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Sunday 7/05/26
Title: …THE Prayers Pt. 2
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…THE Prayers Pt. 2
Last week we addressed the 4th devotion or pillar of the early church which were the prayers.
These included the Shema, the Lord’s Prayer, the 18-19 blessings, the psalm for every day of the week.
Then I mentioned the special prayers for seasons & feasts but we did not explain them due to time. So that’s what we’re covering this week.
Now I did tell you that in the 1st century, it was common for prominent Jewish Rabbis to take the long, complex 18 blessings and distill them down into short, punchy summary prayers for their disciples to use.
And I also told you that this is precisely what Jesus Himself had done when He gave His disciples the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13.
Later as the church grew and began to include the Gentiles, the Apostles took this “summary prayer” and instituted it as the official, universal replacement for the 18 blessings.
This is recorded in the Didache chapter 8:2-3 where we are also told that the apostles commanded that it be prayed three times a day.
By replacing the 18 blessings with the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles achieved something profound for the 1st-century global Church:
- It generated Unity: It allowed uneducated Gentile converts from Rome or Greece to pray in perfect agreement with highly educated Jewish converts in Jerusalem.
- It shifted the focus to the Father through Jesus: Every line of the distilled prayer reinforces that the Kingdom of God was breaking into the current world system through the body of Christ, thus keeping the early Church anchored squarely in the Age of Grace.
Now, the “command” to pray this 3 times daily, appears nowhere in the New Testament. As such, it does NOT really rise to the level of a command.
I assure you however, that you have committed to things with far less scope and relevance than this, so I see it as a really beneficial suggested practice.
Finally we have the Monthly, Seasonal, and Festival Prayers
Beyond the daily cycle, Jewish tradition featured expansive prayers to mark events on their “religious” calendar.
Just as a reminder, the Jewish people only adopted a non-religious calendar when they went into Babylonian Exile so that they could interact with the larger world around them. The names of days and dates were different on that calendar.
So what we call the Jewish religious calendar was really their real calendar and the only one that truly mattered for life as covenant children of God.
The other calendar was a practical calendar for civil and daily purposes.
They overlapped with the express purpose of maintaining their Jewishness.
You know that I do not hold the word religious in a bad light since it only means to worship God with life. But in today’s world it’s taken on such a reputation through distortions of true worship of God that I felt the need to interject this.
What I’m saying is the Jewish people did not have their “religious calendar” and then their “real life” calendar. To many Jews, the religious calendar WAS their calendar. They only adopted the Babylonian calendar to run alongside and overlap their own so they could interact with the world around them.
So for purposes of clarity alone I will refer to these events as appearing on their “Jewish calendar”.
Now last week you will probably remember that I kept on referring to the 18 to 19 blessings or benedictions which were prayed along with other prayers daily three times a day. The reason for mentioning both 18 and 19 is because the 19th wasn’t prayed daily as I will explain now it was tied to the new moon on the Jewish calendar.
- Rosh Chodesh (The monthly New Moon): It is mentioned in Numbers 28:11. The start of every Jewish month was celebrated with a special insert added into the 18 blessings (thus I’ve been saying 18-19). Its name (Ya’aleh V’Yavo) meant “May our remembrance arise and come…“). They also recited the Hallel (Psalms 113–118), which are explicit psalms of high praise. We will touch on this in closing.
- Sabbath & The Feasts (Passover, Feast of Weeks, Feast of tabernacles): On these holy days, an entire fourth prayer service was added called Musaf (meaning “Additional“). The Musaf prayer replaced the additional holiday sacrifices commanded in the Torah. The history of when and how this happened is a little muddied. That this developed into a regular and codified practice following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. is known. However the practice was already in place though probably less developed having begun during or shortly after their since certain sacrifices were no longer able to be given especially those corresponding to certain Sabbaths and holidays.
- Seasonal Rain Prayers: Because Israel relied entirely on seasonal rainfall, the daily prayers completely shifted their phrasing twice a year. From Passover to the feast of Tabernacles, they prayed for dew. From the feast of Tabernacles to Passover, they explicitly prayed for rain (using the phrase “He causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall“).
These too were “Christianized”, if you will, in both observance of the feasts and in the prayers associated with them.
We KNOW FOR CERTAIN that Paul did not support the keeping of these as a matter of righteousness or even a sign of what a “good Christian” has to do.
He told the Colossian believers not to allow anyone to bring them into bondage over this but that they were still important since they are “…are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” – Col. 2:17.
So a good side question for us to address is, did the early church practice these Feasts and prayers?
And the answer is Yes, extensively.
As we’ve focused on months now, but the early church followed the teachings and lives of the Apostles and in doing this we see very clearly that they did not immediately break away from Judaism; they viewed Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and initially continued practicing historical Jewish liturgies only through the lens of the New Covenant. Which is actually not only beneficial to the early Jews but would have been all the more instructional to the Gentiles once the gospel began to be preached to them.
Please note that I said instructional not required or mandated or commanded. In today’s world those who involve themselves with the Christian faith have fallen on hard times in correlating their beliefs with scripture.
This is largely due to the fact that they exhibit strong defensiveness against anything that appears structured, calling it “legalism”. This has, to no small degree, encouraged a profound ignorance in the body of Christ which is just crippling – and due to their ignorance they don’t even realize it.
As I said, some of these practices naturally changed due to external distortions brought into the church, but yes, these things were taught and modeled before the early church by the Apostles, Jesus placed over them.
