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Rating: 
Summary: Prayers of a Scripture-formed Heart
Review: As a Pentecostal believer, I am fairly new to the art of crafting prayers in Scriptural reflection. Spontaneous prayer is emphasized in my tradition to the point that joining others in the praying of faithful speech has been thrilling new ground. These prayers, birthed in the heart of a tremendous scholar and righteous man, are transforming utterances which have challenged my heart and the hearts of many with which I have prayed them. The beloved professor has been surprised in the past to see where his work has gone and how it has been applied. Surely Dr. Brueggemann allows their publication not so that they can be read, but so that they can be joined. A wonderful collection indeed!
Rating:
Summary: Prayers of a Scripture-formed Heart
Review: As a Pentecostal believer, I am fairly new to the art of crafting prayers in Scriptural reflection. Spontaneous prayer is emphasized in my tradition to the point that joining others in the praying of faithful speech has been thrilling new ground. These prayers, birthed in the heart of a tremendous scholar and righteous man, are transforming utterances which have challenged my heart and the hearts of many with which I have prayed them. The beloved professor has been surprised in the past to see where his work has gone and how it has been applied. Surely Dr. Brueggemann allows their publication not so that they can be read, but so that they can be joined. A wonderful collection indeed!
Rating:
Summary: The words of a master in prayer.
Review: If you want to know what Walter Brueggemann is about, read his prayers. Yes, his commentaries are profound, but his heart and soul are found in his prayers. You will find, as I did, that he is a man who believes that God spoke and continues to speak. He is a man of the Word. His prayers challenge, confront and comfort. They challenge us to listen for God's word to us - today, in our world. His prayers confront our hardness of heart and our complacency. Ultimately, Brueggemann's words comfort us by illuminating the steadfast faithfulness of God love for struggling people. "Our lives are occupied territory... occupied by a cacophony of voices, and the din undoes us. In the daytime we have no time to listen, beset as we are by anxiety and goals and assignments and work, and in the night the voices are so confusing we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice from the voice of our mothers and fathers and our best friends and our pet projects, because they all sound so much like You. So give us ears. Amen." Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The words of a master in prayer.
Review: If you want to know what Walter Brueggemann is about, read his prayers. Yes, his commentaries are profound, but his heart and soul are found in his prayers. You will find, as I did, that he is a man who believes that God spoke and continues to speak. He is a man of the Word. His prayers challenge, confront and comfort. They challenge us to listen for God's word to us - today, in our world. His prayers confront our hardness of heart and our complacency. Ultimately, Brueggemann's words comfort us by illuminating the steadfast faithfulness of God love for struggling people. "Our lives are occupied territory... occupied by a cacophony of voices, and the din undoes us. In the daytime we have no time to listen, beset as we are by anxiety and goals and assignments and work, and in the night the voices are so confusing we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice from the voice of our mothers and fathers and our best friends and our pet projects, because they all sound so much like You. So give us ears. Amen." Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: prayers for sinners and saints and everyone in between
Review: Once again, Dr. Brueggemann demonstrates with stunning beauty, the power of imagination, the power of entering the stories of life and of scripture, of suffering and joy and making it our own. If you struggle with words, if you wish your prayer life was more poetic, more reflective of the larger issues that lay at the doorstep and inside the church, then this is the book to read, I constantly turn to it when worship leading and teaching adult bible study because it focuses my thoughts, expands my spirit and teaches me how to pray.
Rating:
Summary: How does one Rate Prayers of a devout Holy Man?
Review: To one of his more recent students in classes and lectures at Columbia Seminary, Prof Bruegge is already a Living Legend! In the beginning of every class there is his personal, inspired prayer to the "One Who Listens; Yahweh; Holy God; Giver of all our years; You, the God of Truth; You, You, You..." Lately, in his OT Survey, I wrote a few snatches of his opening addresses to: "You, You, You giver of Life; You who are the One Sovereign Judge, King, Lawyer, Counselor...O God as we watch powers rise and fall, We watch ourselves, we watch and see the World. You who comes late and sometimes soon... Come quickly Lord Jesus!" My thoughts often return to his opening prayers in every class. My wish for all of last year: "Why does not someone publish them?" So now we have many of them. From 1976: "You are the voice we can scarely hear..." From 1992, "Healing sovereign God, overmatch our resistant ears..." How many sparkling ways that he creatively addresses the Living Personal God! In these few weeks I have used this Jewel of Prayers, I have been particularly struck by the first group: "And then you; You...and therefore us; For how you hope; The other side of the street; Our true home." The second section that I have re-read is "A people with many secrets," and the 11th one, "The God we would rather have." Dedicated to "a long stream of treasured colleagues of 25 years at Eden Theological Seminary and 17 years at Columbia...with thanks and appreciation." When I purchased this treasure in the School's Book Store, I first saw it in the hands of one of his friends from the Seminary Offices. Now the one who prays to the "Liberator, Redeemer, Emancipator..." will continue to be the one I know who includes his students in his caring compassion!
Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood
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