Rhetorical Analysis of Paul's Letters

Why was rhetoric so important to a young evangelistic religious movement like Christianity? T. Engberg-Pedersen explains the matter perfectly: "Paul has also shown that precisely when the question is one of changing other people's lives the very content of the gospel demands a ‘method' of effecting such changes which is directly opposed to any use of force [or trickery].... It is that of speaking to them in ways that do not encroach upon their independence." One cannot command people to believe the gospel but must persuade them, and the art of persuasion in the Greco-Roman world was rhetoric.
 
Even after one has persuaded persons to believe, an apostolic figure like Paul knew that it continued to be better to persuade than to command one's converts, as in his words to his coworker Philemon in the midst of another impressive piece of deliberative rhetoric: "Therefore, although I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love.... I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would be voluntary" (Phlm. 8-9, 14). Paul knew perfectly well that proclaiming a monotheistic Jewish message in a polytheistic culture where anti-Semitism was rife required more than just words spoken in earnest and with passion. It required persuasion. The objections and the mental and emotional obstacles in the minds and hearts of the listeners had to be answered and removed if Jesus was to become their Lord and not merely another religious sideshow. And Paul knew that God had not left it simply up to the Holy Spirit to do all the heavy lifting of persuasion. Rather God commissioned proclaimers to do their part so that word and Spirit might work together to persuade and convert. The use of rhetoric was especially apropos and important in cities in the empire heavily influenced by Greco-Roman values, including by rhetoric - cities like Philippi, which had at the turn of the era become a Roman colony.
 
Deliberative rhetoric, had been the rhetoric of the Greek assembly (the ekklesia), the rhetoric of advice and consent, the rhetoric that helped people make decisions about the course they would take into the future. This sort of rhetoric, in the main, is what we find in Paul's persuasive missives as he seeks to shape the course charted by his charges into their future, including when he would no longer be around. As Quintilian stressed, letters that are meant to be proclaimed on arrival are in the main written-out speeches and were closer in both form and substance, in both style and content, to acts of persuasion than to ordinary mundane letters.
 
A bit more should be said at this juncture about the rhetorical device known as "exemplification." According to Quintilian, a named or anonymous person's character is set forth in part to excite or conciliate an audience's feelings and to spur them on to imitation. Using such examples was not merely an effective way to embellish one's oratory and bring it to the point of persuasion, but also a deliberate means of paraenesis, and used precisely that way by rhetoricians and moralists of Paul's era. The importance of this for analysis of Philippians should be obvious. Paul is using theologically charged arguments, including using a Christ hymn to urge the audience to have the same mindset as was found in Christ and in those who, like Paul, imitate Christ, and to walk worthily of the gospel and its principles.
 

--- Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, 2011.

Synagogue

The destruction of the temple during the Jewish exile led the Jews to emphasize the study and application of Old Testament law. This attitude contributed to the establishment of the synagogue as a pillar of Jewish practice. The exact time of the origin of the synagogue is uncertain, but many scholars have suggested that synagogues first appeared during exilic or postexilic gatherings of Jews to read and study the law. By the first century, synagogues were widely located throughout Palestine and the Diaspora. It was customary to form a synagogue whenever as many as ten Jewish men resided in a community.

The synagogue served as the center of religious, social, and educational life for the Jewish community. Jews gathered weekly for the study of the law and the worship of Jehovah. During the week children were instructed in the Jewish faith and learned to read and write. The synagogue also served as a center for receiving offerings for the poor and administering charity to the needy.

The synagogue was organized around a head or president (Mark 5:22), who likely was elected by vote from the body of elders. He presided over synagogue services and intervened in any disputes (Luke 13:14). The elders had general responsibilities for spiritual care of the congregation. An officer known as a hazzan cared for the building and its contents, blew the trumpet announcing the Sabbath day, and sometimes taught in the school at the synagogue. Perhaps the official of Luke 4:20 who received the scroll of Scripture from Jesus held this office. The use of the term rabbi as a reference to an ordained scholar belongs to the period after the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70. In the New Testament, the term was largely used to address Jesus or others as an authoritative teacher or master (Matt. 23:7; Mark 9:5; John 1:38; 3:2).

The synagogue building was normally a substantial stone structure, often elaborately furnished. Each synagogue had a chest containing the law scroll. The speaker’s platform was raised, and the congregation sat on stone benches around the walls or on mats or wooden chairs in the center of the room. To read from the scroll, the speaker stood. To preach, he sat down (Luke 4:16–20).

