In the parting words of Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessalonica, he admonished them with several imperatives, including “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes 5:17).
Many Christians have struggled to make sense of Paul’s admonition because it’s evident that we cannot literally pray without ceasing. At the very least, we would have to stop praying when we go to sleep at night. Even if Paul was only talking about our conscious hours, one cannot pray while they are talking to other people, concentrating on their work, etc. Many Christians, wanting to affirm the sense of “continual prayer,” have taken this verse to mean that we should continually be in “a spirit of prayer.” This is often construed along the lines of always having a prayerful attitude even when we are not praying to God (which should be a frequent affair throughout one’s day). What exactly a prayerful attitude is, is not entirely clear. Others take it to mean that we should pray about everything.
While I agree that we should pray often and about everything, I think Paul’s point is being over-interpreted. His point is simple: Keep praying! He was not admonishing the Thessalonians to pray every second of the day or to pray about everything, but rather to keep up the practice of prayer. Prayer is not something we do when we start our faith journey, but then stop as we “mature” in Christ. Prayer needs to be a regular discipline in the life of a Christian. In other words, Paul is encouraging us to make a habit of praying.
This force is brought out in a number of translations:
- “Pray regularly” (CJB)
- “And never stop praying” (CEV)
- “Never stop praying” (ERV, GW, ICB, Phillips, NOG, NIrV, NLV, NLT, NTE)
- “Always keep on praying” (TLB)
I particularly like The Living Bible’s characterization as “always keep on praying.” Paul’s concern is not so much the amount of time we are spending in prayer each day as it is the longevity of our prayer life. Prayer is a spiritual discipline that we should be in the habit of doing day-after-day. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, we need to “just keep praying, just keep praying, just keep praying praying praying.”
Thinking to Believe 
January 8, 2019 at 11:26 am
This is just one of many Biblical phrases that cannot be taken literally. My own extended family has many “Christian literalist’s” who insist that every word is absolutely true and must be interpreted as such. But I ask them “How can it be interpreted literally word for word when it is translated from other languages? The words have all been changed, and sometimes even the meaning is in question”. Well that gets me nowhere except to earn their resentment and anger. Maybe it’s just that at certain levels of spiritual understanding people need to think every word is absolutely true and you must follow it to the letter, rather than being a bit less “literal” and looking for the true spirit and meaning behind the translated text as I think is intended in the above post. Thank you.
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January 8, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Ron:
A sensible comment. Prayer is also associated in the sense of being alert and vigilantly so. Without ceasing even. Pray be careful
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
Mark 13:33 Be on your guard and stay alert! For you do not know …
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful,
To your translation point the first known use of pray was in the 13th century .
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January 8, 2019 at 9:26 pm
Ron, “literal” is not the same thing as “true.” Something can be non-literal and yet true. All language contains metaphors, similes, figures of speech, etc. Christians understand that. No Christian takes the Bible literally in the sense that they interpret metaphors and the like as literal representations. Even for the verse in question, nobody takes it literally to mean we are to pray 24/7.
But even non-literal metaphors and figures of speech have a literal meaning that is true. For example, when I say “she kicked the bucket,” that is a figure of speech for the literal meaning “she died,” which is true. Christians seek the author’s intended meaning, whether he is speaking literally or in metaphors, etc. So while not all of the Bible is to be interpreted literally, it is to be taken seriously as truth. We are to believe that the author’s intended meaning is true.
As for the words, you bring up the issue of changes to the original words, and changes resulting from translation. Regarding the former, are you aware that the NT in particular is by far the best preserved historical document known to man? We have 20K+ manuscripts in various languages to compare, which allows textual critics to be relatively certain that we know the original words 98% of the time. And for the little bit that we can’t be certain of, it doesn’t affect any Christian doctrine and usually doesn’t even affect the meaning of the passage in question. So it’s not true that the original words are all changed.
As for the latter, our English Bibles are direct translations from the original Hebrew and Greek. While slight nuances of meaning can be lost in some cases when translating from one language to another, that’s usually not the case. That’s why the United Nations et al have no problem translating what is being said to the many different participants. Those UN representatives understand perfectly well what’s being said. What we read in our English Bibles is very close to the meaning intended by the authors in their original languages.
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