Pray-reading: refs. include Witness Lee, Watchman Nee

Additional Quotes

Martin Luther

It is very certain, that we cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. (40)

In this letter, Martin Luther described how he prayed:

Dear Master Peter: I will tell you as best I can what I do personally when I pray. May our dear Lord grant to you and to everybody to do it better than I! Amen.

First, when I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer…I take my little psalter, hurry to my room…and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments…some words of Christ or of Paul or some psalms, just as a child might do. (39)

He continued by using Matthew chapter six as an example:

Then repeat one part or as much as you wish, perhaps the first petition: “Hallowed be thy name,” and say “Yes, Lord God, dear Father, hallowed be thy name, both in us and throughout the whole world. (40)

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Madame Guyon

Meditative Reading is the choosing [of] some important practical or speculative truth, always preferring the practical, and proceeding thus: whatever truth you have chosen, read only a small portion of it, endeavoring to taste and digest it, to extract the essence and substance thereof, and proceed no farther while any savor or relish remains in the passage: then take up your book again and proceed as before, seldom reading more than half a page at a time, for it is not the quantity that is read, but the manner of reading, that yields us profit.

Those who read fast reap no more advantage than a bee would by only skimming over the surface of the flower, instead of waiting to penetrate into it, and extract its sweets. Much reading is rather for scholastic subjects than divine truths: indeed, to receive real profit from spiritual books, we must read as I have described; and I am certain, if that method were pursued, we should become gradually habituated to, and more fully disposed for[,] prayer. (Guyon 7-8

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August Hermann Francke

So one may remain at every little verse in the Bible and as Luther says, “Knock on every little twig, whether there would be some berries that would fall off.” Should at the beginning one think it somewhat difficult and should the prayer not flow at once, one may go on, to try the same on another twig. If the soul is only hungry, the Spirit of God will not leave it undernourished. Yea, it will finally be found, that the man will see so many living fruit in one small verse, that he will remain there and settle, as under a tree richly laden. However, whosoever in the beginning is frightened by it, and considers it to be too difficult for him and he could not read the Scripture in this manner, it is his own fault, that during his entire life he never gains true joy and pleasure in the Scripture. (50)

August Hermann Francke demonstrated various ways to pray-read Genesis 1:1:

For example: Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Oh, you eternal God, I thank you, that you teach me through your word from where the heavens and the earth have their origin.

Or: Ah, dear Father in heaven, when I lift my eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth, convey to my heart to muse this your divine word, that I should honor and worship you as the creator of the heavens and the earth.

Or: Ah, dear God! have you created the heavens and the earth, then are you better and more glorious than the heavens and the earth. Thus, when I have only you, I will ask nothing after the heavens and the earth. (49-50)

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George Whitefield

...I immediately retired to my room, and kneeling down, with many tears, prayed over that Psalm wherein David so often repeats these words—“But in the Name of the Lord will I destroy them [Psalms 118:10, 11, 12].” (56)

On Sunday morning, I rose early, and prayed over St. Paul’s Epistle to Timothy, and more particularly over that precept, “Let no one despise thy youth.” (56)

Though weak, I often spent two hours in my evening retirements, and prayed over my Greek Testament... (56)

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George Müller

The Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the Word of God and studying it. The result of this was that the first evening I shut myself into my room to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously….But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing so. (70)

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Andrew Murray

For intercourse with God, His Word and Prayer are both indispensable; and in the inner chamber they should not be separated. In His Word, God speaks to me: in Prayer, I speak to God. (66)

Read a few verses from the Bible. Do not concern yourself with the difficulties contained in them. You can consider these later; but take what you understand, apply it to yourself, and ask the Father to make His Word light and power in your heart. Thus you will have material enough for prayer from the Word which the Father speaks to you... (67)

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Hannah Whitall Smith

Here Hannah Whitall Smith used Psalm 23 as an example of pray-reading:

Then say the words over to yourself with all the will power you can muster, “The Lord is my Shepherd. He is. He is. No matter what I feel, He says He is, and He is. I am going to believe it, come what may.” Then repeat the words with a different emphasis each time:

The Lord is my Shepherd.
The Lord is my Shepherd.
The Lord is my Shepherd.
The Lord is my Shepherd. (68)

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Charles Spurgeon

Use prayer as a boring rod, and wells of living water will leap up from the bowels of the Word. Who will be content to thirst when living waters are so readily to be obtained! (78)

…New veins of precious ore will be revealed to your astonished gaze as you quarry God’s Word and use diligently the hammer of prayer. (78)

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R. A. Torrey

What new light often shines from an old familiar text as you bend over it in prayer! I believe in studying the Bible a good deal on your knees. When one reads an entire book through upon his knees—and this is easily done—that book has a new meaning and becomes a new book…Prayer will do more than a college education to make the Bible an open and a glorious book. (93)

These two things, prayer and study of the Word of God, always go hand-in-hand, for there is no true prayer without study of the Word of God, and there is no true study of the Word of God without prayer. (93)

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Witness Lee

I still remember that day. I was not yet very clear about my salvation, and I felt that I should read John 3:16. At first I was only reading it, and then gradually I turned from reading to receiving. I read that “God so loved the world,” so I prayed, “O God, I thank You that You so loved the world.” Then I prayed again, “O God, I thank you that you loved me because I am one who is of the world. O God, thank You. You so loved me so much that You gave me Your only begotten Son.” At the beginning I read the verse in its original wording, but eventually I began to take it in. Once I began to take it in, the tone of my prayer changed and the pronouns changed. I prayed, “I thank You, O God, that You so loved me and gave Your only begotten Son to me, so that by believing into Him I would not perish but would have eternal life.”

Although it has been nearly sixty years, I still remember that scene very clearly. I was not only happy within, but I was full of confidence to declare to the heavens, the earth, and all things, including Satan, “I have eternal life because John 3:16 says so.” This is to receive and apply the word of God. (Living 77-78)

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