I’ve been reading through Leonard Ravenhill’s recommended reading list. It’s been going slowly, but I’ve enjoyed all the books so far. The latest has been P. T. Forsyth’s The Soul of Prayer.

The book has a lot packed into its pages. The author is a theologian and has made a study of the topic of prayer. He quotes using Latin, Greek, French and even German but is generally understandable in English only. In just over a hundred pages he does his best to get you to rethink how you pray. He succeeded with me.

The two failings that I saw in his book were how radically he made some statements and that he took Evolution theory as solid.

Several statements bordered on heresy, at least in light of today’s culture. One such statement was a reversal of John’s writing that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). He said that it was not so much that way “but that love is God.” The sexual revolution, which came well after this book was published, has tried to make love a god and that skews how we would understand Forsyth’s statement. Despite this and similar remarks, I believe each serves a purpose. I also won’t be quoting Forsyth in general theological discussions.

The problem with Evolution theory is still hotly contested in many circles and perhaps I should post a write-up eventually of why it disagrees with Scripture. The usage of it did not appear until the final four pages of The Soul of Prayer and I was very startled to find it. It was very similar to C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity in that it is a very solid book all the way through until Evolution was invoked.

Apart from these two issues, I was very impressed. The author expounds on many aspects of prayer. They range from the reason for praying in Jesus’ name to how our prayers commit us to action.

This is one of the few books that I will have to read more than once to fully comprehend everything the author is saying. There is a lot about prayer that I am only beginning to understand, but I’ll recommend this book to others who are trying to learn.

I’ll close with a quote from the book. It was in the final chapter where Forsyth is stressing that prayer is not about weakness.

Strenuous prayer will help us to recover the masculine type of religion -- and then our opponents will at least respect us.