The synagogue service consisted of a recitation of the Jewish creed known as the Shema (see Deut. 6:4–5). This recitation was accompanied with praises to God known as the Shemone Esreh and was followed by a ritual prayer. The term Shemone Esreh suggests that there were eighteen benedictions of praise, but the actual number of benedictions varied by time and place. The reading of the Scriptures was followed by a sermon, explaining the portion that had been read. A blessing by a priest closed the service. In the absence of a priest, a prayer was substituted.

Jesus regularly attended and participated in synagogue services. Paul made synagogues his initial point of contact in the cities he visited (Acts 13:5). Some early Christian worship may have taken place in the synagogue, ...
 
Title: The New Testament: Its Background and Message, 2nd edition
Authors: David Alan Black, Thomas D. Lea
Publisher: B&H
  

20世纪的自由主义神学

受到自由主义神学的影响，一些大学、神学院和教会开始偏离他们原来的信仰。基督教基要派人士则成立了自己的机构，并采取了与现代文化划清界限的方式抵制自由主义神学的侵蚀。当自由主义神学开始侵占神学院和讲台的时候，基要派人士的回应是以激进的、分裂主义的观点看待整个生活——尤其是思想领域。他们消极避世的态度使得“反智主义”在他们当中一度盛行。他们把人们（甚至包括基督徒）接受教育并拥有知识看做危险之事，并把人的情感和经历高举到比思想更重要的地位上。
 
公众对基督教的看法一直很消极，基要派信徒也仍然持守着自己自杀式的、反对一切的分裂主义立场。终于，20世纪40年代，卡尔亨利（Carl Henry）和葛培理出现了。他们向人们展示出保守派基督教的一种更成熟的形式，它并没有在基督教的核心真理上妥协，这标志着现代福音派的诞生。
 
现代福音派重视人的思想，他们相信上帝呼召基督徒更多地参与到社会文化生活中，而不是消极地逃避它。因此，现代福音派在社会上得到了比基督教基要派更广泛的认同，但同时它也面临着挑战，那就是，在维持社会认知度的同时，它是否需要在基督教的核心信仰上有所妥协，或者是在文化无力改变社会现状的情况下，放弃基督徒警戒世人的责任？基督徒必须不断提醒自己，传递真理、影响社会是自己的责任。
 
新正统运动
 
20世纪初，自由主义神学的浪潮席卷了整个欧洲，然而，巴特坚持抵挡住了这股潮流的侵袭，开始了一场神学革命，后来被人们称为“新正统运动”。在面对纳粹党的疯狂举动时，他也表达了自己的反对立场。
 
巴特的思想无异于一枚炸弹，投向了自由主义神学阵营，于是他们开始向他咆哮，基督教保守派人士则开始向他鼓掌。不过，后者很快发现，他对圣经启示及其在基督徒生活中的作用的理解是有问题的。他说，圣经并不完全都是神的话，而是有一部分是神的话；圣经并不是来自神的直接启示，它记载的只是人类对上帝启示的回应。
 
结果，巴特遭到了来自两方面的批评。尽管如此，几乎所有生活在他那个时代和我们这个时代的人都承认，20世纪最伟大的神学家非巴特莫属。虽然他最初也来自自由主义神学的阵营，但后来他一直在尝试将自由主义神学拉回到正统基督教的根基上。即使他自己可能也没有完全归回，但正是他亲手埋葬了自由主义神学发展成为经典神学的希望。

——理查德 W. 科尼什，《简明教会历史》,2010.

20世纪对教会的冲击

除了科技的发展，另一个挑战便是共产主义的兴起与蔓延。自从主后一九一七年俄国革命以来，短短的几十年，共产政权统摄了世界三分之一的人口。共产主义是一套完整的宇宙人生观和历史观，对很多人有莫大的吸引力。共产主义之中不少人文理想根本是来自基督教，当然也有一些是与基督教对人的瞭解及理想有所冲突的。这些理想成为很多革命者的生命动力，推动革命。然而，共产主义的唯物思想否定了神的存在，也否定了宗教的价值，因此，当共产主义蔓延时，基督教便受到很大的压力。
 
