Copyright © 2023 Michael A. Brown
‘And pray in the Spirit on all
occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep
on praying for all the saints. Pray also
for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will
fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador
in chains. Pray that I may declare it
fearlessly, as I should.’
(Eph. 6:18-20)
‘Devote yourselves to prayer, being
watchful and thankful. And pray for us,
too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the
mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.
Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.’ (Col. 4:2-4)
The apostle Paul was a man of
prayer, just as the other apostles certainly were too, and they all understood
and knew from experience the central and vital role that prayer plays in the
life of any believer. This is clear from
the many references that Paul makes to prayer in his epistles. He encouraged, exhorted and insisted that
young believers everywhere should get hold of two basic but powerful truths: that
building a life of intimacy with God in prayer is our primary call as
believers, and that this lies at the heart of all success in church life and
ministry. Men and women down
through the centuries who have been significantly used by God in ministry have
always been people of prayer.
For the early church, prayer was not a
matter of the repetition of rote phrases in a mechanical, formal or liturgical
manner. For them, prayer was always to be
rooted in a Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered life, a life in which the Holy
Spirit has free and consistent flow within and through a believer. So it is a life in which prayer in all its
forms flows freely out of regular intimacy and closeness to God, and is
empowered by the active working of the Holy Spirit in our life. It presupposes that we know what it is
to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, and to be walking consistently
with him.
This was the expected standard for
prayer which the apostles themselves practised, and which they enjoined upon
young believers as an essential part of their ongoing spiritual growth and
discipleship. Prayer was never
meant to be formal, religious, or spiritually flat and dead. It was expected to be living, vital,
empowered, heart-felt, free, inspiring and encouraging to others, flowing
naturally and unhindered out of a Spirit-filled life. This is how God would have prayer be.
This is what Paul meant when he referred
to ‘praying in the Spirit’ in Ephesians 6:18-20 (see above). Paul’s recognition of the potential of
Spirit-empowered prayer to bring about breakthrough and victory in situations,
is clear from his five-fold emphasis on prayer in this passage, and from his
repetition of the words ‘all’ or ‘always.’
He makes a similar repeated emphasis on prayer in the parallel passage
in Colossians 4:2-4 (also above), and Jude too encourages us to ‘pray in the
Holy Spirit’ (Jude v.20).
Whether it is a group of believers
wrestling in prayer together well into the night for the release of Peter from
prison (Acts 12:5-17); or whether it is two persecuted apostles praying and
praising their way to breakthrough in the middle of the night in a jail cell in
Philippi (Acts 16:25-26), or whether it is simply the private praying of an
individual believer (Col. 4:12), empowered ‘prayer in the Spirit’ is a
major key to spiritual victory.
There are at least four ways in which
‘praying in the Spirit’ can manifest in a believer’s life: praying in tongues,
Spirit-inspired praise, the prayer of faith, and the inward groaning of
spiritual travail. This first blog in this mini-series deals with praying in tongues, as below.
1. Praying
and singing in tongues
Notwithstanding what some modern-day
evangelical church movements and theologians believe about the gift of tongues,
speaking and praying in tongues played an important role in the spiritual life
of early believers. For Paul, it was an
essential and valued part of his own life.
He told the believers in Corinth that he spoke in tongues more than all
of them (1 Cor. 14:18). When a person
was filled with the Holy Spirit, it was a natural expectation that they would
speak in tongues:
‘When
Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in
tongues and prophesied.’
(Acts 19:6)
Furthermore, in addition to speaking in
tongues, Paul talks of ‘praying with our spirit,’ ‘singing with our spirit,’
and evidently of ‘praising with our spirit.’
Amongst early believers, praying in tongues was encouraged as a
natural and expected form of prayer after a person had been filled with the
Holy Spirit.
