paul. You claim that there were many. You need to supply enough to establish "many."
And your insistence that the one event with Jesus is all you need, it is more than evident that it is not. There is no special rule about a single observation of Christ becoming a principle.
So either come up with them . . . .
Or admit that you can't do it.
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Your approach to biblical exegesis is rather naive. i.e. Simply count the frequency of a matter and if it exceeds a certain number then the point is proven. Where is your threshold? If I gave 3 examples you could say I need to show 4, if I gave 10 examples you might say you need 20.
However even if I was following your approach, then the bible says that two examples are sufficient:
2 Cor 13:1 “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
The frequency can establish things in some cases but in this case it is more about the significance of the number 3 rather than how many examples we can find of people praying more than 3 times.
It is significant that the Son of God, who gave a parable about persisting many times in prayer, prayed only three times and then stopped, surrendering to the Father's will. Having no reply to his request after the third time, Christ became certain that the Father's will was that He should go to the cross. Based upon the parable of the persistent widow, Christ should have persisted until God gave an answer. So what is so special about the number 3?
Rather than simply count the number of examples, we should consider
why they prayed 3 times only. If we consider the additional information regarding their customs and principles, we will find that it weights the argument towards my view rather than yours.
Albert Barne's in his Notes on the Bible reveals that praying 3 times was a Jewish principle that Paul and Christ followed. Therefore hundreds of thousands of Jewish converts to Christianity would have prayed in like manner. Gentiles possibly as well, following Christ and Paul as their examples.
Any readers of these things at the time would have recognized the three-time prayer of Christ and Paul as meaning that the matter they prayed about was significant, and they had prayed enough. Christ praying 3 times in the disciples presence would have indicated to them that Christ was to go to the cross. Imagine if Christ had prayed 100 times, it would either make Christ appear desperate and not wanting to bow to the Father's will, or it would imply that the Father was somehow deaf to His request.
Here is what Barne's has to say:
It will be recollected that the Lord Jesus prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane that the cup might be removed from him, Matthew 26:44. At the third time he ceased, and submitted to what was the will of God. There is some reason to suppose that the Jews were in the habit of praying three times for any important blessing or for the removal of any calamity; and Paul in this would not only conform to the usual custom, but especially he would he disposed to imitate the example of the Lord Jesus. Among the Jews three was a sacred number, and repeated instances occur where an important transaction is mentioned as having been done thrice; see Numbers 22:28; Numbers 24:10; 1 Samuel 3:8; 1 Samuel 20:41; 1 Kings 18:44; Proverbs 22:20; Jeremiah 7:4; Jeremiah 22:29; John 21:17.
This does not prove that we should be limited to exactly this number in our petitions; but it proves that there should be a limit;
The passage proves that it is right to pray earnestly and repeatedly for the removal of any calamity. The Saviour so prayed in the garden; and Paul so prayed here. Yet it also proves that there should be a limit to such prayers.
So there is sufficient evidence based upon the two examples presented, and the knowledge of Jewish customs at the time, to conclude that praying three times for a matter is a biblical principle. The bible does not teach or show prayer ad nauseam.
As your posts reveal, the original meaning and significance of the 3-time prayer of Christ and Paul is lost on a modern American audience which takes an overly SOLO scriptura approach to exegesis and merely counts the number of times a thing is mentioned as proof, without understanding the Jewish customs at the time and the significance of the number 3 to an ancient audience.