马克思主义、存在主义、语言分析哲学等不断冲击基督教的思想，神学家面对这些思想的冲击不得不重新瞭解传统的信仰。从积极的角度来说，这是很好的，但偶一不慎，很容易让这些思想取代了教会信仰的实质。例如马克思主义在南美对神学思想影响极深，因而产生解放神学。解放神学固然不一定是错误，但问题是，当神学家完全用马克思主义去分析历史及社会状态，他们很容易失去了圣经的透视。不单如此，从马克思主义的角度看历史、社会的转变，革命是主要的动力。如此，神学家往往将圣经的信息解释成革命的信息，这是非常危险的。
 
语言分析哲学对神学也有相当的影响，语言分析哲学家认为神学语言是没有意义的，因此神学所讲的东西有很多都是在人的经验以外，是不能摸、不能见的事物，例如三位一体的理论等。因着这种挑战，在五十年代及六十年代纪中很多神学家便致力研究神学语言到底在20世纪是否还有它的地位。一些神学家研究的结论是，传统的神学语言在20世纪是完全无用的，就算是"神"这个字也没有什么意义；于是他们开始谈到将"神"这个名词从字典中抽出来。而"神死了"的神学思潮便是这样开始的。

20世纪是神学思潮汹涌，也是相当纷乱的时代。一个思潮兴起，流行一时，不到十年便又衰落。这种情况，使信徒感到很迷惘，甚至怀疑神学家在玩一些思想游戏，因此神学教导在很多信徒的心中也失去了过往崇高的地位。
 

——余达心，《基督教发展史新释》

20世纪教会的情况

在20世纪，科技发展急速，经济的发展更惊人，物质主义与消费主义更明显地成为文化的主流。而除此以外，共产主义的扩展更是前所未有的，也构成了20世纪很重要的特色。20世纪虽然在各方面都急速发展，但很奇怪的，欧洲人的自我形象却不断下降。原因很简单，两次的大战将他们过往极高的自信都打碎了。他们突然惊觉自己黑暗的一面；也很深的体会到罪的真实。同时，科技与物质文明的发展却带来了很多其他的问题，例如污染便是很好的例子。还有人与人之间的疏离已经到了不能忍受的程度，西方现代人在20世纪中叶开始不断地探索新的方向。
 
在十九世纪，教会可谓处处失利。在神学思想方面，新派神学攻占了很多神学院的阵地，尤其是在大学里面的神学系。在科学与信仰的争论中，科学似乎永远占上风，例如生物学家赫胥黎与牛津的主教在一次公开的学术辩论中，为达尔文的进化论辩论，结果牛津的主教惨败。进化论便毫无疑问的为人所接纳，并以此否定创造论。然而到了20世纪，形势却有所转变，神学家巴特首先举起反新派神学的旗帜，再次肯定圣经的启示及神的主动性，他强调，要瞭解神，我们必须放下我们为自己建立的宇宙人生观，放下我们的假设，安静地去聆听神的话。巴特在欧洲的影响至为深远。在他的领导下，一群忠于传统信仰的神学家开始在各神学院发挥他们的作用，收回部分已失的阵地。同时，在主后一九三Ｏ年开始，特别在美国，福音派渐渐兴起。

过往，忠于传统信徒的神学家或信仰在外面的各种压力下，退缩在自己小小的圈子内，称自己为基要派，将神学院、大学的阵地放弃掉，任由新派神学人士占据。但从三Ｏ年代开始，一些有见识有才学的基要信仰的人觉得要在知识界内重新建立基督教信仰的地位，并且要重新收复在大学及神学院失去的阵地。于是，福音派的神学院便一间接一间的开办，并且在学术水平上，直追大学内的神学系，而新一代的福音信仰的神学家便在四Ｏ年代出现，为福音信仰神学建立稳固的基础。
 
20世纪也是宣教运动退潮的时候。欧洲以外的地方，民族主义兴起，在西方文化影响下的各民族都寻求确立自己的身份，因而对于宣教士有很大的抗拒。同时，各地区的教会也寻求自立。一时间，宣教士失去了过往扮演的角色，以至有很大的失落感。十九世纪的宣教运动到了20世纪便渐渐失去了过去的活力。然而，这却刺激了地区教会的自立性及自主性，地区信徒的恩赐与活力便更深得发挥，这一种祝福是很多人所料不到的。各地区的教会，不单著意训练自己的领袖，更著意建立自己的神学，将神的启示更具体地在自己的文化传统内表达出来。所谓本色神学或本土神学便是20世纪才出现的现象。

 

——余达心，《基督教发展史新释》

How the Digital Age Stupefies Young People

Teenagers and young adults mingle in a society of abundance, intellectual as well as material. American youth in the twenty-first century have benefited from a shower of money and goods, a bath of liberties and pleasing self-images, vibrant civic debates, political blogs, old books and masterpieces available online, traveling exhibitions, the History Channel, news feeds . . . and on and on. Never have opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater. All the ingredients for making an informed and intelligent citizen are in place. 

