Moral matters Essay

PRAYER is the center for the Nazarene. Religion has two aspects On the unrivaledness hand it maintains authoritative standards of conduct, on the different it affirms certain beliefs about the crowning(prenominal) nature of the universe. It is appeal which connects the two. Without it the maven of these would be ethics, and the other would be theology. request makes them elements in religion. In supplication the individual brings together God, lifes ideal values, and himself. It is unambiguous from the religious doctrine that Jesus call backd in petition, told men to pray, and prayed himself. tell narrates how early in the morning before others are about he withdraws to the desert to pray (Mark 135). Late in the evening after teaching the multitudes all day he goes into a mountain to pray (Mark 646). The hours before the arrest are spent in prayer. Luke is peculiarly interested in the prayers of Jesus, and adds to Marks account various other references. At the time o f the baptism, when the heavens opened and he saw the vision, he was praying (Mark 1432). When the multitudes crowded upon him after the healing of the leper, he withdrew into the deserts and prayed (Luke 321). Before choosing the Twelve, and before he adopted the disciples what they thought of himself, he was in prayer (Luke 516). The Transfiguration occurred when he was at prayer (Luke 612, 918). The request of the disciples, Lord, teach us to pray, was made at the close of one of his periods of prayer (Luke 928). Some of these may be editorial additions in order to provide settletings for sayings or incidents where the actual occasion had been forgotten, but at that fall out can be no doubt that they represent an authentic reputation of the usage of Jesus.One notices immediately several facts about these acts of prayer. In the first off place, a considerable number of them occur at times of finding and crisis. Important junctures and turning points in Jesus career were a pproached after foresighted periods of silent meditation and prayer. In the second place, one notes that prayer was for Jesus a refreshing and invigorating experience. From the turmoil, confusion, and fatigue of dealing with the multitudes he seek refuge in withdrawals for quiet prayer.His actors line to his disciples show what these retreats meant to himself. Come ye yourselves apart(predicate) into a desert place and rest awhile, he verbalise when they returned sex act of their strenuous campaign through the cities and villages of Galilee (Guignebert 67). Such experiences of rest, reflection, and prayer Jesus himself had tack necessary in order to carry on the spiritually and emotionally exhausting undertaking in which he was engaged. Such a institutionalise of prayer throws valuable light on Jesus own religion.In spite of his clarity of mind and splanchnic understanding of religious and example matters, in spite too of his independence and the authority with which he ta ught, it is evident that Jesus had no sense of religious self-sufficiency and personal adequacy. His intuitive moral judgments and his consciousness of authority to proclaim Gods bequeath were rather the results of these hours in which he sought to ascertain the purposes of God and to be led by him. If one should ask what Jesus taught about prayer, it must be receptioned that he gave very little definite teaching.There were certain things he said about it, but he gave no set rules or systematic directions for prayer. To him it was an intensely personal thing, and never to be cut down to form or ritual. Professor Bundy, speaking of Jesus retreats for the purpose of prayer, remarks that there was no regularity about these retreats. They were in no sense a part of a prayer system. For Jesus prayer was not a traditional religious exercise to be engaged in and find at certain set hours, but the spontaneous impromptu practice of an intense personal piety. Indeed one learns more(pre nominal) about prayer as Jesus practiced it from his own prayers recorded in the gospels than from any instructions he gave about praying. By putting together precept and practice one can learn something of his conception of prayer and the objects for which he thought men should pray (Taylor 145-50). First and foremost should be placed the fact that Jesus repeatedly and in the strongest possible style urged his hearers to pray.Ask, and it shall be given you seek, and ye shall find knock, and it shall be opened unto you for every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask for a loaf, will he give him a stone or if he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matt. 7 11) On other occasions he was even more emphatic.If y e draw faith as a grain of mustard seed, he said in extreme illustration, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you. By such words he tried to impress upon his hearers that God gives heed to prayer. For he knew that the source men do not pray is that they do not believe that anything will be accomplished by it. God does hear and answer the prayer of faith. To Jesus prayer was not a process of autosuggestion or a devotional ritual with subjective values, but an actual source of power for accomplishment (Pannenberg 267)