The Early Shape of Daily Prayer

Our class was recorded Sep 4, 2019, and starts at 12:23 in the video below. Feel free to follow along by clicking through the slideshow above.

I love starting each morning with a good cup of coffee and the word of God. For several years I’ve tried to read a few chapters each day, making my way back through the Bible’s story of redemption by the end of the year. And on days when my reading is shortened or pushed to later in the day (or the next!), I feel a bit off.

It reminds me of what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2Co 4:16 NKJV). Despite everything else going on in the world around him, Paul knows why he does what he’s doing, and the One he’s doing it for.

With a little unpacking, he even tells us how that renewal comes about: the glorious light of the gospel of Christ is a treasure that God himself stores up within us, in our hearts and our bodies (2Co 4:4-7). It is his overwhelming power, shining through his word that renews our inner humanity. In short, the gospel belongs in our heart.

In fact, if we look back through Scripture we should begin to notice just how important this is to God:

• “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart” (Dt 6:4-6).
• “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You. … Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps 119:11, 97).
• “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer 31:33).
• “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach)” (Ro 10:8).
• “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jam 1:21).

God’s own power for daily living, and daily renewal is opened up to us through the power of his word. What is perhaps surprising, though, is what Paul commands the church to do in order to get the word into their hearts: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col 3:16).

Catch that? Paul says we need to learn to sing. That’s how we treasure up God’s word, how God writes it on our hearts, how we keep it on the tip of our tongues, how we meditate on it all the day, and how we walk daily in the grace of Christ. That doesn’t mean we shelf our Bibles; it means we learn to sing the Word! Understanding the role of song and prayer helps us in two important ways.

First, it helps us go back and look at what the early church actually did. Kind of like last week, it shifts our question from, What should the church do? to What did the church do? What did daily devotions look like in the early church? Here’s a quick outline:

• The Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:91-13) formed the heart of early Christian prayer, and was used as an introduction or outline for their own prayers (Everett Ferguson, Early Christians Speak, Vol. 1, ch. XII; Didache VIII).
• The Psalms provided a ready-made songbook for the early church, using God’s own words to learn how to pray and sing to God. By the fourth century, Psalms 63 and 141 were recommended (Apostolic Constitutions 2.7.59). And later on they were joined by others, including Psalms 51 and 91.
• Other Canticles or Scripture-songs throughout the Bible helped connect the life of Christ to the bigger picture of God’s plan for all creation. Most common were the songs associated with the birth of Christ, like the Song of Mary (Lk 1:46-55), the Song of Zechariah (1:68-79), and the Song of Simeon (2:29-32).
• New hymns were then added to this vast store of Biblical songs, often rooted in the words of Scripture themselves. These include many songs still in our songbooks today, with titles like “Glory to God in the Highest,” “Glory to the Father,” “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” “Hail, Gladdening Light,” and “Lord, Have Mercy.”

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If we were to picture the shape of daily prayer, it might look a bit like this, with the Lord’s Prayer at the center, the canticles connecting the gospel to the big picture of the Bible, the Psalms making up the largest biblical cycle of songs, and our own human hymns pointing us back to the Bible:

The most common way of using these prayers and songs was twice a day, at morning and evening. Limiting ourselves to sources from the first four centuries, it looks a bit like this:

By the end of the sixth century this morning-and-evening pattern expanded in many places to include prayers at midday and at night, kind of like this:

The second way this helps us is in shifting our focus in our daily times with God. When we open our Bibles each day, it is not primarily about receiving information or intellectual knowledge. It is instead about growing toward and knowing more of the One who speaks to us through his word (2Pe 3:18).

And this points us back to praise. As the apostle Paul said, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1Th 5:16-18). Or as another Paul once said, “what is fundamental to the early understanding of daily prayer is that the real aim is unbroken communion with God,” all else is merely “a guide and aid towards the practice of ceaseless prayer” (Paul Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church, p. 151). So even if we look at the early Christians and say, Thanks, but no thanks, their example still helps us envision older and better ways to incorporate song and prayer in our daily walk with God.

Looking to the early church thus helps us restore both the form and the function of daily prayer. In this series, we’ll follow their example by exploring the fourfold pattern of prayer outlined above. After each time of prayer, I’ll also offer a class video and slideshow to walk through “a psalm, a hymn, and a spiritual song” used at that time of day. But as we go along, don’t forget why it all matters. As the apostle Paul would remind us: The gospel belongs in your heart. Teach one another that good news with every song you sing and every prayer you pray. Live out God’s own wisdom and grace. Grow more into him, and you will find your strength for the day.