But it hasn’t happened. Yes, young Americans are energetic, ambitious, enterprising, and good, but their talents and interests and money thrust them not into books and ideas and history and civics, but into a whole other realm and other consciousness. A different social life and a different mental life have formed among them. Technology has bred it, but the result doesn’t tally with the fulsome descriptions of digital empowerment, global awareness, and virtual communities. Instead of opening young American minds to the stores of civilization and science and politics, technology has contracted their horizon to themselves, to the social scene around them.

Young people have never been so intensely mindful of and present to one another, so enabled in adolescent contact. Teen images and songs, hot gossip and games, and youth-to-youth communications no longer limited by time or space wrap them up in a generational cocoon reaching all the way into their bedrooms. The autonomy has a cost: the more they attend to themselves, the less they remember the past and envision a future. 

They have all the advantages of modernity and democracy, but when the gifts of life lead to social joys, not intellectual labor, the minds of the young plateau at age 18. This is happening all around us. The fonts of knowledge are everywhere, but the rising generation is camped in the desert, passing stories, pictures, tunes, and texts back and forth, living off the thrill of peer attention. Meanwhile, their intellects refuse the cultural and civic

- Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, 2009.

The Failure of Reason and Knowledge

Postmodern culture generally — and postmodern Christian culture in particular — is profoundly disillusioned with the capacity of the mind’s reasoning ability as a force for the good. The Enlightenment (against which postmodernism is a reaction) was a period in history characterized by an unbridled optimism concerning human reason. Caught up in the enthusiasm over the new philosophy spawned by the work of René Descartes and the explosive progress in the sciences, Enlightenment thinkers were tempted to conclude that if only the world would think and reason properly, we would find our way into a utopian kind of existence.
 
Nowhere is this more evident than in Baruch Spinoza’s vision for philosophy and science done well. In his treatise On the Improvement of the Understanding, he explains that philosophy and science done well would enable him “to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.” Not a bad goal.
 
But the increasing knowledge characteristic of the rise of the “new science” and Cartesian philosophy did not culminate in continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. Instead, as postmodernists never tire of reminding us, it gave us Hiroshima. Of course, it gave us much that is good too. But to the postmodern mind, the rise of science and the accumulation of knowledge is now recognizable as being subject to the whims of human management and mismanagement. Increased knowledge is no guarantee of a better world. To live in a postmodern culture is to be alive to the failure of reason and knowledge to live up to their Enlightenment expectations.

-  Gregg A. Ten Elshof, I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, 2009.

Self-deceptive Strategies

1. Attention management 
Attention management has two sides. On the one hand, we manage to deceive ourselves by systematically avoiding attention to evidence against those beliefs upon which our felt well-being depends. On the other hand, we direct inordinate critical attention to evidence that opposes our cherished belief if that evidence can’t be avoided or if we think we’ll have to answer for it in public. We give it our attention, it seems, not so much to learn from it as to creatively discount it. Either way, through careful management of attention, we enable ourselves to be deceived over the long haul. Attention management, then, is the first of our self-deceptive strategies.
 
2. Procrastination
Many have agreed to take on the heart of Jesus, but they’re planning to do it later . . . much later. They’ll have the character of Jesus — just not now. For now, they’ll be, as the bumper sticker says, “not perfect . . . just forgiven.” Having received forgiveness because of the work of Jesus on the cross, they’ll live with the expectation that perfection will come to them all at once in the blink of an eye at the moment of passing from this life to the next. As a result, they procrastinate acting upon the clear biblical imperative to put on perfection. And the longer they procrastinate, the less clear it is to them that this is really what they ought to be doing anyway.
 
At this point, procrastination joins forces with attention management. It’s extremely difficult to reconcile with the witness of Scripture the belief that noticeable progress toward Christ-likeness awaits my bodily death. So I’ll need to direct my attention to those passages that emphasize themes like grace, forgiveness, and passivity. I’ll need either to avoid attention to, or explain away, those passages suggesting that I’m expected to work hard now to make progress toward Christ-likeness in this life.
 
