One interesting tradition that we have in churches in the United States is that of bowing our heads and closing our eyes when we pray. I can’t find any biblical examples of people assuming that exact posture to pray.
Any idea where that came from? What are some of the prayer postures you can think of from Scripture? Have you seen any of them practiced in a public setting?
Personally, I get nervous with non-biblical phrases that get repeated too often or extra-biblical practices that come to be the norm. That’s how traditions become laws and innocent people get emotionally trampled over nothing.
“We call Bible things by Bible names, do bible things in Bible ways, speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent!!!”
Well… except for prayer posture. And church buildings. And Sunday school. And…
I may be mistaken, but I think the one prayer posture you never see in Scripture is sitting down. Yet, that’s almost exclusively how we pray in our assemblies. Nothing wrong with that — but why not incorporate some kneeling, laying face-down, standing with hands raised?
You’re absolutely right about how traditions become laws. Look at how we’ve made rules for “church buildings” when Scripture is completely silent concerning a local church owning and maintaining a building!
oh yeah, we stand for “Stand up for Jesus” but we never kneel when singing “Kneel at the Cross”
kneeling hurts, standing gives us an opportunity to stretch our legs and rest our bums
Tim,
Did you hear about the pledge of allegiance case?
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/10/empire.html
–guy
Jeff,
When I’m feeling cantankerous, I point out that calling “Bible things by Bible names” is an oxymoron. The Bible never calls itself “the Bible.”
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Brian,
In other cantankerous moments, I’ve specifically told congregations to remain sitting during “Stand Up For Jesus,” since that’s not what the song is talking about. Wouldn’t want people to feel like they’d done what the song says merely by getting on their feet.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Guy,
Wow! WOW!!
I’m hoping this judge gets a severe reprimand. Pretty scary.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Irks me every time I hear “let’s bow our heads to pray”. I prefer to pray with my head uplifted!
my guess would be that it comes from the story of the Pharisee and the publican at prayer.
I’m a kneeler. My friend Scott at church is a prostrater, I guess: elbows and knees, face to the floor. He humbles me.
I’m still too modern (in public, anyway) to convince myself that a different prayer posture would be anything but divisive.
In private, I pray in all sorts of ways – but publicly, I either bow-and-close or look up towards the ceiling.
I remember my grandfather and other older men regularly kneeling in the aisles during prayers in assemblies. My father, like many other preachers of his generation, would bow his head and raise his right hand high into the air as he would say a few words and utter a brief prayer before immersing someone into Christ. Interestingly, all of this was in the context of rather conservative Churches of Christ, and, to my knowledge, was never considered divisive or an “issue.” Sadly, it would be in some of those same churches today.
Tim, I read an article that talked about how controversial it was when people stopped kneeling to pray. The article implied that it was because people didn’t want to mess up their nice clothes.
Nick, I generally don’t disagree with you because I generally can’t find much to disagree with you about! But I will this time. Gently!
Why would assuming a natural and biblical posture in prayer with gathered church family be divisive?
And, whom would be causing the division? Those who would worship as the Spirit moves them with no judgment/complaint against others? Or those who would judge and complain about others?
In all the years I’ve knelt among my church family, I’ve never said anything to anyone to encourage or discourage it. Nor has anyone said anything to me. I don’t know if anyone has ever spoken to my friend Scott (mentioned above) about his practice of obeisance, but if they have, it certainly hasn’t deterred him!
Keith, I promise you I wasn’t promoting my thoughts as ones to be emulated. If pushed to defend that way of thinking, I could only say that the assembly is not about me and what I feel like doing, but about US and what we are doing together. Those postures, I would probably argue, are better kept as part of my closet-relationship with the Father – did not the Master teach us to beware of practicing our piety before others?
When I said, “I’m still too modern…” I wasn’t complimenting myself. I’m actually saying that part of my mind still believes that what I do with my body has no bearing on what I do with my soul. That’s the “still too modern” part of my thinking.
When we sang “Glorify Thy Name” this Sunday together, my hands kept creeping higher and higher — yet I still keep them below pew level to keep from distracting my more conservative brethren. Please believe me when I say that I don’t know that I’m doing the right thing — I’m deeply torn between the fear of placing a stumbling block before my brothers and sisters and the passion to express myself in worship. However, even when I say that, I hear myself saying, “Express MYSELF???”
The assembly isn’t about expressing MYSELF. I have the whole rest of the week for that – that’s what my humble attempts to practice the presence of God have taught me.
The assembly’s about sharing and serving one another and doing everything I can to foster the drawing of the whole assembly into the presence of God. And I really don’t know whether more expressive worship postures from me would help or hinder that.
On the other hand …
Feeling free to express worship might trigger a torrent of freedom to do so among your church family. There could be renewal, deepening, penitence, revival. It could be unanimous!
Okay, that’s optimistic at best and Pentecostal at least.
But we never know until we try.
(And why the reserve at “expressing MYSELF”? We express our gifts in the way we sing, the volume, the intensity, whether lead, tenor, bass, (or improvisation!) … It’s the blend of all these “selves” that makes the song. And God loves to hear and see each self expressed when it is emptying itself OF self, and opening itself to His Holy Spirit. Don’t you think?)
Yes, I do think that: but it is precisely in the nature of that improv harmony that I struggle because, as NT Wright says, a jazz musician is free to improvise, but not to do whatever they want. Improv can shatter beauty and power far more easily than it can enhance it.
Simply put: how do we identify the difference between “improv” and “showing off”?
PS: Just to make sure… I’m not worried about “salvation” here – I’m not afraid that making a mistake with this will doom me. Rather, I’m trying to make the hard call between ‘good’ and ‘best’ as well as trying to evaluate whether it’s just my 1 Cor 6 stomach that wants me to be expressive or if it would actually edify the body.
John Mark weighs in on Love and the Assembly:
http://johnmarkhicks.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/when-we-assemble-1-we-love-each-other/
“I’m deeply torn between the fear of placing a stumbling block before my brothers and sisters and the passion to express myself in worship. However, even when I say that, I hear myself saying, “Express MYSELF???” ”
The fact that you feel you can’t “express yourself” by raising your hands is probably a distraction from the reason you “find your hand going up”. That “stumbling block” is a two way street isn’t it?
Perhaps it is not “ourselves” we are expressing, but God expressing Himself through us! Those who are “offended” (the word we would often use) by someone raising their hands may be focused more on the fact they disapprove of you expressing yourself rather than how they should be expressing themselves to God (with our without raising hands – that is not what matters). It is the expression of the heart to God that defines worship in the first place….if that “makes your hand go up” then SO WHAT?