Babbling like pagans

IF the Teacher had not warned us to refrain from “babbling like pagans” when we are praying, we would not have known that some kind of “prayer” may be “babbling” instead of communicating clearly with our heavenly Father.

His disciples must have been watching him as he prayed, and they longed to imitate him because they were edified by his prayers. Teaching them to pray, he mentioned an important detail worth nothing.

When you pray,  he told them, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7).

What is prayer?

When we pray, we speak to God as one would converse with another person, but remember that we are talking with Almighty God, our heavenly Father. We must, therefore, accord him all the honours and reverence we can marshal. 

Certainly, God wants to hear us clearly in order to respond to us. But “babbling” instead of praying is a waste of time – warns the Teacher.

The prayer Jesus taught his disciples was clear and unambiguous, straight to the point, and devoid of pretences: Our Father, who is in Heaven, hallowed be your name. . . Clear, no flowery words and expressions, and easily understandable.  

On the other hand, babbling is unintelligible, communicates nothing, shows off, and achieves nothing ­— said the Lord Jesus.  And his warning must be headed.

This conversation is necessitated by the fact that the Lord Jesus encourages believers to pray intelligently with clarity of expression and not babble like pagans.

What is babbling?  

Researching into this topic, I landed on a few leads that should help us understand what babbling prayer is:  

• “Babbling prayer happens when we just repeat a prayer without really directing it to God relationally, or when we mumble incessant words or flippant (or playful) prayers without engaging God through those words.”

• “Babbling is to utter in an incoherently or meaninglessly repetitious manner”— like pagans do.  “Pagans pray like spinning a wheel or tying a ribbon to manipulate the gods or spirits.”

• “Most Gentiles in the first century participated in pagan idol worship, which involved repetitive chanting of words and phrases. Some thought they would be heard and receive their requests for repeating their prayer an excessive number of times in a row.”

• “Babbling is saying words without any heart behind them.  Jesus said sometimes we think that if we just keep going, we'll get God's attention.”

• “It doesn't matter how long or short you pray; if it's empty, it's vain.  Repeating such emptiness is pointless. The vain repetition Jesus was referring to was faithless prayers.”

Thus, praying to God is not a magical incantation the way pagans do.  Magicians and idol worshippers recite phrases continuously at their shrines, trying to invoke their gods into action.  Our living, great, majestic God is not an idol to be treated like that!

Babies keep on babbling before they learn to speak, and that’s understandable.  But if an adult were to keep on babbling to God, that would be paganism, says the Lord Jesus.

For further thoughts on this subject, I engaged two respectable Christian leaders who candidly expressed their opinions. They agreed that as in Jesus’ time, “babbling” goes on today in the name of prayer. So, the Lord’s warning is appropriate.

One of the leaders said the kind of prayer he had heard was not only babbling but also “howling”, demonstrated by loud shrieks that resembled long and unintelligible hooting and wailing. 

Our discussion drifted into the use of “tongues,” for it is about tongue-speaking that “prayer abuse” is widespread.  It is also about speaking in tongues that babbling is prone to occur.  

About tongue-speaking, the apostle Paul wrote extensively because of its misuse and abuses in his time (1 Corinthians 14).  “Prayer abuse” is when the mode of communicating with God is babbling instead of being intelligible.

As we discussed, I noticed that both leaders were cautious, admitting that communicating with God is so personal and spiritual that it might be presumptuous to label any mode of prayer as being “babbling.”  Yet, we unanimously agreed with the Lord Jesus that some Christians, in their prayers, babble like pagans and need to be watchful.

Dicey topic

This is a dicey topic, and the discussion is even more tricky.  Prayer is so important and critical to individual and church life that nothing should undermine it.

As the church leaders cautioned, we should be careful about describing prayer as “babbling” if it is not.  This is because prayer is a spiritual exercise, and it may not be inaccurately subjected to natural scrutiny.

Yet, our Lord Jesus, who prayed a lot, taught us to pray, and elevated prayer, said, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans.”  

Therefore, there is an absolute need to ensure that our prayer is genuine and not babbling.

The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
E-mail: lawrence.darmani@gmail.com