Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Early Christian Prayer Styles

In the early 200's AD, the Christian writer Tertullian declares:
Christians look up with hands outstretched . . . with head uncovered . . . and pray without ceasing for all our emperors.
What I find interesting is the idea of looking up, and of having hands outstretched.

Today's practice of bowing our heads, while following the example of the justified sinner in Yeshua's parable of Luke 18:9ff, is apparently not the way it was done in the early centuries of the church.

Further, the disdain given by some non-hand-raising Christians to those other Christians who might raise their hands in worship must also be aimed at Christians who lived much closer to the events of the New Testament than do we.

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