Now to review, we saw how the early church practiced:
- Daily prayers which included the Shema, the Lord’s Prayer, the 18 blessings and the “Psalm of the day”.
- The Lord’s Prayer: (Matthew 6:9–13) which is heavily adapted from the 18 blessings with phrasings like “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name“ and “Your kingdom come“ are direct parallel summaries of the first few blessings of the 18 blessings and were allowed as a substitution for them.
- Adapting the Feast Prayers: The early Church continued observing the Feasts but reimagined them through Christ. Paul explicitly tells the Gentile church in Corinth to keep the festival of Passover/Unleavened Bread (“Let us therefore celebrate the festival… with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth“ –1 Corinthians 5:8).
- Let me say however, in the construction of the Greek and the greater context of that chapter, Paul was likely speaking metaphorically. Nevertheless, celebrating these Feasts through the lens of their fulfillment in Christ is highly instructional and a blessing – but their observance is NOT a commandment.
- That having been said, God Himself clearly chose the Feast of Passover for the Redemption price paid for the sins of the world. He chose the Festival of First Fruits to mark the actual beginning of the New Covenant in the conversion of the disciples and those who saw Jesus during the 40 days following His resurrection. He also chose the Feast of Weeks as the time He would pour out His Spirit upon His sons and daughters as we read in Acts 2.
In addition to these prayers, creeds and liturgies we opened with last week, I had also mentioned the hymns they would sing. One of those was the Hallel and I told you I would tell you something about that enclosing but we had to wrap things up before I could get to her last week. So I will mention it today.
If you remember, in Matthew 26:30, at the conclusion of the Passover Seder, it says, “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
The “hymn” they sang was the traditional Passover Hallel (Psalms 113–118). Jesus and His disciples literally quoted these Old Testament Psalms right before His arrest.
Knowing the Key focus’ of these psalms enables us to understand what thoughts were being sung and rehearsed in the hymn they sang, which are these:
- Psalm 113 – Who is like God. Bless His name. He is above all nations. He delivers us.
- Psalm 114 – Hallmarks their deliverance from Egypt which foreshadowed redemption,
- Psalm 115 – Give Glory to Your Name. Show the world You are our God.
- Psalm 116 – The Lord heard my cries for mercy and delivered my soul from death.
- Psalm 117 – Praise the Lord’s steadfast love to all nations.
- Psalm 118 – “(24) This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (25) Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! (26) Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD. (27) The LORD is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! (28) You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. (29) Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”
The uneducated in the modern church looks at these practices as dead, overly formal and legalistic. The early church however, saw them as anchors for their faith, life to their souls and a means by which they enthroned God as king in their lives and the centering attention on His kingdom and their role in it.
In the modern church we view this as too structured, leaving little room for the Holy Spirit to move, but the early church understood these more like train-rails which confined their worship to an environment where the Holy Spirit could move unhindered!
This way of thinking is very clearly Illustrated in 1 Corinthians 14 were called goes out of his way to press the point that in our assemblies there must be structure and order, and that it is within the confines of that environment that we can confidently expect the Holy Spirit manifest Himself in teaching, preaching, the gifts moving through and among all and in His Supernatural moving upon each individual heart.
Now in closing I want to impress you with a few thoughts.
None of the prayers, liturgies, creeds or hymns were used or viewed as staunch, dry, abstract theological or doctrinal practices. They were practices that held their souls like an anchor from drifting and would United their hearts together commonly held understandings of God and their relation to him. Far from being dry and dead, they were loved and treasured parts of their gatherings. In much the same way that a modern church would feel somewhat robbed of the full expression of service if there were no time of praise and worship the early church would have felt that times of assembling together was lacking in that robust and rich tradition which bound their hearts together in common beliefs and love had they not practice them.
Additionally, and I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating…
None of “…THE prayers” replaced those moments and occasions of spontaneous prayers or Spirit led intercessions which are clearly revealed in the epistles. We see some of Paul’s letters, examples of the contents of prayers he prayed over the churches regularly.
I also wanted to end on a note that I think reveals part of an aspect of prayer that God greatly values which more corresponds to the type of spontaneous prayers we are most accustomed to.
Turn with me if you will to Acts 12.
Acts 12:1-25,
“(1) About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. (2) He killed James the brother of John with the sword, (3) and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread.
(4) And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people.
(5) So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
(6) Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. (7) And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands.
(8) And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so.
And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” (9) And he went out and followed him.
He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.
(10) When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him.
(11) When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
(12) When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.
(13) And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. (14) Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate.
(15) They said to her, “You are out of your mind.”
But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!”
(16) But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.
(17) But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said,
“Tell these things to James and to the brothers.”
Then he departed and went to another place.
(18) Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. (19) And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.”
So this was an example of non-structured prayer times in the church. It is also an example of urgent and continual prayer that was largely supported by no faith at all and yet, it appears as if God honored it – which itself is instructional. It suggests that God is more concerned with love than even faith. Not to say that faith is in any way unimportant or that love is a replacement for it, but it is valued highly before God.
In fact, the only other place this Greek word for urgently appears in the scripture is in 1 Peter 1:22 and it is about having and expressing continual and fervent love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
“(22) Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,”
These were prayers which the church could do in unison and which created a sense of unity in faith and practice which the modern church is deeply in need of.
Blessings!
Blessings!
