The Nature of Words, the Nature of Prayer

In Phillip Yancey's book Finding God in Unexpected Places he recounts from Augustine's Confessions the history of how St. Ambrose had learned to read silently without moving his lips, and how Augustine and his friends would gather round to watch this incredible thing, amazed that Ambrose could understand and retain the unspoken words. This was a very unusual and groundbreaking feat, and turned out to be a somewhat controversial one as folks debated whether this was a good thing to do or not since words were clearly intended to be spoken. It was also a feat inaccessible to most people at that time since very few could read and write. As a result, reading was normally a group event and was done aloud. This remained the case until well after the arrival of the printing press. Interestingly, when reading silently became common, personal prayer also became more common. Until then, prayer was also normally a group event, done aloud.



This was not entirely consistent with Biblical practice, however, though it may shed some light on why the 12 Disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. It may well be that public prayers were their main experience with prayer prior to Jesus. Prayer aloud was indeed very common. Jesus, however, apparently did not limit Himself to prayer aloud or at least not to prayer in public. In Matthew14:23 we are told that he went up to a mountain by Himself to pray after feeding the 5000; Luke 5:16 says that He often slipped away to the wilderness to pray; Luke 6:12, Luke 9:28, and John 6:15 are other instances of His going off to pray alone. It seems to have been His custom. I don't know whether He spoke his prayers aloud or not when He was alone, but He may have. That may be how we we have the record of his prayer in John 17 and in Gethsemane. However, when He instructs the disciples in Matt 6 he tells them not to pray as the hypocrites do in public, but to go to an inner room, shut the door and pray in secret.



There is something about words that demand to spoken, and writing becomes a surrogate form of speech. It is understandable that prayer would at times be aloud and in groups due to that, especially among those who cannot read. And yet, Jesus clearly set the example for personal, private prayer, whether sp0ken aloud or not. It is interesting that His example did not seem to become the norm in the early church, however. As with other areas in life like education, it seems to be easier for us to talk about subjects of importance and depth in public, like in a classroom, than at home or in one on one conversation. How easily we relegate the matters of ultimate importance only to formal settings and do not attempt to deal with them with our children at home or our neighbors in daily conversation. I think for a similar reason personal, private prayer may also be harder than public prayer. Private prayer is too easily confined to our list of needs and wants. This is not to say that public worship is always deep and deals with ultimate issues; the public practice of our faith can also become trite if we allow it. But it often happens that we want the church or school to deal with the hard stuff.



This reminds me of the need for both the formal and the informal, the private and intimate as well as the public. The public can remind us of the hard topics that we otherwise avoid, the private challenges us to get beyond the merely public.