LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 351

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
name” is to confess Him as Lord. To be invited and urged by Him to pray is
an invitation to pray in faith and so to pray as Jesus prays, not in a spirit that
is antithetical to Him. It is the prayers of those who abide in Him and in His
words that He promises to grant. To pray for evil cannot be done “in Jesus’
name,” for He will not be a party to our curses (Luke 6:28; James 3:9–10) nor
does He encourage our envy and greed (Matt. 16:24–26).
Jesus’ well-known story contrasting the proud prayer of the Pharisee with
the humble plea of a repentant tax collector (Luke 18:10–14) reminds us that
prayer in Jesus’ name cannot be an exercise in egotism. Exaggerated claims by
those who suggest that they have a special “pipeline to God” which gives their
prayers a unique power to work miracles are misplaced at best and arrogant
at worst. The “power of prayer” is often viewed and discussed in confusing
ways. Whatever else the phrase may mean, this much is certain: Christian
prayer seeks the loving power of God, and does so with legitimate confidence
because it knows Him as Father through Jesus Christ, the Son. Our confidence
in prayer is confidence in God. That God can and does help and heal His suffering children in response to prayer is a fact of Scripture and experience, but
He does the healing, not prayer itself, and He does it according to His good
and gracious will. Luther warned of prayers that “are concerned more with
our honor than with God’s.”44 Athanasius, writing about one of his heroes in
the faith who was noteworthy for healings, explained where the power to heal
lies: “Antony, then, healed not by giving out commands, but by praying and
by calling upon Christ’s name, so that it was clear to all that it was not he who
did this, but the Lord showing His loving-kindness to men and curing sufferers through Antony.”45 Note that Athanasius corrects a misunderstanding of
the source of healing, and so encourages prayer for such special signs of kindness from God. Similarly, the cautions herein are not intended to discourage
fervent and persistent prayers to God for healing and for all other blessings of
body, mind, and soul.
Prayer, then, is a solemn and joyous act of worship flowing from true
faith in and gratitude for the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. It is an ongoing
response to God’s grace that encompasses a believer’s whole life and being and
the whole life and being of the church. There are, of course, other responses to
the Good News of God’s undeserved love in Jesus Christ. Other aspects of the
Christian life also flow from the thankful heart of the believer in Christ by the
power of the Holy Spirit at work through the means of grace. But prayer is of
such significance as a distinguishing mark of the sanctified life that Luther can
say: “After the preaching of the Gospel whereby God speaks to us, this is the
greatest and foremost work, that by prayer we in turn speak to God.”46

Chapter Two: Why Do Christians Pray?
Prayer and the “paradox” of Law and Gospel
To answer the question “What is prayer?” is also, in a sense, to answer
the question “What is the purpose of prayer?” or “Why should I pray?” For
if prayer is, in fact, a Spirit-generated response of faith to God’s undeserved
love in Jesus Christ, if it is a continual and unceasing sighing and crying out
to the Father on whom we depend for every aspect of our existence as God’s
children, then it is difficult to imagine a believer requesting or requiring a list
of “reasons” to explain or justify the activity of prayer. No one ever asks (to use
Luther’s analogies for prayer), “What is the purpose of breathing?” or “Why
should I allow my heart to beat?”
And yet it is to this very question—the question “Why should I pray?”—
that we turn our attention in this section. In doing so we have opportunity to
reflect once again on the intimate relationship between prayer and the Gospel. The question “Why should I pray?” prods us to probe and ponder the
seemingly paradoxical teaching of Scripture regarding the dual nature of the
Christian as simul iustus et peccator,47 and the Christian’s continual need to hear
the dual (and seemingly paradoxical) voice of God as He speaks to his people
in words of both Law and Gospel.
One of the most theologically lucid and, at the same time, practical and
pastoral discussions of the purpose of prayer is Martin Luther’s introduction
to the exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in The Large Catechism. Before commenting “part by part” (or petition by petition), Luther says, “the most necessary
thing is to exhort and encourage the people to prayer, as Christ and the
apostles also did.”48
It should be noted, first of all, that “the most necessary thing” to which
Luther refers assumes the relevance of the question, “Why should I pray?” If
God’s people were not (outwardly or inwardly) struggling with this question,
it would not be necessary to “exhort and encourage” them to prayer. And
the “first thing to know” with regard to this question “is this: It is our duty to
pray because of God’s command.”49 By this Luther refers to God’s command
against the vain use of his name (Ex. 20:7).
Thereby we are required to praise the holy name and to pray
or call upon it in every need. For calling upon it is nothing
else than praying. Prayer, therefore, is as strictly and solemnly
commanded as all the other commandments. . . . This God

47
44

AE, 42:21.

Athanasius, The Life of Saint Antony, tr. Robert T. Meyer, Ancient Christian Writers (New
York: Newman Press, 1950), 89 (§84).
45

46

WA 46, 81.

Both saint and sinner at the same time.

