Open Dialog presented 5 August 2011
MP3
Subject: Good and Bad Theology
I received the following e-mail:
Subject: Prayer Request
As evidenced by people living in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Texas and
South Texas, and ever-increasing areas in other parts of the country, the
drought condition is reaching critical status; cattle are being auctioned off;
crops have burned up; and drinking water is becoming a concern. Please join us
in this prayer circle.
Lets make this one of the largest prayer circles ever. It will be as though
everyone is holding hands around the world.
Father, You said whatsoever any two or more come together and agree and ask in
Your Son's name, it shall be given. We come to you, humbly, and ask that you
bring down the rain to our parched lands. Our farmers and ranchers need it
desperately, as well as our firefighters.
We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may adopt this prayer and evidence your participation in this gathering by
simply passing this prayer request on to your circle of friends!
PLEASE forward this if you believe and agree in Jesus' name!
----end quote of the e-mail---
There are two things wrong with this e-mail in regards to Theology.
1.
Prayer circles are pagan.
They are not found in the Bible. See the Wikipedia article on this subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_circle.
It says in part:
"Ritual ceremonies around an altar are
common in
paganism, and ritual prayer dances around an altar were practiced by early
Christians, especially
Gnostics,
before the practice was condemned as a
heresy by the
Second Council of Nicaea in 787 A.D."
2]
The reference to, “Father,
you said whatsoever any two or more come together and agree and ask in Your
Son’s name, it shall be given.”
I cannot find this in the Bible regarding prayer requests.
I looked for “together” and “agree” and only get Mark 14:59 which does not apply
here.
I did find these:
John
14:13
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son.
John
14:14
If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
John
15:16
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should
go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye
shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
John 16:23
And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
John 16:24
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your
joy may be full.
John 16:25
These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I
shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the
Father.
John
16:26
At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray
the Father for you:
But there is nothing here about two or more coming together to make this work or
to have the prayer answered. Also, an integral part of these verses in John is
that fact we are asking in His [God’s]
name and this means that “if it [our
prayer request]
be God’s will” it will be answered. It is not a dead-bang promise that what we
want will be given. It also has to be His will.
The concept of two or more coming together comes from Matthew 18 and the
Matthew 18 process and the element of binding and loosing.
Matthew 18:15-20
15 Moreover
if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between
thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in
the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he
neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a
publican.
18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching
any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is
in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them.
We have a letter in the Letter Answering Department and a posted Bible study on
this phrase of Matthew 18:20 “where
two or three are gathered together in my name.” Christ is saying that in
the Matthew 18 Process where brother has trespassed against brother that He is
there. I do not believe we can stretch this to including answer to prayer.
In addition we do not want firstfruits thinking that prayers are only answered
if two or more are doing the praying in agreement.
---end---