Speaking Jesus

JONATHAN BLACK

Eucharisma 2, (Winter 2024), 37-46.

Silence is rarely true silence in a Pentecostal church. Nearly always, somewhere in the silence, if you listen, you will hear whispering of the name of Jesus. In moments of ‘silent’ worship, in moments of danger, in moments of fear, while praying for healing or for the baptism of the Spirit, the repeated name of Jesus will very likely be heard rising from Pentecostal lips. We speak Jesus. 

And we always have. Thomas Ball Barrett, the Anglo-Norwegian pioneer of the Pentecostal message in Britain, wrote of it as a sign of Spirit-filled people back in 1908: ‘The name of Jesus is constantly on the lips of Spirit-filled men and women. They love to repeat it often, it is the name of their heart’s best friend, their beloved.’¹ People who are filled with the Spirit love Jesus, and love to be with Jesus, so they love to speak his name.

But what does it mean to speak Jesus? Why do we do it? It’s something which—until we recently started singing about it—could have easily disappeared as a relic of a past culture: something our grandparents have carried over from the days of tarry meetings, head-coverings, and the Redemption Hymnal. Since the 1990s, British Pentecostal worship and culture has been utterly transformed, and as that shift has reached a stage where many leaders, as well as congregations, can’t remember what lay on the other side, it is incredibly easy for us to lose spiritual treasures under the guise of a changed culture. Without a grounding in history, it’s hard to distinguish between what’s merely old-fashioned and what’s vital and vibrant, but we’ve just managed to forget the reasons for it—between what sounds odd because it’s no longer helpful in our culture, and what sounds odd because we’ve actually forgotten something that will always be relevant. I’d contend that speaking ‘Jesus’ is the latter (and I think the fact that we’ve begun to sing about it, even if we don’t fully understand just what it is we’re singing, gives us a glimpse that there really is something there we’re in danger of losing). 

But I don’t just want to make a case that this is something we should hold onto. I want to help us think about what it actually is we’re doing. Let’s seek some understanding for our faith in the value of speaking the name. And in doing so, let’s look back to our past and learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before us; both our near fathers and mothers in the Pentecostal revival, and our distant ancestors in much less familiar parts of the history of the church. 

What a Powerful Name

The most obvious place to begin when thinking about Pentecostals, Charismatics, and the name of Jesus is with the power of his name. So let’s be obvious and start in the most sensible place, but we won’t stop here (for I’m convinced the greatest treasure for us to recover lies somewhere else). 

Your Name is Healing

When Peter and John met the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, Peter told him: ‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk’ (Acts 3.6). A man who couldn’t walk was healed in Jesus’ name. Pentecostals of past generations knew that Jesus’ name in connection to healing highlighted the fact that we rely on Jesus and his authority. Yet, it also encouraged them to use the actual name of Jesus in prayer for healing. One early Pentecostal missionary recounted how an elderly woman had come to her from the village for healing:

‘We knelt down and I tried to teach her how to pray, but oh! She was too ignorant. She could not grasp it, could not even repeat one sentence, so I gave that up, and said, “Now, mother, if you cannot pray, say the Name of Jesus.” As I prayed that ignorant, old, village woman took the name of Jesus on her lips for the first time. She repeated it over and over again, “Yesu! Yesu! Yesu!” and suddenly she threw her hands up to her head, her face lit up and she was almost beside herself. “It is all gone,” she said. “It was there for months. Now it is gone.” That ignorant, old, village woman took the name of Jesus on her lips and she was wonderfully delivered.’²

The name of Jesus is not a magic formula. But the name of Jesus is a sufficient prayer. The Lord is not waiting for us to craft perfect prayers to prise healings out of his hands. He simply invites us to come to Him through Jesus, trusting in Christ and all that He has done for us. Jesus is our Great High Priest and Mediator who purifies and perfects our prayers. And so the name of Jesus is more than sufficient as a prayer even in the most difficult situation, for it is our expression of confidence in Him. This woman didn’t know how to pray, but she knew the name of the one to call on. And calling on his name, she received the answer to her prayers. Prayer for healing need not be complicated. All we need to do is call upon Jesus and entrust everything to him.

