Bruce Wilkinson, The Prayer of Jabez (Sisters, Ore: Multnomah Publishers, 2000). The hardcover book is 93 pages long and retails for $9.99. Dr. Wilkinson is the founder and president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, a ministry described on the book cover as "an international organization dedicated to providing the finest biblical teaching, tools, and training."

"Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, 'Because I bore him in pain.' And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, 'Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!' So God granted him what he requested" (1 Chronicles 4:9-10).

The purpose of the book is given by Dr. Wilkinson in the first paragraph of the preface: "I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers. It is brief—only one sentence with four parts—and tucked away in the Bible, but I believe it contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God."

The most salutary aspect of The Prayer of Jabez is that by encouraging the individual Christian to pray for himself the prayer of Jabez found in 1 Chronicles 4:20, Wilkinson is advocating the praying of Scripture.

I spend a week in my seminary classes teaching students to follow the ancient and Biblical practice of praying the Scriptures, especially the Psalms. And it's usually the first and most fruitful presentation I make when teaching a conference in a local church on spiritual disciplines. So I am pleased when I see anyone writing about praying through a passage of Scripture.

Of course, I do hope that Wilkinson's readers understand that he would never endorse the mere rote repetition to God of Jabez' words. Let no one think that they can somehow manipulate God by repeating a prayer that has become to them little more than a magic formula and the sum total of their prayer life. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Himself condemned such praying when He said, "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words" (Matthew 6:7).

Most importantly, remember that the prayer of Jabez is not for everyone. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). Access to God the Father is through God the Son, Jesus Christ. Until a person has been made right with God—not on the basis of their own goodness or even their devotion to prayer, but on the basis of the life and death of Jesus—he or she can expect no access to God in prayer. The prayer from Scripture this person needs to pray is not the prayer of Jabez, but rather something like the one by the man in Luke 18:13, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner." And from everything I have previously heard and read from Dr. Wilkinson, I am confident he would agree with this.

Furthermore, Wilkinson's claim that this is ". . . a daring prayer that God always answers. . . . it contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God," must be placed in the context of all God's Word says about prayer. Neither this prayer, nor any other found in Scripture, may be isolated from the rest of what the Lord teaches us about answered prayer. For example, the Bible also instructs us that our confidence before the Father in prayer is based upon our relationship to Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Hebrews 10:19-22), that we must pray in Jesus' name and for God's glory (John 14:13-14), with sins confessed (Psalm 66:18), in faith (James 1:6-8), showing proper honor to our spouse (1 Peter 3:7), from a life obedient to the Lord (1 John 3:22), and praying in His will (1 John 5:14-15), among other things. Willfully neglecting what God says elsewhere about prayer in order to focus on one isolated prayer is a waste of breath.

We should also be aware that the plea, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory," while inspired by God, can appeal to the greedy and materialistic tendencies of our fallen condition. Dr. Wilkinson makes it clear that we should pray these words with the kingdom-oriented motivation of "Lord, use me—give me more ministry for You!" God has not preserved this prayer in the Bible so that anyone who wants may use it as an incantation to get more money and things, but so that His people will voice it with the desire that their lives will make a difference for Christ and His kingdom.

Don't forget the last of the four requests in the prayer—"keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" I liken it to the words Jesus taught us to pray in the Model Prayer: "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13). If we pray the prayer of Jabez but omit the spirit of this emphasis we may find ourselves on the short end of, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures" (James 4:3).

In light of unexpected, widespread popularity of The Prayer of Jabez, I would like to see Dr. Wilkinson publish a revised version with at least an appendix where he addresses these concerns.

Don Whitney
Center for Biblical Spirituality