As we continue our exploration of different spiritual practices, our focus for the month of February is Praying Scripture.
From early on in Christian history, believers were taught to pray Scripture. Even before believers could read Scripture for themselves, they heard, memorized, and internalized the words of Scripture by praying them. As a spiritual practice, praying Scripture is exactly how it sounds. The words of Scripture form the substance of our prayer, and we actually pray those words. A common example of this is the Lord’s Prayer. We pray this together as a church monthly using the words Jesus taught his disciples from Matthew 6:9-13. But we can pray many other parts of Scripture as well. Psalms is a great source for praying Scripture as well as other prayers from faithful worshipers of God such as Moses, David, Daniel, Hannah, Paul, Thomas, and Mary to name a few. We can also pray passages that are not specifically prayers.
Praying Scripture allows us to enter the text in a deep way, meditating on the words, causing our agenda to fall away, and allowing our hearts to be formed by and aligned to God’s agenda. Praying Scripture gives us words to pray when we are at a loss for words or experiencing a difficult, new, or trying season, but this practice also helps us express the full range of human emotions in our prayers as we pray the words of the people of God. For this month we are going to focus on praying one particular passage of Scripture for the whole month.
In Mark 12, Jesus is asked by one of the teachers of the law, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answers with a combination of two passages from the Old Testament. The first is from the shema found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” The second part of his answer is from Leviticus 19:18- “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” This same combination shows up in Matthew 22:34-40 and in Luke 10:25-27 followed by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Author and theologian Scot McKnight terms Jesus’ words in Mark 12:29-31 “the Jesus Creed,” as in this is a defining aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry and something we as his followers are to emulate.1
The Practice: Praying the Jesus Creed
We are going to pray the words of the Jesus Creed, Mark 12:29-31 three times per day through the month of February.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
You can pray these words as they are written or you can turn them into more of a prayer like this: “O Lord, you are my God, my only Lord. Help me to love you with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all my strength. And enable me to truly overflow with love for my neighbor.”
Let these words form the rhythm of your day. In the morning before your feet hit the floor, pray these words. Then, pause in the middle of your day to pray them again. And finally, pray these words before your head hits the pillow each evening. Feel free to pray this more often if you feel led, and be sure to record your thoughts, observations, and experiences as you journey with this passage throughout this month.
May God surround us with his love and give us eyes to see our neighbors as he does as we pray these words of Jesus this month.
- For more on this see the book The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others by Scot McKnight. ↩︎
