{"id":1679,"date":"2011-03-29T14:56:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T18:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=1679"},"modified":"2013-04-09T22:28:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T02:28:43","slug":"bonhoeffer-psalms-the-prayer-book-of-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=1679","title":{"rendered":"Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer\u2019s little booklet, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible<\/i><\/a>, is a real gem. After reading it I bought a copy for each of my older boys for them to read and to have their own copy.<\/p>\n

Much could be said about it, and I may say more in later posts, but here I will focus on his comments about the formative value of the Psalms for prayer. Too often we tend to think any guide to praying makes our prayers less genuine.\u00a0 Bonhoeffer counters this, stating<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. . . . Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one\u2019s heart.\u201d (9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet God has given us words to guide us in our praying. As we teach our children how to speak properly and how to phrase things to communicate respectfully and effectively, so also our heavenly Father has given us instruction in the Psalms on how to address Him properly.<\/p>\n

Here are a few quotes from the booklet on this point:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us and speaks to us.\u201d (11)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we wish to pray with confidence and gladness, then the words of Holy Scripture will have to be the solid basis of our prayer.\u201d (11-12)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not depend, therefore, on whether the Psalms express adequately that which we feel at a given moment in our heart.\u00a0 If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart.\u00a0 Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray.\u00a0 If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably pray only the fourth petition of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u00a0 But God wants it otherwise.\u00a0 The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.\u201d (14-15)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is pure grace, that God tells us how we can speak with him and have fellowship with him.\u201d (15)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God has seen fit to give us an inspired book of prayers and praises. We would do well to use it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church.\u00a0 With its recovery will come unsuspected power.\u201d (26)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer\u2019s little booklet, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, is a real gem. After reading it I bought a copy for each of my older boys for them to read and to have their own copy. Much could be said about it, and I may say more in later posts, but here I …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[158,135,113],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2411,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions\/2411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}