My Take on The Prayer of Jabez A book review by Jim Kaufman - 11/29/01
The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, by Bruce H. Wilkinson. Multnomah Publishers, 2000. 93 pp. $7.99.
Introduction
Ahhh…my first book review is finally here. I borrowed the book from our receptionist at work and kept it a lot longer than I told her I would. Just to let you know, I skimmed a number of reviews of The Prayer of Jabez (more and more appear online each month)--both pro and con--but I did not use those writers' ideas about the book. Instead I read through and made notes of the parts of the book that caught my attention and based my thoughts on those. While I have to say that the ideas in this book are certainly not revolutionary, they're not entirely harmless either. So keep reading. Whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say, send an e-mail in response. I'd like to hear from you.You might think, "There goes Jim again, always against the latest movement of the Spirit. He's so narrow in his interpretations, so cerebral. He's concerned about the mind, but how about the spirit? I bet he'd like the book if he were an exhorter or a prophet instead of a teacher. Maybe he should just cool it, before he starts offending everyone. Besides, God is doing such wonderful things through that little beige book!"
Hold on. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a teacher or not. Rather, it has everything to do with the integrity of the Word of God and the true path of success and blessing from Him. My purpose is not to offend but to get you to think. (Why should you take it personally, anyway?) I have nothing personal against the author. I've barely heard of him. He apparently has had a wonderful ministry pointing thousands to the Word of God. However, I am only focusing on this one popular book and it's message. So here goes. I hope it's not too long.
What's this book all about?
Bruce Wilkinson, the founder and president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, has written a runaway best seller (probably soon to pass ten million sold). "If you long to live your life the way it is meant to be lived in Christ, The Prayer of Jabez is a must read. A small book, a life-changing message! Highly recommended!" That enthusiastic praise is from none other than distinguished Dallas Theological Seminary professor, Dr. Howard Hendricks (on the back cover). The book and it's author were also featured for two days on Dr. James Dobson's influential Focus on the Family radio show. Indeed, even well-known Christian leadership guru Dr. John Maxwell had him as a keynote speaker at his recent nationwide satellite conference. Pretty good company, I must say.So let's see what the buzz is all about. The whole Jabez passage is found buried in a long genealogy in 1 Chronicles. It reads like this:
Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" So God granted him what he requested. (1 Chron 4:9-10 - NKJV)
Yup. That's about it. Wilkinson relates how he got hooked on the prayer many, many years ago as a seminary student in his "kitchen with yellow counters and Texas-sized raindrops pelting the windows" and proceeds to explain the significant effect it has had on his life.
In the book's preface he writes, "I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers….I believe it contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God." And, "Thousands of believers who are applying its truths are seeing miracles happen on a regular basis."
Upon hearing the teaching about Jabez for the first time, he mused,
"What exactly did Jabez do to rise above the rest? Why did God answer his prayer?...The next morning, I prayed Jabez's prayer word for word. And the next. And the next. Thirty years later, I haven't stopped. If you were to ask me what sentence--other than my prayer for salvation--has revolutionized my life and ministry the most, I would tell you it was the cry of a gimper named Jabez....How do I know that it will significantly impact you? Because of my experience and the testimony of hundreds of others around the world with whom I've shared these principles."
Wow, that's pretty powerful stuff! I'd better keep reading and see how this works.
In his discussion of the first of Jabez's prayers, Wilkinson has to take time to rearrange our understanding of prayer. He states, "Is it possible that God wants you to be 'selfish' in your prayers?...I want to show you that such a prayer [Oh, that you would bless me indeed] is not the self-centered act it might appear, but a supremely spiritual one..." I can't help remembering here the haunting verse of the old Keith Green song, Asleep in the Light:
Oh, bless me, Lord, bless me, Lord, you know it's all I ever hear.
No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear.
But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds, and He cares for your needs,
And you just lay back and keep soaking it in.
Oh, can't you see it's such sin?Okay, okay, I'm not saying that asking God to bless you is necessarily a sin. But tell me it is not legitimate to be troubled when Wilkinson says, basically, that if you pray his prayer for blessing, "your life will become marked by miracles." However, if I don't ask God to bless me, He will withhold untold numbers of "blessings" from me. This is a chapter of pure unbiblical speculation--his fanciful explanations clearly don't arise from the text. He invents a description of Jabez's life to show his prayer in the best possible light.
