Carson D. A. - Praying with Paul: a call to spiritual reformation

. D. A. Carson, ed., Teach Us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World (Grand Rapids: Baker; Exeter: Paternoster, 1990).

Introduction

. J. I. Packer, in My Path of Prayer , ed. David Hanes (Worthing, West Sussex: Henry E. Walter, 1981), 56.

Chapter 1: Lessons from the School of Prayer

. There is a useful discussion of some of these matters in Thomas E. Schmidt, Trying to Be Good (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), chap. 3.

. See David H. Adeney, Personal Experience of Prayer, in Teach Us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World , ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker; Exeter: Paternoster, 1990), 30915.

. Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray: Slowing Down to Be with God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), esp. 1016.

. Patrick Johnstone, Operation World: A Day-to-Day Guide to Praying for the World , rev. ed. (Bromley, Kent: STL, 2001).

. Stanley J. Grenz, Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 37.

. See D. A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 10910; British edition, Jesus and His Friends (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1986), 10810.

. For a defense of this interpretation, see Peter T. OBrien, Romans 8:26, 27: A Revolutionary Approach to Prayer?, The Reformed Theological Review 46 (1987): 6573.

. Quoted by C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964), 6768.

. Ibid., 68.

. In My Path of Prayer , ed. David Hanes (Worthing, West Sussex: Henry E. Walter, 1981), 57.

Chapter 2: The Framework of Prayer

. The peculiar prepositional construction in the Greek text ( eis ho ) suggests that everything that precedes vv. 1112 leads up to them; hence the NIVs idiomatic rendering.

Chapter 3: Worthy Petitions

. A slight ambiguity in the text prompts some interpreters to read this part of the verse a different way. Pauls prayer, literally rendered, is that God may fulfill every good purpose and work of faith. It is possible to take every good purpose to refer to Gods good purposes. But the work of faith is surely the believers, and every most probably embraces both objects, so it is most natural to read the text as in NIV: that God may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.

Chapter 4: Praying for Others

. The distinctions are to some extent artificial, of course. For instance, the group often labeled Pauls prayers are perhaps more immediate than the reports of Pauls prayers, but surely they too are merely reports, and partial ones at that: we have no transcript of a complete prayer of Paul.

. Not included are passages such as Rom. 8:2627, where Paul talks about prayer: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for Gods people in accordance with Gods will.

Chapter 5: A Passion for People

. See especially Peter T. OBrien, Thanksgiving within the Structure of Pauline Theology, in Pauline Studies (Festschrift for F. F. Bruce), ed. Donald A. Hagner and Murray J. Harris (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 5066, esp. 56.

Chapter 6: The Content of a Challenging Prayer

. An extraordinarily useful and perceptive article on the biblical theology of prayer is that by Edmund P. Clowney, A Biblical Theology of Prayer, in Teach Us to Pray: Prayer in the Bible and the World , ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker; Exeter: Paternoster, 1990), 13673.

. I.e., taking the preposition en epexegetically to knowledge.

Chapter 7: Excuses for Not Praying

. Lillian R. Guild, in Ministry, May 1985, 28.

capable of any foul deed because they do not care if they incur shame, in Greek shameless people can be those whose conduct ensures that they will avoid shame: they act in such a way that they are literally shame-less, utterly innocent of any shame. On this reading the word refers to the person inside the house. Because shamelessness in English does not readily carry this positive overtone, the 2011 NIV rendering is astute: shameless audacity.