Mark Keown

The second glorious nugget here is 'pray in the Holy Spirit'. 'Pray' here is present middle, the present indicating 'continually pray'. 'In the Holy Spirit' can mean 'by', 'with', 'in the sphere of', 'as led by', 'in the power of' and more. It should be taken in a global way. Pray as led by, in accordance with, by the urging of, in the love of etc etc, the Spirit. It is prayer drenched in the Spirit's grace, love, guidance and urging. It recalls Paul's injunction in Eph 6:18: 'pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.' Prayer is the basic humanward side of response to God. Worship is essentially prayer. Prayer involves lots of listening, and sharing with God one's deepest thoughts, concerns, desires and yearnings. It should characterise us as Christians. It is one of the means of 'building ourselves up in the most holy faith'. There are two equal and opp...

It is easy to read Mk 11:22-24 which tell us that we can ask for anything in prayer with faith and we will receive it. We can even it seems tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea and it will be done for us. This has led some Christians to believe that with faith we should get a 100% hit rate on our prayers, if we have enough faith. On the other hand, failed prayer means a lack of faith. This sounds reasonable if we forget the wider context of Mark's Gospel. I always believe that when we are looking at a verse and seeking to interpret after looking at its immediate context, we need to consider it in terms of the wider document; in this case, Mark. If it is a thematic text like this one on prayer, we need to especially consider what else Mark records on prayer. In regards this verse 11:22-24 the most important textual link for me is Mk 14:32-42. Here Jesus comes to God in prayer. He has a mountain to move; the cross! He has shown his awareness of what he is to face since Mk 8:3...