Who Should I Pray To?

One of the questions that usually comes to the forefront when people from different streams of Christianity come together is who should we offer our prayers to? The Father? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? The Virgin Mary? Various Saints? Our Common Unnamed God?

Scripture makes it pretty clear that we are only to pray and worship the one true God, the triune God of the Bible. The apostles never allowed people to pray to them or worship them when they were alive (Acts 10.24-26), and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want us to pray to them now that they are dead.

The worship of the Virgin Mary is a Roman Catholic phenomenon. Millions of Catholics pray to her in the hope that she will influence her son to move on their behalf. While we should always be very respectful of how we talk about Jesus’ mom, there is no indication that anyone considered praying to her in the early Church when she was alive. In fact, praying to Mary is a relatively recent development (the last several hundred years) and is of questionable origin. It doesn’t represent a truly Christian approach to prayer.

It is also fashionable at secular gatherings to pray to “our common God”. While I realize the intent of the practice is to help us get past our religious differences, I find it a bit challenging. Who are we praying to? Who is our common God? If we are speaking of the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, I probably am great with it. If it includes Allah, Buddha or others, then I certainly have a problem with it.

What about the Trinity? The traditional Christian position has been to direct our prayers to the Father as Jesus taught us to do (Matthew 6.6). To conclude the prayer in Jesus’ name signifies our identity as His followers and our trust in Him as our redeemer (1 Corinthians 6.11, Colossians 3.17); and to pray under the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit is something that is encouraged in Scripture as well (Ephesians 6.18, Jude 1.20). I have never encountered anything in the Bible that forbids us to direct our prayers to Jesus or the Holy Spirit as long as we understand their part in the Holy Trinity and the importance of the Father.

I am interested to know how you have processed these questions and issues. What do you think?