God as Santa: misreading the prayer of Jabez

Christian Century, Oct 23, 2002 by Rodney Clapp, John Wright

Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!" And God granted what he asked. (1 Chron. 4:10, NRSV)

BRUCE WILKINSON'S The Prayer of Jabez rode the top of Publishers Weekly and the New York Times bestseller lists for many months after its 2000 publication. This little book, easily read within an hour, centers on two short and obscure verses in 1 Chronicles. In marketing and sales terms, it has been a huge success. The book has not only sold millions but has spun off ancillary markets, including Jabez bracelets, posters, videos and shirts, and who knows how many other commodified talismans. It is safe to assume that hundreds of millions of dollars have been made. Bless me, indeed.

But Christian commercialization is an easy target. Besides, Wilkinson has pumped copious funds into the admirable Bible study program he founded and leads, Walk Thru the Bible Ministries. The back cover of Wilkinson's book describes Walk Thru the Bible as "an international organization dedicated to providing the finest biblical teaching."

It is on the basis of "biblical teaching" that we would challenge The Prayer of Jabez, for it seriously distorts that teaching. One of the most striking features of Wilkinson's book is the way the focus on Jabez's prayer displaces the Lord's Prayer. Wilkinson rightly mentions the Lord's Prayer as "the model prayer" for Christians, but mention it is all he does, and only once. Otherwise, those for whom Wilkinson's book is their first encounter with the Christian faith can only assume that Jabez's petition is the central or exemplary Christian prayer.

We are told in the preface that this is "a daring prayer that God always answers" and "the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God." We are soon also informed that Jabez's prayer has "revolutionized [Wilkinson's] life and ministry the most" and that "the Jabez prayer distills God's powerful will for your future." By the end of the book we are exhorted to intone the Jabez prayer every morning, to tape a copy of the prayer on our Bible, day-timer or bathroom mirror, and to pray the prayer for our "family, friends, and local church." The Jabez prayer emerges not only as a "key" distillation of God's will but on the level of practical piety it shoves aside the Lord's Prayer.

Do we read the Jabez prayer through the Lord's Prayer, or the Lord's Prayer through the Jabez prayer? Since the Lord's Prayer was given as the exemplary pattern of Christian prayer, all other prayer should be shaped by it, not vice versa. Here we will simply note the two different trajectories of the Lord's Prayer and the Jabez prayer as Wilkinson presents it.

First, the Lord's Prayer is a corporate prayer. It is prayed in the first-person plural ("Our Father ..., Give us each day our daily bread ..."). We pray primarily as members of the community of Christ's followers, where our individual identity, purpose and welfare are nested. Indeed, the scope of the Lord's Prayer is (most clearly in Matthew's version) cosmic: the plea is that God's kingdom come, God's will be done, "on earth as in heaven." There can be no spiritual cocooning. There is no escaping politics, economies, conflict and other messiness of history.

The Jabez prayer, as set forth by Wilkinson, is markedly individualistic and insulating. The genealogical context in which the prayer appears emphasizes that Jabez is part of a people (Israel) and a particular, complicated history. But Wilkinson lifts Jabez out of that context and presents his words as "principles" and "steps" the 21st-century individual can directly claim and practice. The "you" addressed throughout the book is singular and coached to center the Jabez prayer on individual circumstances: "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory ..."

In fairness, Wilkinson discourages using the Jabez prayer for self-aggrandizement, and he defines enlargement of territory in terms of ministerial opportunities--expanded occasions for evangelism and godly influence. But the individual is put front and center, and in Wilkinson's examples the individual is always (if incidentally) made more prosperous or comfortable. Individuals should pray for the growth of their stock portfolios and businesses (pp. 31, 46). If the individual prays the Jabez prayer for 30 years, like Wilkinson, he may find himself evangelizing in agreeable circumstances such as cruise ships (pp. 36-39) and cross-country train trips (p. 42). His teenaged children may be protected from bad company (pp. 45-46). He may pray, when a plane is late, that a connecting flight be delayed; and then, perhaps partly to redeem any hardship caused to other fliers, he might witness to a woman traveling to divorce her husband--a woman who, faced with the unfailing, and relentless power of the Jabez prayer, will of course convert and decide to save her marriage (pp. 79-82).

READERS OF The Prayer of Jabez may come to imagine God as a cosmic Santa Claus, merrily doling out gifts to any individual who asks. And asks. And asks. Indeed, one illustrative "fable" explicitly puts it in just those terms. A certain Mr. Jones dies and goes to heaven. He finds St. Peter outside an enormous warehouse sheltering the only secrets in heaven--contained within row after row of "white boxes tied in red ribbons." Just like a child on Christmas morning, Mr. Jones tears open his package, and there he finds "all the blessings that God wanted to give him while he was on earth.... But Mr. Jones had never asked."