 
3. Perspective Switching
Most of us monitor with some care the perspective others have of us. Often a decision to see the world from their perspective gives us relief from painful truths that haunt us. But we’re not happy to settle permanently into the perspective of the other. Our own perspective gives us special insight into our own circumstances and often yields the more attractive picture. So, as Sartre suggested, we switch back and forth depending on the demands of the moment.
 
4. Rationalization
Perspective switching is but one variation on what is perhaps the most recognizable of our strategies for self-deception: rationalization. To rationalize is to construct a rational justification for a behavior, decision, or belief arrived at in some other way. When we rationalize a behavior, for example, we locate reasons that would justify the behavior were they operational. We then present these reasons to ourselves and others as explaining our actual behavior. But the reasons are mere fictions. They play no causal role in the production of the behavior. One strategy for rationalizing, as we have seen, is to capitalize on the perspective of another. We find or create in those around us a perspective from which our actions and decisions are reasonable and right and we adopt that perspective.
Sometimes, though, there is nobody with the perspective our rationalizing requires. In this case, we are left to the devices of our imagination. We must construct — out of thin air, as it were — a story that satisfies the constraints of rationality and justifies our behavior or decision.
 
Instead, the mind is taken hostage by the will, and a more palatable explanation is invented.
 
 
5. Ressentiment
Crying sour grapes is one form of what Friedrich Nietzsche (and later Max Scheler) called “Ressentiment” — a re-ordering of the sentiments. We adjust our affections, sentiments, and value judgments in order to avoid severe disappointment or self-censure. When we cry sour grapes, we avoid the severe disappointment of not having what we want by convincing ourselves that we don’t really want it after all. Often the ploy for discrediting the desired object is to place inordinate value on something else instead…… Nietzsche famously attributes the Christian praise of humility and prizing of suffering to the ressentiment of the persecuted church. Since they could expect no better than humiliation and suffering, he said, the Christians re-ordered their sentiments in such a way as to praise humility and prize afflictio
 
Three forms of ressentiment:
(a) First, a generally recognized good is made an object of outright scorn for its unavailability.
(b) Second, a seemingly unavailable good is pushed to the edges of consciousness by super-valuing something else. We see both kinds of ressentiment in the various forms of Christian anti-intellectualism.
(c) In this final form, it’s not so much that there is an unavailable good creating a demand for the re-ordering of sentiments. It is rather that particular sentiments are deemed unacceptable, inappropriate, inconvenient, or otherwise undesirable. They are then recast as something other than what they are. They go undercover. They continue to operate, but they are renamed in such a way as to make them acceptable to the person who has them.
 

 -  Gregg A. Ten Elshof, I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, 2009

 
 

Deceiving Ourselves About Self-Deception

Philosophers, social scientists, and psychologists have long been aware of the pervasive reality of self-deception. For centuries, it has been called upon to explain various forms of irrationality and dysfunction. Interestingly, it has also been called upon to explain survival and success in a variety of contexts. Historically, few masters of Christian spirituality have failed to notice the significance of self-deception. Christian thinkers through the ages have had a special interest in the bearing of self-deception on the Christian life and the pursuit of — or flight from — God, and it has long served as a key element in the explanation of sin, moral failure, and the avoidance of God.
 
The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that the heart is deceitful above all things and asks, rhetorically, “who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The prophet Obadiah identifies a primary motive for self-deception: “Your proud heart has deceived you . . .” (Obadiah 3). The apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Galatians how self-deception enables those who are nothing to think that they are something (Galatians 6:3)…
 
An interesting thing happened, though, with the rise in prominence of the philosophical movement called existentialism. Beginning with Kierkegaard, the existentialists (including Sartre, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others) elevated authenticity to a place of primary importance in their understanding of the virtues. Due to the writings of the existentialists and other cultural trends, the “Good Person” was increasingly understood to be the “Authentic Person.” Being true to oneself became a — or, in some cases, the — chief good. Self-deception, then, was given a promotion in the ranking of vices. What was once a derivative vice — one whose primary importance was found in its ability to facilitate other, more serious, vices — became itself the most egregious of all sins.
 
