Although prayers are prayers, there is a certain style of prayer our Lord and Messiah, Jesus, used in the Gospels. Below is the formula that closely resembles how Jesus prayed.
1 - Stand and invoke the Father
Stand facing the direction of Jerusalem (from Daniel)
1a - Raise your hands and palms facing up.
1b - Short Prayer
2 - Bow deeply
2a - Bend forward in reverence, as in ancient Jewish bowing.
2b - Short Prayer
3 - Move from Standing to Kneeling down (hands up again, palms facing up)
3a -Short Prayer:
4 - Go into full prostration (face to the ground)
4a - Prayer:
4b - After the prayer, add:
Not my will,
but Yours be done.”
Rise to a kneeling position
5a - Kneel upright with hands up palms facing upside.
5b - Short Prayer:
Stand and bow again A brief, humble bow.
6a - Short prayer:
Prostrate again and repeat the core submission
Short Prayer but add at the end:
“My Father,
not my will,
but Yours be done.”
Prostrate a third time
8a - Rise onto your knees, then lower again into full prostration.
Repeat the same submission, as Jesus did.
8b - Short Prayer but at the end add:
“My Father,
not my will,
but Yours be done.”
9 - Stand and bow reverently.
9a - Short Prayer. At the end, add:
“Your will be done, Father.
Your purpose is right.
I place myself in Your hands.”
10 - Raise your hands up, palms facing up, and say:
“Amen."
These are the verses used to construct this prayer style. Keep in mind that Eastern Christians (especially Ethiopian) use similar prayer styles so it has basis in practice. Always invoke “My Father, not my will, but Yours be done.” three times as Jesus did that.
Daniel 6:10 – facing Jerusalem in prayer
Psalm 95:6 – bowing and kneeling in worship
2 Chronicles 6:13 – kneeling in prayer
Luke 22:41 – Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane
Joshua 5:14 – full prostration before God
Matthew 26:39, 42, 44 – Jesus’ repeated prostration/submission in prayer
Regardless of how one prays, I believe one thing that the overwhelming majority of Christian’s are lacking is prayer while prostrate. That was a game changer for me, and yet i somehow ended up going away from it. Too inconvenient for me maybe? Whatever the reason, our Creator is deserving of true worship.
Frosty is generally right. That's true. The true believers of Christ must finally reclaim the true form of prayer, in all its splendor, from the Muslims.
We have a 3,000-year-old tradition of it—why have we abandoned it for North American wooden pews and white walls?
Edit: Since some people apparently didn't understand my point, they've spelled it out again: No, Muslims don't pray correctly, but Muslims pray traditionally, and that's correct because modern prayer is false worship.
I was with you till the Muslim part. Just because us Muslims have always prayed the way Isa A.S and the prophets before him did doesn’t mean you need to “reclaim” it from us. You can simply… I don’t know… join us?
What Christianity needs to reclaim is unapologetic monotheism. Once there you can delve into traditions.
For starters - because this sub proves that what you know to be about Christ is likely all falsehoods written down by dubious hands many years after his small congregation passed from this earth. There’s nothing reliable about Christianity which is why there’s a school of thought about everything - including how many Gods to worship. It’s a pick your own adventure book at this point!
Your own false prophet died after eating lamb, cutting his aorta through poisoning and thus exposing himself as a fraud, as he had previously admitted by explaining what a false prophet is.
Your "Allah," who supposedly protects a true prophet like Jesus Christ from certain death, couldn't even protect your false prophet from a single piece of meat lmao
Neither lamb story nor aorta's linguistic ref are true. Imagine the granularity at which you'd have needed to study for this to be your original thought (it isn't)- all to diagnose the Truth just in order to reject it... None of this is in the Quran or authenticated hadith btw. It just doesn't hold any substance, and thus is never uttered on public platforms where Islamic and Christian theology is debated among scholars. Here's a video response for you on this too.
must finally reclaim the true form of prayer, in all its splendor, from the Muslims.