Over Fear and All Anxiety: Our Rock in the Storms

And that’s not only true for physical healing. In every difficult situation and every dark valley we can call upon his name. An American Pentecostal wrote of his prayer in a car crash:

‘All I knew to do was say the name of Jesus. “Jesus, Jesus Jesus!” Now I know that just saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” is not a very theological prayer, but thankfully I had [a Bible College] instructor in the car with me at the time, and I could hear [him] crying out, “Oh Lord Jesus, Oh Lord Jesus, Oh Lord Jesus!”³

In moments of danger or disaster, we don’t need to tell the Lord what we need him to do; we simply need to call on his name. ‘We little think how great a treasure we have in the Name of Jesus’, wrote Henry Proctor, an early UK Pentecostal teacher. To help us think about this great treasure, Proctor drew on Proverbs 18.10. ‘The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.’ Jesus Christ is Lord, and so the name of Jesus is our strong tower and refuge, our shelter in the storm. ‘The simplest believer’, Proctor continued, ‘might take advantage of this fact, and by making use of the Name, save himself from many ills.’⁴

E.C.W. Boulton, another influential early British Pentecostal writer, taught that, ‘within this holy name lie unfathomed depths of spiritual wealth, unexplored heights of divine manifestation; inexhaustible fulness of heavenly blessing.’ The use of the name of Jesus is a gift from the ascended Christ to his people:

‘When the Master was about to withdraw from His disciples and ascend to the glory of His Father’s throne He bequeathed to them the legacy of a Name, a Name which would make them equal to every exigency, a Name through which they might always prove more than conquerors. Beloved, this Name is also our Lord’s bequest to you and me; let us see that we honour it, that we use it, that we truly represent all that it stands for.’

For Boulton, Jesus’ name is ‘the key that unlocks to us all the inheritance of grace which is ours in God; herein lies embedded all the thought of God for His people; and here, too, all His love finds full expression.’ And so, to pray the name of Jesus opens ‘tremendous possibilities’ for ‘it opens heaven and links us on to God.’ 

‘Think of these seasons when we were “troubled on every side,” “pressed down” by reason of the many things against us; discouraged and disappointed at the failure of cherished plans, how this precious name has lifted us out of ourselves to “higher ground” in the Lord. Or again, when hard beset by the enemy, our strength well nigh spent, and defeat almost inevitable, the name of Jesus breathed into our heart by the Holy Spirit has put new courage into our sinking souls, fresh faith into our weakened spirits, and disaster has been transformed into glorious triumph. Just when our way has been “veiled in darkness,” and the next step was unseen and unknown, through the Name of Jesus has come streaming the sunshine of His promise, “lo, I am with you all the days,” and the Valley of Achor has been turned into a “door of hope.” … Think of the power which this Name supplies in prayer … those ugly wounds which sin and disease have made, can be healed by the application of the Wonderful Name of Jesus.’⁵

Jesus has given us his name to speak, and as we speak his name he works. For by his name he draws our eyes and hearts to him in faith. The name of Jesus is not a mechanical formula: it’s both the proclamation of a person and a cry towards that person. And as Christ is proclaimed, faith comes by hearing (Romans 10.17). Of course, that also means knowing more of who he is and what he’s done for us plays a part here in praying his name. The Lord is very gracious, and he works by his Spirit to fill brand new believers who know very little about him with faith through Jesus’ name, but he also works through our knowledge of his word. The more we know of Christ in his word, the more content the simple name of Jesus brings with it, and the more of his good news we’re hearing in that one word.

Another early Pentecostal explained this by saying that the Lord Jesus has ‘left his name’ as a memorial for all believers. His name ‘strengthens and quickens, comforts and soothes’ our hearts, because it is a powerful memorial which proclaims him to us as our ‘Saviour, Redeemer, Healer, Cleanser, Sanctifier, Baptiser, Shepherd, High Priest and King.’ For those who love Jesus, ‘his name as their Lamb, their Resurrection and Life, their High Priest and Judge is unmistakeably sweet.’⁶

Back in the 5^th century, Diadochos of Photike also encouraged people to pray the name of Jesus in times of darkness and distress. Like the Pentecostals, Diadochos saw the name of Jesus as a powerful memorial or remembrance. Particularly at times when Satan attacks, Diadochos pointed to ‘the remembrance of the glorious and holy name of the Lord Jesus’ as ‘a weapon against Satan’s deception.’⁷ Believingly praying the name of Jesus, Diadochos taught, will ‘repel the evil one.’⁸

What a Beautiful Name

‘Precious Jesus!’ Especially among older British Pentecostals, it won’t be long before you hear someone mention the precious name of Jesus. His name isn’t just a way of getting his attention. His name is loved and revered. 