48
LC 3, 4, KW, 441. In a footnote, KW lists the following passages for reference and study:
Matt. 7:7; Luke 18:1, 21:36; Rom. 12:12; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17; 1 Tim. 2:1; James 1:6, 5:13; 1 Peter
4:8; Jude 20.
49

LC 3, 5, KW, 441.

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requires of us; it is not a matter of our choice. It is our duty and
obligation to pray if we want to be Christians.50

In the Creed we learn how God has sent the Holy Spirit “to offer and apply to
us this treasure of salvation” through the Word and the sacraments.57

These words raise an important question: Is “the first thing to know about
prayer” (as Luther argues here) that “God has commanded it,” or is the first
thing to know about prayer (as was argued in the previous section) that it is a
response of faith to God’s grace in Christ Jesus?

For in all three articles God himself has revealed and opened
to us the most profound depths of his fatherly heart and his
pure, unutterable love. . . . [W]e could never come to recognize
the Father’s favor and grace were it not for the Lord Christ,
who is a mirror of the Father’s heart. Apart from him we see
nothing but an angry and terrible judge. But neither could we
know anything of Christ, had it not been revealed by the Holy
Spirit.58

In seeking to answer this question, we need to pay close attention (first
of all) to the context in which Luther offers these comments on prayer in
The Large Catechism. Luther’s discussion of the Lord’s Prayer in The Large Catechism is placed very intentionally after careful and thorough treatments of the
Ten Commandments (part one of the catechism) and the Apostles’ Creed (part
two). Accordingly, Luther begins the section on the Lord’s Prayer by stating:
“We have heard what we are to do and to believe. . . . Now follows the third
part, how we are to pray.”
The Ten Commandments tell us “what we are to do.” At the same time,
they expose our complete inability—apart from God’s power and mercy—to
do “what we are to do.” Luther concludes his discussion of the tenth and final
commandment by emphasizing that “this commandment remains, like all
the rest, one that constantly accuses us and shows just how upright we really
are in God’s sight”51— how completely lacking we are in true righteousness.
Those who regard the Commandments as a set of easy-to-follow rules for
attaining favor with God and man “fail to see . . . that no one is able to keep
even one of the Ten Commandments as it ought to be kept.”52 “Both the Creed
and the Lord’s Prayer must come to our aid, as we shall hear later. Through
them we must seek and pray for help and receive it continually.”53
The first and most important help comes from the Creed. The commandments show us “all that God wishes us to do or not to do.” The Creed shows us
“all that we must expect and receive from God.”54 In the Creed “we see how
God the Father has given himself to us, with all his creatures, has abundantly
provided for us in this life, and, further, has showered us with inexpressible
eternal treasures through His Son and the Holy Spirit.”55 In the Creed we learn
how Jesus, our Lord, “has snatched us, poor lost creatures, from the jaws of
hell, won us, made us free, and restored us to the Father’s favor and grace.”56

351

It is only at this point—having laid bare the threats and demands of the
Law and having exulted in the gifts and promises of the Gospel—that Luther
is ready and able to talk about prayer. It is true that when Luther does talk
about prayer in The Large Catechism he speaks of it as a command of God,
“as strictly and solemnly commanded as all the other commandments.” But
it is also true that Luther clearly and intentionally sets the discussion of this
command in the context of the Gospel which he has just (in part two) finished
extolling. The very structure of The Large Catechism allows (and even requires)
us to say, therefore, that for Luther, too, “the first thing to know” about prayer
is its relationship to the Gospel, since apart from the Gospel there would and
could be no such thing as true, God-pleasing prayer. Without parts one and
two of the catechism, there would be no part three. Without the Lord who
came to reconcile us to the Father, there would be no Lord’s Prayer, no possibility of addressing God as “Our Father.” Nor could we ever pray, “Forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” apart from the
manger, the cross, and the open tomb of the only Savior of the world, Jesus
Christ.
Furthermore, as we will see, Luther in The Large Catechism does much
more than simply remind us that God has commanded prayer. He also tells us
why God commands it, and in so doing he explains how prayer, along with the
Creed, is also a gift of a gracious God meant not to burden us or to make our
lives more difficult, but (on the contrary!) to “help us”59 in ways that we could
never help ourselves.

Why God urges us to pray
By graciously and wisely commanding us to pray, God gives us, first, a
powerful tool and a weapon in our ongoing struggle—against the devil, the
world, and our flesh—to live in obedience to God and his commands (which
are themselves intended for our spiritual and temporal blessing).

50

LC 3, 6, 8, KW, 441.

51

LC 1, 310, KW, 427.

52

LC 1, 316, KW, 428.

53

LC 1, 316, KW, 428.

54

LC 2, 1, KW, 431.

57

LC 2, 38, KW, 436.

55

LC 2, 24, KW, 433.

58

LC 2, 64-65, KW, 439-440.

56

LC 2, 30, KW, 434.

59

LC 1, 316, KW, 428.

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2013 Convention Workbook