ABSTRACT

The Bible is not an explicit resource of forms of worship or of directives on the subject of language. The Lord’s Prayer is regarded by some to be less a prescription than an indication of the manner of prayer. Jesus commended private devotion as an encounter with the Father behind the closed door of one’s own room. And he condemned as hypocrisy the flamboyance of outward signs that were not matched by an inner meaning (Matthew 6:5).