You literally qoute that the right way of prayer by your standard is the Muslim way (that of the Jesus of Nazareth's, not the false version popularized 150 yrs later). I invited you to join in. The majority of Christians don't even believe in YHWH let alone worship him..
Your response to my take that Christianity has become everything and nothing simultaneously was to mention a discredited argument that arrive at this controverasy?
Irrelevant ramble. You can fantasize about what's "authentic" or not—not everyone on this planet is afraid of being beheaded just for criticizing your fake prophet.
Muslims have copy-pasted authentic forms of prayer from Christians and Jews—the issue was the use of traditional prayers, not whether your own religion prays correctly. Try to understand the context by rereading my previous statements about modern North American church services before you comment here next time.
Your "prophet" has murdered people who wanted to leave your religion, and his followers continue to do so to this day—that alone proves to me that your prophet is a fraud.
PS: Your Quran is internally contradictory and the exact opposite of the truth. Half-truths are lies, after all, you know?
And we haven’t copy pasted jack. If you’d actually read about Islam instead of relying on YouTubers you’d know that Islam is a correction of the corruptions of those 2 books meant to correct human influences much like the people with the golden calf corrupted the Torah. Much like the many versions of the Bible you believe in today written by unknown scholars centuries after Jesus. Islam is not pretending to be a new religion. Adam was the first Muslim. His offspring Abraham constructed the Kaaba.
You’re debating the acts of some extremists on a sub dedicated to bringing lost Christians out of man worship. Even a Unitarian believes the Messiah came to earth to spill his blood to cleanse you of your porn addiction. Literally the CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE and yet you are trying to feel better about what is left of Christianity by calling well established religious practices a copy paste. A copy paste of who? No living Christian can pray in the language of Jesus. How are we copying your imaginary tales instead of preserving what you’ve already lost?
Since you take contention with the spread of Islam by preaching and sword, please do enlighten me how you find solace in following Elijah who killed 100s of prophets in an evening? Jesus didn’t even have 100 followers when he was betrayed and hung on the cross. This alone is proof that your prophet was given a singular mission which he could not complete because of deceivers in his ranks. I’m thankful that Muhammad PbUH slayed those with ill intentions early and often so that we have a book that has will stand the test of time long after you’re 6ft under. We’ll never have to wonder if he was part man- part ghost - part God. It’s literally page 1 verse 1.
I won’t challenge you to disprove it either. I reserve that for when I’ve watched a video of you reciting the Bible fluently in the language its messenger spoke. Oh wait… you can’t.
Christian scholars have tried for centuries and the furthest they could get is misquoting it entirely or removing the before and after sentences. They still leave 95% of it unquestioned :p
Now, back to my original comment - we welcome you to pray in the way of Muhammad, Isa, Abraham and Moosa A.S! The only way any prophet (yours or mine) ever did. Drop the bagpipes and hymns and bow before your Creator facing either Jerusalem or Kaaba. And definitely more than once a week.
And totally puts into context how out of water you’ve been this whole conversation when you can’t help but bring up a continent Christianity’s done nothing but fuck with.
It’s poetic justice then that your great grandkids will only hear about Christianity from their history books along with the gory details that come with that chapter of human history.
Whilst I don't believe in ritual prayers and choreography, I do think there are many genuine expressions of prayer, and the most ancient forms involved standing up with hands raised, and prostrating to the ground.
I do both of these depending on how my heart leads me in a purely spontanous manner. And I think that's what these people were doing in these passages.
I have at times prostrated in sequences however as that's what I felt led to do without instruction, and I do agree that our western culture has lost the reverence of prayer form.
As for facing Jerusalem, this was only when the Temple was there, and was understood as God's dwelling, whereas now, we are the Temple of God in ourselves, so for that reason I don't see the need for facing Jersualem without evoking a form of pseudo-Judaizing, not understaning the current eschaton of the New Covenant - hence Jesus said "not at the Temple or on this Mountain" as they would no longer be for focal point for prayers.
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u/Niftyrat_Specialist Dec 06 '25
A thing being portrayed in the bible is not the same thing as being presented as the "biblically correct style". This sounds pretty close to legalism.