‘So
what shall I do? I will pray with my
spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I
will also sing with my mind. If you are
praising God with your spirit…’
(1 Cor. 14:15-16)
When we pray and/or sing in tongues, we are
releasing the presence and power of the Holy Spirit within our own spirit. When we pray and sing in this way, we are not
praying words that we can understand with our mind, but our spirit is
praying/singing directly to God, bypassing our mind. Our spirit is empowered, edified and
strengthened by the Holy Spirit, and we are uttering mysteries with our spirit
which God himself understands:
‘For if
I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays…’
(1 Cor. 14:14)
‘For
anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters
mysteries with his spirit…’
(1 Cor. 14:2)
Paul emphasised that one of the primary
purposes of glossolalia is to build up and strengthen our spiritual life by
using it as our personal prayer language:
‘He who
speaks in a tongue edifies himself…’
(1 Cor. 14:4)
Evangelicals who do not speak in tongues
themselves cannot understand in experience what this means, and neither can
they understand therefore what an important and powerful role it plays in the
life of a Spirit-filled Christian.
Whereas charismatic and Pentecostal believers who do speak in tongues,
do understand these things in their own experience. To underline just how important tongues were
in his own spiritual life, John G. Lake went so far as to say that tongues were
the making of his ministry.[1]
Many believers use tongues frequently in
their own personal prayer life. As well
as perhaps beginning their prayer times by speaking in tongues for a few
minutes (perhaps even for as much as half an hour), as they continue to seek
and worship God they often intersperse ‘praying with their mind’ (i.e. praying
in their own mother tongue) with ‘praying in the spirit’ (i.e. praying in
tongues). Praying and singing in tongues
edifies a believer, i.e. as s/he allows the Holy Spirit to work and flow freely
within them, this active working of his grace then strengthens their spirit
within and builds them up. It allows
them to express their spirit to God in prayer, praise, adoration and worship,
in a free and unhindered way, even though they do not understand with their
mind what they are communicating to God.
So when a believer prays and sings in tongues, they become
spiritually free within, they are edified, and the Holy Spirit can flow freely
through them as living water (cf. John 7:37-39).
I myself have tangibly felt the warmth of
the Holy Spirit’s presence begin to grow and spread within me on countless
occasions, as I have released myself into praying and singing in tongues. I have found that it frees my spirit, it
refreshes and warms my heart, and it strengthens my spiritual life. It brings my mind and thinking under the
influence of the Holy Spirit and into life and peace, and therefore also into
alignment with the mind of Christ. It causes
the stresses of the day (which may perhaps be burdening my heart) to lose their
grip and to melt away, bringing me into a state of inward peace. It renews my experience of the
subjective presence of God and its effects within me.
Praying and singing in tongues is a
powerful charismatic gift, and it is one of the inner secrets of maintaining a
consistently fresh and free spiritual life. It is not a substitute for confession of sin
(nor indeed for any other spiritual discipline), rather it is an addition to
the all-round weaponry, as it were, of our spiritual life.
Similarly, praying and singing in tongues
can be used to great benefit in times of worship in corporate gatherings of
believers. If believers resolve not to
quench the Holy Spirit (by suppressing such expressions of his working in
corporate gatherings), but instead give him freedom, and encourage the wise and
sensitive use of tongues in worship, then this can and does bring their
corporate worship into a deeper experience of the immanence of God’s presence
amongst them. Not only does it free,
refresh, edify and strengthen believers corporately as they worship together,
by bringing about a tangible and uplifting sense of the presence of God among
them, it also very often allows the Holy Spirit to then operate through
believers via other charismatic gifts such as words of knowledge, prophetic
words, discernment of spirits, and healing.
This can then lead into the release of the
power of God in a gathering of believers, as we follow the inner promptings of
the Holy Spirit and allow him to work freely.
In particular, when we lay hands on people, and pray in tongues freely
but sensitively over them, the Holy Spirit can work and flow powerfully through
us. He can come upon people and fill
them; he can free them from oppression, and he can also bring them into inner
healing and physical healing, according to their need.
[1] Liardon, R. (comp.), John G. Lake:
The Complete Collection of His Life Teachings, “The Baptism with the Holy
Ghost – Feb. 23, 1921”, Roberts Liardon Ministries: Laguna Hills, 1999, p.373.
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