But my point is that the elevation of “authenticity” as a virtue carries with it a promotion for self-deception among the vices. So, to the degree that we value authenticity, we will be averse to the suggestion that we are self-deceived. Believing myself to be authentic — to be true to myself and to others — will be a source of significant satisfaction and felt well-being for me. But, as it turns out, being genuinely honest with oneself is often hard work. And it is at this point that life cuts us a deal. If we can convince ourselves that we’re authentic people — that we’re not self-deceived — we can have all the benefit of theft over honest toil. We can experience the satisfaction associated with saying, “Whatever else is true of me, I’m honest with myself and with others. I know myself. I’m real.”
 

- Gregg A. Ten Elshof, I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, 2009.

 

Acting Out Our Beliefs

Sometimes I offer my students a thousand dollars if they’ll simply believe that there is a pink elephant standing next to me at the lectern. I even give them a few minutes with eyes closed and heads bowed to work up the relevant belief. I have yet to have anyone take the deal. They know that nobody will believe them if they claim to have taken on the belief, so they chuckle at the ridiculous invitation. We all know that belief just doesn’t work that way.
 
Interestingly, though, we seem to forget that belief doesn’t work that way when we go out evangelizing. We present our friends with the rewards and punishments associated with believing, or failing to believe, that Jesus died for their sins and conquered death in his resurrection. We then invite them to bow their heads and take on the belief. When they open their eyes, we invite them to think of themselves as believers — as having crossed over from non-belief to belief.
 
It won’t be long before they’ll be aware of a certain tension between their lived experience and what they think of themselves as believing. “Why,” one might ask, “do I not naturally act as though Jesus gave his life for me? Why don’t I find myself behaving toward him the way I would toward any other living human being who suffered what he suffered to set me free?” So long as we take it for granted that we believe — after all, isn’t that what happened at conversion? — we’ll assume that the problem is behavioral. “I’m just having the hardest time acting out my beliefs,” we’ll say.
 
But with very few exceptions, no one has any trouble acting out their beliefs. You do act in accordance with your beliefs. More likely, you just don’t believe what you’ve thought of yourself as believing. Rather than trying to work up behavior consistent with what we think we believe, we should be begging with the man who wanted desperately for Jesus to free his son from the demon that possessed him, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
 

-  Gregg A. Ten Elshof, I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, 2009

Prayer Directs Your Goals

Reorientation and goal setting do not need to be cold and calculating as some suppose. Goals are discovered, not made. God delights in showing us exciting new alternatives for the future. Perhaps as you enter into a listening silence the joyful impression to learn how to weave or how to make pottery emerges. Does that sound too earthy, too unspiritual a goal? God is intently interested in such matters. Are you?
 
Maybe you will want to learn and experience more about the spiritual gifts of miracles, healing, and tongues. Or you may do as one of my friends: spend large periods of time experiencing the gift of helps, learning to be a servant. Perhaps this next year you would like to read all the writings of C. S. Lewis or D. Elton Trueblood. Maybe five years from now you would like to be qualified to work with handicapped children. Does choosing these goals sound like a sales manipulation game? Of course not. It is merely setting a direction for your life. You are going to go somewhere so how much better to have a direction that has been set by communion with the divine Center. 
 

-  Richard J. Foster, "Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth”

Praying "In His Name"

 Our first inclination usually is to pray in a way that fits with what we think is best, or according to the results we desire. For example, if we are in pain, or receive an unfavorable diagnosis, we will usually immediately pray for God to take away the pain or completely heal whatever is ailing us. We pray for our circumstances to change.
 
It is not wrong to pray for these things, but it would be better to pray something like this:

 
Lord, I know you have a purpose for everything you bring into my life, and my prayer is that you would be glorified in whatever way seems best. Please teach me what you want me to learn from this so that my faith will grow. Please help me to see what your sovereign purposes might be, so that I may rejoice in your plan and rely upon your grace. But Lord, if it would be pleasing to you, I do ask that you would bring relief from this pain and healing from this hurt, for this is my desire. Either way, I trust you and I pray that your will be done. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This, I believe, is a healthy way to pray. It may not be perfect (I am growing in my understanding of how to pray), but it does display trust, teachableness, and reliance upon God. It also seeks to humbly accept his sovereign plan, whatever that may be. At the same time, there is no hesitation to ask God for the desire of your heart, knowing that if God’s answer is no, or not yet, God will give sufficient grace to meet the challenge.
 
Our goal in prayer is to see God glorified no matter what. Our goal is to see things his way, so that our will aligns with his. And once this happens, our prayers are filled with power. They will be answered, and with confidence we can say, “We know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:15). This, my friend, is what it means to ask “in his name.”

- Eric J. Bargerhuff, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible, 2012.