The second phrase is where you ask God to enlarge your territory so that you can bless more people. Wilkinson says that Jabez wanted "more influence, more responsibility, and more opportunity to make a mark for the God of Israel." Now where did he get that idea? A lot of assumptions there. (Gary E. Gilley has written, responding to POJ overreaches, a book with the main title, I Just Wanted More Land). A number of anecdotes follow about people who had great success with his method.
I have less of a problem with the third part, "that your hand would be with me." We all need God's hand with us when we are serving him according to His will. His emphasis is dependence on God. Wilkinson doesn't speculate much about Jabez in that chapter, either. The thing that gets me about this, though, is the way it still seems to be merely a strategy for getting what you want. "[A]sking for God's hand upon us is our strategic choice to sustain and continue the great things that God has begun in our lives." I see...it's all part of the strategy. Remarkably, Wilkinson presumptuously told his youth group on a mission trip, "If we don't have one hundred kids in each club by the end of the week, we should consider it a failure." What!?
"Oh, that you would keep me from evil" is the fourth and final of Jabez's requests. Clearly there is nothing wrong with that. It is a bit deceptive, however, to give only the New King James Version translation. Wilkinson gives alternate translations when they help his case. But for this one every other translation is selfish, not all that noble sounding. His NKJV says, "keep me from evil that I may not cause pain!" The others all say something to the effect of "...that it may not grieve me." (KJV), "...keep me from all trouble and pain." (NLT), or "...keep me from harm that it may not pain me!" (NASB). The NKJV is the only version that has not causing pain as its object.
Throughout the book, of course, dozens of outrageous statements jump out at you. But let me pick just a couple of troubling phrases that caught my eye in the next to the last chapter. "But Jabez, whose prayer earned him a 'more honorable' award from God…" (p.76--emphasis mine) Huh? Did he say, "earned him?" It seems Jabez's praying amounted to a kind of works-righteousness. Do you think he got brownie points with God for repeating this prayer? Hardly. In fact Jesus admonished his disciples not to be like the Gentiles who used meaningless repetitions (as he pointed them to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6).
The second passage is, "I don't want to get to heaven and hear God say: 'Let's look at your life, Bruce. Let me show you what I wanted for you and tried repeatedly to accomplish through you…but you wouldn't let me.' What a travesty!" (p. 77--emphasis mine) The real travesty is the way Wilkinson twists the power and authority of God, turning him from the Sovereign Lord of the universe into a frustrated weakling much like the oft-repeated description of Jesus (from Revelation 3:20) standing helplessly at the door of our hearts hoping we will let him in (since, after all, the doorknob is on the inside). To this Jesus might reply, "You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God." (Matt. 22:29)
Well...at last, Making Jabez Mine (Chapter 7) gives the formula for the blessed life. If you follow these steps "the prayer will be on its way to becoming a treasured, lifelong habit." I want to repeat the steps in their entirety here with my (somewhat sarcastic--sorry) comments after each.
- Pray the Jabez prayer every morning, and keep a record of your daily prayer by marking off a calendar or a chart you make especially for the purpose. [And what if I should miss a day? I lose that day's blessings, don't I?]
- Write out the prayer and tape it in your Bible, in your day-timer, on your bathroom mirror, or some other place where you'll be reminded of your new vision. [No need to write it. Just go to your nearest Christian store where you will find an assortment of plaques, cards, mugs, key chains, bookmarks, etc. with the Jabez prayer nicely embossed.]
- Reread this little book once each week during the next month, asking God to show you important insights you may have missed. [Funny how Wilkinson hardly mentions the Bible in his book. Instead, if you want to be blessed read his little book over and over. At least I'm only required to do this for a month.]
- Tell one other person of your commitment to your new prayer habit, and ask him or her to check up on you. [Ahh...accountability about the Prayer. Don't know if I can handle the legalism and guilt trips.]
- Begin to keep a record of changes in your life, especially the divine appointments and new opportunities you can relate directly to the Jabez prayer. [Utterly amazing--I'm amazed that Paul and the other New Testament writers never once mentioned the Prayer.]
- Start praying the Jabez prayer for your family, friends, and local church. [Oh wow--it even works like the Mormon baptisms for the dead?--proxy Jabez praying! Now, if I can just find someone to pray the Prayer for me. Hmmm.]
I can't resist mentioning one final testimony about the Prayer in this chapter. I think it says it all. Wilkinson showcases the impressive numbers of his expanding ministry as an example of the success of his method. On page 90 he summarizes, "Just by looking at what is happening, I can assure you that God still answers those who have a loyal heart and pray the Jabez prayer." (!)
Okay, so isn't there some redeeming value to the book? Sure. It wasn't hard to come up with a list of five positive encouragements in The Prayer of Jabez:
