Prayer is a word that universally connotes (directly communicates) religious practice and faith in God. The word and indeed the practice seems shrouded in some degree of mystery, even to believers. To some prayer is the ardent recital of carefully chosen words meant to project piety, to channel heavenly power by the acknowledgment of the Giver. To others prayer is ritual action performed in obeisance (humble bowing) to God, outward reflections of an inner conviction, and thus an invitation to God's benevolence.
In essence, prayer is talking real, having real talk with a God who is true, living, intimately interested and touchingly involved in the life of every single human soul because He is our Father, our Father in Heaven.
Jesus taught us how to pray. His prayer is the hallmark of Christian communication with God. Yet despite the familiarity with the "Our Father", prayer is to many Christians mightily mysterious. Add to this that The Lord's Prayer came down to us in three recensions or versions, two similar shorter versions in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, and a longer version in some Greek and Aramaic manuscripts of Matthew 6.
As Latter-day Saints we have a recension (textual version) that came through to us literally from the original scribe who was eye witness to Jesus' teachings in AD 34, to one Prophet editor in the mid-fourth century AD, and then a single translation to English by a Prophet translator in 1829. This ancient recension confirms the three recensions of the Biblical witnesses:
"Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And led us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
forever. Amen."
(3 Nephi 13:9-13,
The Book of Mormon:
Another Testament of Jesus Christ)
Why Pray Only to The Father and Why Close in Jesus' Name?
We Latter-day Saints differ possibly from the majority of Christians in several key regards, and one of the major differences is that we pray only to The Father. In the same ancient record, The Book of Mormon, The Lord Jesus Christ gave two further instructions on prayer:
"Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father
in my name;
And whatsoever ye shall ask
The Father in my name,
which is right,
believing that ye shall receive,
behold it shall be given unto you.
Pray in your families unto the Father,
always in my name,
that your wives and your children
may be blessed."
(3 Nephi 18:19-21)
And thus we Latter-day Saint Christians pray only to The Father, and always in the name of Jesus Christ.
But Can Christians Pray to Jesus Anyway?
Jesus recognized that when He is physically with us, in our actual midst, we may turn our hearts to Him directly. When Jesus was with His Apostles, His disciples, literally among anyone, people would come and ask Him questions directly. When we are literally in His presence we may speak to Him directly. Such an event was handed down in The Book of Mormon:
"And behold, they began to pray;
and they did pray unto Jesus,
calling him their Lord and their God.
And it came to pass
that Jesus departed out of the midst of them,
and went a little way off from them
and bowed himself to the earth, and he said:
Father, thou hast given them
the Holy Ghost
because they believe in me;
and thou seest that they believe in me
because thou hearest them,
and they pray unto me;
and the they pray unto me
because I am with them;"
(3 Nephi 19:18-19, 22)
Other than in such a singularly rare and blessed circumstance as having Jesus in our actual midst, visible to naked eye and audible to the natural ears, we are instructed to pray to The Father. It is interesting to note that even as Jesus' humble followers in Ancient America prayed to Him, to Jesus, Heavenly Father was listening to those prayers directed to His Son who was in their midst.
But Do These "Mormon" Teachings on Prayer Conflict with The Bible?
I have it put to me fairly often that "The Bible" does not forbid praying to Jesus nor does The Bible mandate praying in Jesus' name.
Or does it?
While it is true that The Book of Mormon's texts deliver unequivocal (not to be confused) teachings on prayer (and on the Gospel in its entirety), The Book of Mormon is neither contradicting Biblical teachings on prayer nor filling in putative (supposedly) missing gaps in the Biblical teachings on prayer, rather The Book of Mormon is indeed a sacred second witness that, when embraced--precisely because The Holy Ghost witnesses that The Book of Mormon is truly Another Testament of Jesus Christ--we at long last discern what had been affirmed in the Biblical record all along, though somehow we only noticed the Biblical teachings after the light of clarity in The Book of Mormon tuned our understanding in. (John 16):
23: And in that day
ye shall ask me nothing.
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whatsoever ye shall ask The Father
in my name,
he will give it you.
24: Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name:
ask, and ye shall receive,
that your joy may be full.
Jesus, while addressing His Apostles on His impending death and then resurrection, Jesus pointed out that after His resurrection His disciples were to ask nothing of Him, but where to ask The Father. The next teaching is key: Although His disciples had not yet asked anything in His, Jesus' name, now they were to ask always in His name. Clearer words on the absolute framework of prayer--addressing The Father in Heaven only and ending always in the name of Jesus Christ--could scarcely be articulated (pronounced). And there they were, in our Bibles and Biblical source texts for nearly 2000 years. Yet it took a second witness of Jesus Christ, a true second witness directly from Jesus Christ, to connect the passages to our understanding.
One Last Point: We Pray to The Father and The Son Will Answer Doing His Father's Will
Jesus did say that whatsoever we ask The Father, in His, in Jesus' name, The Father will give us. Jesus also clarified how "The Father" would give us the answer to our prayers (John 13):
"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified
in the Son."
The Son will do whatsoever we ask The Father to do in the name of Jesus, or we might say, The Father will send His Son to do whatever we asked The Father to do as so inspired by The Holy Ghost as to have been the will of The Son and the will of The Father, this union of our will to Theirs being subsumed (included, swallowed up in) in the words "in the name of Jesus Christ".
This same Apostolic Witness, John the Beloved, drew a distinction between God The Father, whom John like all inspired Hebrew prophets called "The God", and His Only Begotten Son, whom all inspired Hebrew Prophets called "A God". The key use of the article "the" is almost universally omitted from New Testament translations (the Jehovah's witnesses do translate "the God" from the Greek in a few places, though not in most), and is universally omitted from Old Testament translations. But let us have a brief look because understanding the truth allows us to establish a firm foundation of faith in our lives.
John 1:1-2: (From the Greek Source Text)
1 In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with The God,
and the Word was A God.
2 The same was in the beginning
with The God.
John called The Father "The God", and The Word, Jesus Christ, was "God" or "A God". Let us see how this was true even in Abraham's day. Abraham had told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister, and so Abimelech took Sarah as his wife, at which point The Lord smote Abimelech's household by stopping up the wombs of the women so that no children would be born. God then visits Abimelech in a dream and sets the record straight. God tells Abimelech that He, God, knows that Abimelech did not know that Sarah was married, but unless he returns her to her husband, God will strike Abimelech down. Abimelech then settles the matter with Abraham, and to bring about a complete resolution, Abraham prays for Abimelech's family. Let's see what happened in Genesis 20:17: (From the Hebrew)
"So Abraham prayed unto The God:
and A God healed Abimelech,
and his wife,
and his maidservants;
and they bare children."
So Abraham himself would pray to The God, but it was A God who healed Abimelech and his household, and the great blessing of children was granted.
There is "A" God
The Book of Mormon, that ancient Book that passed from source texts to an abridgment through the hands of two contemporaneous Prophet scribes in the fourth century AD, then to a single translation in English in 1829 through an inspired Prophet translator, this other witness of Jesus Christ, clarifies who "A God" is: (2 Nephi 11:7)
"For if there be no Christ
there be no God;
and if there be no God
we are not,
for there could have been no creation.
But there is a God,
and he is Christ,
and he cometh in the fullness of his own time."
This same Prophet scribe, Nephi, had this to say about Christ (2 Nephi 25:19):
"For according to the words of the prophets,
the Messiah cometh in six hundred years
from the time that my father left Jerusalem;
and according to the words of the prophets,
and also the word of the angel of God,
his name shall be
Jesus Christ,
the Son of God."
Nephi also prophesied that the Jews would be scattered and that The Lord would scourge His people until they would be persuaded to believe: (2 Nephi 25:16)
"...until they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ,
the Son of God,
and the atonement,
which is infinite for all mankind--
and when the day shall come
that they shall believe in Christ,
and worship the Father in his name,
with pure hearts and clean hands,
and look not forward any more for another Messiah,
then, at that time,
the day will come that it must needs be expedient
that they should believe these things."
Nephi prophesied that after the long dispersion of the Jews they would be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and would worship the Father in His, Jesus Christ's, name.
So yet again, the ancient records are in harmony, The Bible and The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and yet again their testimony points the way to salvation. We are to worship The Father and pray to The Father in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and if we do so in the spirit and intent that God will grant through His Spirit, The Father will have The Son answer our prayers.
The reader, of course, is at liberty to make of these passages and others what he will, what she will, what they will, but the passages I cited at least, are actually textual.
