Summary
Should We Repeat Prayers?
At first glance, Jesus seems to forbid the practice outright. In the Sermon on the Mount He warns, "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words" Matthew 6:7. The American Standard Version renders that phrase "meaningless repetition." So is the bedtime prayer a child learns by heart, or the Lord's Prayer recited every Sunday, somehow off-limits?
Scripture itself answers no. The widow in the parable of the unjust judge "kept coming" with the same plea, and Jesus uses her persistence to teach His chosen ones to "cry to him day and night" Luke 18:1-8. Paul pleaded three times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed 2 Corinthians 12:7-9. In Gethsemane, our Lord Himself "went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words" Matthew 26:44. The early Christians "devoted themselves… to the prayers"—a definite article that points to set, written, repeated prayers alongside their spontaneous ones Acts 2:42. And Jesus answers His own teaching on prayer by giving us a form to pray: "Pray then like this…" Matthew 6:9.
What Jesus condemns, then, is not repetition but the pagan assumption underneath certain repetition—the idea that God must be cajoled, worn down, or impressed into action by what we generate. The prophets of Baal cried "O Baal, answer us" from morning until noon, raving and limping about their altar 1 Kings 18:26-29. Jeremiah rebuked those who chanted "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord," as if the syllables themselves carried power Jeremiah 7:4. The error is works-righteousness creeping into the prayer closet.
That same error wears many modern faces. We can imagine that if our minds never wander, if we summon enough faith on some inner "faith-o-meter," if we pile up enough emotion, gather enough people, or sound sincere enough, God will at last be moved to grant our request. The next verse dismantles every such scheme: "Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him" Matthew 6:8. The parable of the unjust judge is a parable of contrast, not comparison—if even an unjust judge yields, how much more will a gracious Father hear His children, not because of anything we manufacture, but because He loves us.
Prayer is therefore rooted in the work of Jesus Christ. Through the cross we have been reconciled, the empty tomb is our proof, and in baptism God has claimed us as His own. That includes forgiveness for the sin of imagining that our prayer techniques move His hand. Set free from that burden, we are also free to pray according to His sovereign will, trusting Him for the answer rather than trying to engineer one.
So the answer is wonderfully simple: God frees us to pray long prayers and short prayers, new prayers and repeated prayers. The "Now I lay me down to sleep" of childhood, the Lord's Prayer in the Divine Service, Paul's threefold cry, Jesus' words in the Garden—all of it belongs to the life of faith. What matters is not the count of the words but the Father who already knows, already loves, and already has answered in Christ. See "Should We Repeat Prayers?" 6-20-21.
Video citations
- "Should We Repeat Prayers?" 6-20-21 — Let's open our Bible's please to Matthew the sixth chapter for our study today. Matthew chapter six as we study God's Word. Solomon, first Kings the third chapter, and there we find Solomon praying.…