You have no Equal: Worship

When the songs are done and the music is still playing, around the congregation people will be continuing to worship in their own words. And often their words of worship are simply a repetition of the name of Jesus. And that spills over into our songs as well. In every generation, well-beloved hymns, choruses, and worship songs have been built around his precious name. Songs through the years like ‘His Name is Wonderful,’ ‘Wonderful Name He Bears,’ ‘Jesus, Name Above All Names,’ ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name,’ and ‘What a Beautiful Name it is’ — the name of Jesus is constantly on our lips in worship. One Pentecostal testimony put it like this: ‘The name of Jesus means so much to me! Sometimes in my home when I just say the name of Jesus, my heart swells with gratitude to him.’⁹

Yet, the name of Jesus is more than simply a word to use in worship. Pentecostal leaders of the past continually pointed out the implications speaking that name in worship have for our whole lives: ‘Do you speak the name of Jesus with the deepest reverence? Do you seek to yield your whole life to Him Who is above all others?”¹⁰ To love his name is to love him. And to love him is to keep his commands (John 14:15). To have the name of Jesus truly upon our lips in worship will mean reflecting him in our whole lives. We draw near to him by his name, and in drawing near to him we are transformed more and more into his image. Drawing near to him leads us to live like him. That means those who have the name of Jesus on their lips in worship should bear the fragrance of Christ into every situation in life.  

Yet the way Pentecostals use the name of Jesus in worship highlights something about the nature of Pentecostal worship. It’s not about a style, or the amount we sing, or the way we raise our hands, or anything like that. The reality of Pentecostal worship is reflected in that love for the name of Jesus. For Pentecostal worship, in reality, finds its goal in contemplation. ‘In worship,’ one early UK Pentecostal writer explained, ‘the Holy Spirit, moving along the revelation of the Scriptural record, glorifies the Christ in the contemplation of the believer.’¹¹

Nothing Compares to This: Meditation & Contemplation

Contemplation is not a concept many people associate with Pentecostalism. Contemplation is generally supposed to be a quiet thing; Pentecostalism is generally supposed to be loud. But it’s perhaps not really as loud as people think. In its earlier days, at least, Pentecostal worship could involve lots of silence. For Pentecostals were people who tarried—who waited on the Lord. Pentecostal prayer is known for its enthusiastic intercession. But adoration and contemplation are just as characteristic of the prayers of Pentecostals. As Thomas Ball Barrett put it back in the early days of the Pentecostal revival: ‘Those who have received their Pentecost love Christ more … [and] are more on their knees, not as duty merely, or for seeking any merits, but because they love to commune with God; yearn to know more of Christ and constantly grow in Him.’¹² Ian Macpherson pointed to contemplation as the goal of Pentecostal prayer: ‘the supreme moment in a man’s encounter with his Maker is not reached until, passing from recollection to confession and from petition to thanksgiving, the soul is suddenly confronted with a dazzling vision of the glory of God in which it discerns Him no longer as Giver but as Lover and Beloved.’¹³ One of Britain’s first Pentecostals, a Yorkshire farmer, might never have dreamt of using the language of contemplation, but it’s exactly what he describes when he tells of his baptism in the Holy Spirit: ‘I was sitting by myself, occupied with the Lord, when I got the sign of tongues.’¹⁴

Early testimonies of the baptism in the Holy Spirit often describe contemplative experiences, and often led to praying the name of Jesus. In Sunderland, at the outbreak of the Pentecostal revival in England, when May Boddy—one of the vicar’s daughters—was filled with the Spirit, ‘it seemed as if she was constantly claiming Jesus. His name was repeated time upon time.’¹⁵ In the Netherlands, Wilhelmine Polman’s baptism in the Holy Spirit led to her praying the name of Jesus: ‘For weeks and weeks whenever I spoke the name of Jesus the power would come upon me, and I would fall down in my chair. My body would be greatly moved, and if I uttered the words, “O Jesus!” then I was in the glory with Him.’ For Mrs Polman, speaking the name of Jesus not only flowed out from the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but it led her back into a powerful experience of contemplation, which she described as ‘unspeakable joy’, as seeing the glory of the Lord, and as ‘wonderful worship in my soul for Jesus.’¹⁶ One early Pentecostal Bible school student also testified to seeing the glory of the Lord which led to speaking the name of Jesus. After seeing a vision of Christ in glory, she said, ‘I could only weep and speak the name of Jesus.’¹⁷

So, for many early Pentecostals, being filled with the Spirit and gazing upon the Lord led to praying the name of Jesus. And praying the name of Jesus drew them back to the glory and sweetness of what they had experienced of the Lord’s presence. To repeat the name of Jesus was for them to speak a beautiful name which drew them back to the beauty of the Lord. The name of Jesus flowed from their lips ‘out of love for God’ (just as Diadochos of Photiki had counselled 1500 years earlier), and filled them with more love for God.¹⁸ This loving repetition of the name of Jesus was a form of meditation through which the Lord lifted eyes and hearts to him in contemplation. The Pentecostals might not have realised it, but what they were doing was essentially following the advice of Diadochos: ‘meditate unceasingly upon this glorious and holy name in the depths of [your] heart … Then the Lord awakens in the soul a great love for his glory … that name implants in us a constant love for its goodness.’¹⁹ Tomaš Špidlík sums up this ancient prayer of the name of Jesus as having its goal to be ‘unceasingly to join our heart to Jesus.’²⁰ It is prayer of loving fellowship.

