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No Vain Repetition of Words: Family
Prayer
Abraham Kuyper
We read in Matthew
6:7: "And when ye
pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that
they shall be heard for their much speaking."
Does Jesus mean by this that every prayer must be brief, and that a
somewhat longer prayer already by itself is judged on account of its
length?
Certainly not.
For in John
17, the Saviour Himself
has set a pace in sending upward an extensive prayer; moreover, the
Evangelists tell how sometimes for hours together Jesus continued in
prayer. Also in the Old Testament, Solomon's prayer, for instance, at
the consecration of the Temple can by no means be called short.
And yet by His warning against the "vain repetition of words"
Jesus certainly means to say that too great length injures prayer. For
He adds the elucidation that the heathen "think they shall be heard
for their much speaking"; and the prayer which He himself puts in
the lips of His disciples is one of not three minutes.
Yet it is not difficult to straighten out this seeming contradiction,
provided you but put the emphasis upon this "vain repetition of
words," which is presently followed by "their much
speaking" (Matt.
6:7).
If you observe this, you will see that Jesus has nothing to say about
the duration of your prayer, not about the length of it, but that He
objects exclusively, and very definitely, to the verbosity of your
supplications, at least insofar as those words are nothing but
"vain repetitions," or, as we would say, a concatenation of
hollow sounds.
This evil crept in with all heathen forms of worship. They kept up
prayer, but they had lost God; and so their prayer was bound to be
devoid of that earnest character of outpouring of soul and of real
supplication.
Consequently their prayer became formal, a duty which they performed. He
who was most proficient in this counted for most pious; hence that
muttering of endless prayers, every time repeated again, and this of
course had nothing in common with real prayer, while with them it passed
as such.
From the heathen world this formal service of prayer had gradually crept
in.
And against this Jesus warns.
Ye children of Abraham, do not follow the heathen in this. Keep
yourselves from desecrating the holiest that is given us on earth. No
muttering of vain sounds. Let your prayer be real prayer.
And yet this warning of Jesus
has failed of the mark; and formal, verbose, and long drawn-out prayer
has passed from Israel and from the heathen world over into the church
of the new covenant.
In the churches of the Reformation this is not as bad as in the churches
of Rome; but yet with us also this evil undeniably cankers on, be it in
different form.
The Church of Rome uses few long prayers. Her prayers are mostly short,
and sometimes even very short. And in this we might learn of Rome.
But Rome's fault is that she lets the same prayers be prayed too much
and too often one after the other. One knows the paternoster. A string
of beads with a crucifix attached. And by these beads one counts how
many paternosters, Ave Maria's, and angelic hails, etc., have been
prayed.
However well intentioned this might be, it is bound to assist
mechanicalness, and so it does. One begins seriously and with good
purpose. But soon the thought of prayer is lost. The mouth mutters, but
the eye wanders. And long before the task is ended, the latest trace of
real prayer is utterly gone. Something that in Romish countries is even
seen in the priests, who, seated in all sorts of means of conveyance,
aside from their other religious literature, also say their prayers, and
thereby noticeably make the impression that the spirit indeed is
willing, but the flesh weak.
This gives rise to a false religious sense, as though it merely implies
the act of having prayed, and not the outpouring of soul before God.
And so it is again words. A repetition of words. A verbosity which is
vain.
Yet, well as it may be to have
our eye clearly open to this shadow side of Rome's practice of prayer,
it would be self-righteous if we were to imagine that Jesus' warning
against vain repetition of words had nothing to say to us Christians of
the Reformation.
The contrary is true.
Our practice of prayer suffers pitifully from heterodoxy, and in many
ways is tainted with sin.
We of the Reformation aimed high. Even too high. And this in a twofold
way. First, that we almost always use free prayers, and few written
prayers. And again that the demand is put not only to the minister of
the Word, but also to every elder, to every deacon, and to every father
in his family, to offer, what is called prayer aloud.
This is aimed high, because all leading in prayer is high art, and one
which brings great temptation with it.
To pray aloud is something self-contradictory. To pray is to deepen
oneself in fellowship with the eternal being; and to pray aloud is to
practice fellowship with people around us. And so it comes to pass, that
one truly prays earnestly and zealously, but forgets those who are
around him, and so makes them to be listeners to his prayer, rather than
that he prays with them and for them. While on the other hand the leader
in prayer thinks so much about the people for whom and with whom he
prays, that he forgets to think of God, and so prays not at all. In
which latter case the great temptation arises that he who leads others
in prayer becomes ambitious to make "nice prayers," and so is
more anxious how he may please his fellow worshipers by his prayer, than
how his prayer may be acceptable unto God.
This temptation is for, oh, so many an unblessed fountain of all sorts
of sanctimonious and Pharisaic show.
How often you see that when such people pray for themselves alone, they
are so quickly done. It then lasts but for a moment. But when there are
others present, or when they lead them in prayer, it seems as though
their prayer has no end. Everything must be brought into it. The same
things must be repeated and repeated under other forms. It all carries
the impression, even upon those with whom they pray, that they but want
to show how long and earnestly they can pray.
This needs by no means to be always sinful intent. There are those who
in ordinary conversation are always dreadfully prolix. There are those
who, especially in prayer, find it difficult to come to an end. There
are those with whom, especially in prayer, through lack of self-control,
tediousness has become a second nature.
But with due respect for all this, there is always this sin in it, that
they ask too much what people will say about it, and too little whether
God will take heed of their supplication.
"To be heard of men" makes them lose their reward with God.
An evil to which sometimes some ministers of the Word have so habituated
themselves that it cleaves unto them till their death.
If you would be on your guard
against this, there is but one efficient means, and that is that you
exercise yourself in prayer.
One thinks that a child can pray. And so he can. But a child prays as a
child, because he thinks and speaks as a child. But when you have become
a man, you should put away childish things and learn to pray as a man.
And this is a glorious, but also a very difficult art, which is not
acquired by praying aloud too soon before others, but upon one's knees
before God.
Many would find it impossible, like Jesus, to spend hours together in
prayer.
One has so little to say in his prayer simply because all day long he
has thought so little of God. Because even in prayer one has so little
fellowship and communion with the Eternal. And also because one feels so
little his own deep need and lets the love of fellowship operate so
faintly in behalf of others.
Many make even no transition.
They fall on their knees. They pray. They are done. And immediately life
resumes its ordinary course.
And that should not be. There must be a transition. One must first live
in the glory of the sight of God's majesty, that by the in drinking of
that glory the flower bud of the soul may open.
And only he who has so learned to pray by himself in private, and
continuously persisted in this practice till at length he entered into
it, will be able later on so to pray aloud that it remains real prayer
with him.
But to pray in public requires still something else.
Namely, that in the fellowship of those who pray with you, you lose
yourself; that you carry their need on your heart; in a priestly way
enter into their life; and as having become their interpreter with God,
from the heart and soul of all, for them and with them, you call upon
the Eternal.
This article was taken from the Standard
Bearer, volume 78, issue
14. Reprinted from When Thou Sittest In Thine House, by
Abraham Kuyper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan.
1929. Used by permission of Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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