In today's reading we come to the once-obscure passage made wildly popular by Bruce Wilkerson's book The Prayer of Jabez. The entire book is based on a one-verse prayer and a one-sentence commentary:
Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request. (1 Chronicles 4:10)Long before Wilkinson published his book, I wrote a cryptic note in the margin of my Bible. After reading "And God granted his request," I wrote: And he was never heard from again.
Of course, that was no longer true after Wilkerson spun the prayer and turned it into a get-whatever-you-want-from-God formula. Yes, Jabez got what he wanted from God, but was it what God wanted him to have? We don't know. We only know that Jabez, in his pain-free life, did nothing worth writing about.
For quite some time I thought I was the only person on the face of the earth who was put off by Wilkinson's interpretation. But then I learned that Richard Schultz, a friend and former college classmate from Michigan State, now a Bible professor at Wheaton College, not only shared my view, but also had written a paper on it: "Praying Jabez's prayer: Turning an obscure biblical narrative into a miracle-working mantra." In it, he says,
The greatest problem with the current "prayer of Jabez" fad is its one-sided focus on personal, and especially material, blessing. Although this may not be Wilkinson's intent, all of the examples cited in his book and reported on the book's website involve either concrete benefits such as healing, new property, career advancement, investment gains, or quantifiable "Jabez appointments." No suggestion is made that praying the prayer of Jabez could also result in the type of spiritual growth that Paul prays for repeatedly in his Epistles (e.g., Eph 3:16-19; Col 1:9-14; Phil 1:9-11; 2 Thess 1:11-12), even though these traits are foundational for effective Christian service. . . . God's desire is for us to learn to trust, obey, develop perseverance, and serve him where we are, especially if our circumstances involve suffering and pain, rather than requesting an enlarged (i.e., different) territory. Like Paul, we can learn to be content (Phil 4:12) and be faithful in small matters, leaving it up to God to give us greater responsibilities if he so chooses (Luke 16:10).Richard concludes his article with a great quotation by one of his seminary professors: "As my hermeneutics professor would say, rather ironically, 'Wonderful things in the Bible I see, most of them put there by you or by me!'"
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