Customer Reviews

Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(2)
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Yancey, once again, has written a profound book. I first hesitated to purchase and read yet another book on prayer, and this one comes in at 331 pages! However, in my opinion, this will be a "go to" book for years to come on the difficult subject of prayer. Yancey masterfully engages virtually every question and angle on the mystery of prayer that one could hope to read about. He offers a staggering thoroughness of research (328 endnotes), coupled with vulnerable glimpses into his own struggles and growth in prayer, sprinkled with numerous narratives of others' reflections on prayer, and documented with numerous historical and contemporary examples that support his ideas. The book contains rich biblical, theological, personal, and practical discussions and insights that have helped enlarge and enrich my understanding of, faith in, and practice of prayer. He theologically and relationally defines prayer as "keeping company with God." Containing 22 chapters (some quite long), his book is comprised of five parts: 1) Keeping Company with God, 2) Unraveling the Mysteries, 3) The Language of Prayer, 4) Prayer Dilemmas, 5) The Practice of Prayer. He criss crosses the entire spectrum of writers from virtually all Christian theological traditions while maintaining his own evangelical tradition. The book gets a five star rating because it serves as a virtual gold mine containing vast spiritual riches as well as a timeless resource for future generations.

"Thus God flatly declares that, in addition to our private spiritual state, our social concern, (or lack of it) for the poor, for the orphans and widows- also have a direct being on how our prayers are received. Those who pay exploitative wages, who break marriage vows through adultery and divorce, who treat illegal immigrants badly, who refuse to share food with the hungry or provide shelter to the homeless, risk closing God ears to their prayers. As a twenty-first century American, those warnings cut me to the quick." P.YANCEY

I first read Philp Yancey sometime in the beginning to this century in
'The Jesus I Never Knew' and also bought one for a Christian friend in my workplace as a gift.
I have great respect for Mr.Philp Yancey as a Christian author, who is insightfully wise as well as being very down-to-earth with his readers.
He allows us to know about doctors he has interviewed who told him about accounts of healings that were beyond expectation.
He does not hide the truth from us readers even when it hurts, and this book has many examples of these truths.
This book is written for all Christians, and non Christian alike. For those who pray for healing, financial binds and other challenges for many Christians who pray generally and do not get answers.
Where are the answers?
Mr Yancey brings us to the answers, You will not get enough of this book.
There are answered prayer and unanswered prayer - see what he says about them. I am not putting any spoilers in this review but begging you to get wisdom and understanding from "Prayer ....does it make a difference."
Nevertheless the answer is yes.
Reviewed by Heather Marshall Negahdar ( Haze 23-03-2011)

Yancey raises many questions but he answers very few of them. "Prayer" strikes me more as a literary critical work than as an experimental work. For help on the subject of prayer I recommend Charles Spurgeon, E.M. Bounds, Leonard Ravenhill or A.W. Tozer. These men were first and foremost men of prayer. They knew not only what it is to 'pray'; they knew what it means to meet with the living God... and, indeed, they spent hours each day in prayer.

Our class selected this book for our Sunday school. There is a companion Participant's Guide and a DVD which makes class preparation a lot easier. Highly recommended.

My problem with this book is that instead of trying to answer questions, Phillip Yancey presents a barrage of different ideas and opinions, some of them very strange, from a variety of sources (even a mystic who believed that living a contemplative life would leave to God given levitation, ecstacy or stigmata) but never makes an effort to come to any real conclusion.

If someone wants to just sit down and read a scholarly book about different people's beliefs about prayer than this may be the book for you. However, if you buy the book wanting conclusive answers, backed up by scripture, to questions you have about prayer... leave this one on the shelf.