Praying biblically saturated prayers takes work, concentration, and a keen attentiveness to what God has said. And let the obvious be stated: praying biblically saturated prayers means being someone who is himself saturated in the Bible. It means opening up and reading the Bible, daily meditating upon its life-giving and life-changing truths.

In First Kings 8 we see King Solomon lead in corporate prayer and what stands out about his prayer is that it is Solomon pleading for what the Lord has already promised. He uses language like “keep for your servant David my father what you have promised” (verse 25) and “let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken” (verse 26). This is what the Puritans referred to as “pleading the promises”, a way of praying which brought the person praying closest to the will of God.

To be sure, this ought to be the habit and heart of every Christian’s prayer life, pleading the promises of God and praying according to God’s will. 1 John 5:14-15 tells us, “that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” What does it mean to pray according to God’s will? It means to pray according to the intentions of God’s heart. Of course, there is God’s secret will of decree that we can’t always know. Nonetheless we do have God’s revealed will, his word – be it His promises, His character, His warnings, or His threats. Here then is a solid epistemological ground from which we can boldly approach the throne of grace.

Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) makes the staggering but obvious point that although God, “is everywhere present, yet he is invisible… the great Architect is concealed. As far as reason can lead us, we seem to be shut out from all intercourse with our Maker; and whether prayer is permitted would remain for ever doubtful, were it not for divine revelation.”[1] In other words, how foolish it would be to presume to know the will of God if he had never spoken and yet still offer up prayers with the expectation of divine approval! No wise man would dare come before a king and make a request unaware of whether or not the king was sympathetic to such a plea. “Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right” (Proverbs 16:13).

And yet we do know that our God is ever attentive to his children’s requests, but we only know this because he has spoken; we only know this because of his word. Johannes G. Vos (1903-1983), in his excellent commentary on The Westminster Larger Catechism, says there is only one way to know how to pray in a God glorifying way, “and that is by studying the Bible, which is the revealed will of God.”

Read More