Prayers

Prayer in private ( silent ) or Prayer in public ( loud ) prayer?

by Patrick Bademosi
02/21/23
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The truth is that the people of each generation would need to be in constant relationship with God, communicating through the use of "prayer."

Prayer is a powerful tool that every Christian must use in order to have a healthy spiritual relationship with God. Just as it is in child-parent relationships, where the children are in constant daily interaction with their parents for comfort, correction, encouragement, and protection, so also it is in a Christian-God relationship through prayer.

When it comes to prayer in Christianity, there are laid down rules that Christians are to follow in order to have a successful relationship with their father (God) in prayer. Anything outside of this rule may be interpreted by God our Father as unacceptable. Now let us look into some of these  rules.

* Forgive your neighbors' sins before you start your prayers.

Mark 11 :25
And whenever you stand to pray, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you for your offenses.

* Make sure your right hand isn't aware of what your left hand is doing. Jesus said you should go into your room with the door closed behind you and pray to God, your unseen father. Jesus continued by saying that your father (God), who knows all things done in secret, will certainly reward you in the open. This means we don't have to disturb our neighbours with unnecessary noise just because we are praying.

Matt 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

* Prayer in private or in silence
* A public or open prayer

Prayer in private or silent prayer

This is the type that is secretly or silently offered to God without allowing people around us to know or hear the content of our prayer to God. Neighbors are not disturbed in this type of prayer unless there is an agreement between the person and their neighbors. This is evident in the life of Jesus, who always moved far away from the presence of people into the mountains or valleys to pray.

Luke 9:28
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.

This is the type of prayer that directly obeys the command given to us by Jesus, who told us not to be like the Pharisees, who like to pray in public aloud or to show themselves.

Matt 6:5
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

Hannah, the mother of Samuel, also exhibited this kind of prayer, and God answered her prayer.

1 Samuel 9:12–13

12... As she was praying to the Lord, Eli watched her. 13.. Seeing her lips moving but hearing no sound, Eli thought she had drinking. 

Pray in public or loud prayer
If the prayer is not sincerely from the heart and is directly opposite what Prayer in private or silent prayer offers or is about, is considered a loud or public Prayer.

Matt 6:5-6

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

When your prayer crosses the corridor of your privacy into the privacy of your neighbors without an agreement binding this, disrupting the peace of your neighbor, it is considered non-secret or loud.

Finally, you don't have to disturb the peace of your neighbors just because you are praying. Furthermore, the heavenly God (the one who sent and named Jesus as his son) to whom you are praying is NOT deaf and can hear your prayers.
 
Isaiah59:1

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.