Continuing his reflection on Ephesians 3:14-19 in Chapter 11 of Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Timothy Keller states that the word grasp means “to wrestle”- to jump on someone, wrestle that person to the ground, and knock the person out. The word grasp might seem, Pastor Keller notes, a very strange word to […]
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”- 2 Corinthians 5:21 At the end of Chapter 10 of Prayer, Timothy Keller reminds us that the phrase “law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2) refers to all of Scripture, particularly its normative […]
As Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 10 of Prayer, he notes that British theologian John Owen (1616-1683) believed there were three distinctive movements or stages within meditation. Owen first distinguished meditation from Bible study and from prayer proper: “It is distinguished from the study of the Word, wherein the principal aim is to learn the truth […]
“Praise the Lord, my soul; and all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”- Psalm 103:1-2 Timothy Keller continues Chapter 10 of Prayer by exploring the relationship between meditation and our mind/heart. He notes that when Psalm 1 calls us to meditate, it uses […]
“If we pray without meditation, our own communion with God becomes poor and distant.”- Edmund Clowney Part Four of Timothy Keller’s book Prayer is entitled “Deepening Prayer”. In Chapter 10 (“As Conversation: Meditating on His Word”), Pastor Keller takes a close look at Psalm 1. He astutely notes that Psalm 1 is not a prayer […]
At the end of Chapter 6 of Prayer, Timothy Keller shares one final exercise Martin Luther advocates before we pray free-form about the things on our hearts. Following meditation on Scripture, Luther suggests praying through each petition of the Lord’s Prayer. As we do so, we are to paraphrase and personalize each petition using our […]
Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 6 of Prayer by expanding on Luther’s four strands of meditation on a text from Scripture: instruction, thanksgiving, confession, and prayer. 1. Instruction. We begin by discerning the instruction of a text. Luther called this the “school text” part of meditation, where we interpret the biblical passage by distilling its essential […]