Spirit-Filled Jesus Prayer

And here we can learn from Diadochos and others who followed in his footsteps. For while Pentecostals have prayed, meditated upon, and contemplated the name of Jesus, they have not been particularly good at teaching it, or passing the practice along in any sort of sustained or systematic way. Some people fall into praying the name of Jesus through hearing it on the lips of others. But it’s often an accidental discipleship. Diadochos and those who followed after him, however, made sure to form disciples in praying the name so they didn’t have to learn it by accident. 

This way of praying became known as The Jesus Prayer. Although that name often makes people think of a particular form of words (something along the lines of ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’), it originated with simpler prayers: ‘Jesus, help me,’ ‘Lord Jesus, protect me,’ ‘Christ our God’, ‘Immanuel’, or simply the name of the Lord Jesus.²¹ It is, in the words of Simon Barrington-Ward, ‘the prayer of the name, the invocation of the Lord’s presence, his forgiveness and empowering—to be drawn into a deeper communion with God in Christ, through the Spirit.’²² Irénée Hausherr, examining the history of the Jesus Prayer, highlights that ‘above all it is a means for attaining the goal of every interior life, communion with God in continual prayer.’²³ The late fourth and early fifth century spiritual teacher, Hesychius of Jerusalem (a student of Gregory of Nazianzus), described the goal of this form of prayer as ‘at all times, constantly and without ceasing, it [the heart] breathes Christ Jesus, the Son of God and God, and Him alone, it calls upon Him, and with Him bravely fights against the enemies, and makes confession to Him Who has power to forgive sins. Such a soul, through continual calling on Christ, embraces Him Who alone searches the heart.’²⁴

Invoking the Lord’s presence, seeking his forgiveness and empowering, continual prayer, joining with Christ in the battle against our spiritual enemies, and drawing into deeper communion with the Father in the Son through the Spirit: this all sounds very Pentecostal indeed. In fact, it’s exactly what Pentecostal leaders teach us to do, without often teaching us how. 

However, if we place the teaching of three earlier UK Pentecostal leaders in combination, we approach something similar to the early teaching on the Jesus Prayer.²⁵ Thomas Rees, one of the earliest apostles in The Apostolic Church at the start of the 20^th century, encouraged Pentecostals to ‘acquire the habit to wait upon God.’ Rees was realistic with his readers that this is not be something which comes easily, but rather something we must ‘force ourselves’ to do. It is a practice we must apply ourselves to until it becomes a habit. For ‘then there will be a continual beholding of the Glory of God, and a continual changing from Glory unto Glory.’²⁶ Discipline and practice are needed, which will help us cultivate the habit of waiting on the Lord through which we will behold his glory and be transformed. 

E.C.W. Boulton, one of the favourite devotional writers of early UK Pentecostals, taught his readers about the transformative power of a fixed gaze upon Christ. ‘Fix your attention on Jesus! This means that all of life will be glorified as we catch the vision of Him. Look until the image of the Master is stamped upon the soul—look until this becomes the habit of the heart.’²⁷ There is a practice involved here. We are to ‘look’ repeatedly until it ‘becomes the habit of the heart.’ The goal is that we become more like Jesus as we look upon him, and also that we ‘may live in such intimate and uninterrupted union with our great living head.’²⁸ This practice of repeated, habit-forming fixing our attention on Jesus helps us to grow in his likeness and enjoy his fellowship. This is a form of prayer, for it is lifting the heart to the Lord. Boulton doesn’t tell us words to pray in order to do this, but it seems quite natural that the name of Jesus would be a way of fixing our attention repeatedly on him. 

Ian Macpherson, one of the most celebrated writers and teachers of mid-twentieth century British Pentecostalism, drew together the practice of ‘ejaculatory prayer’ (short prayers, like the type which culminated in the Jesus Prayer) and the practice of the presence of the Lord:

‘Each one of us can have such an inner chamber in the depths of his own soul, so that, whilst sitting in the bus or tube or train, he can retreat into the central solitude in the heart of his being and there commune with God. This is an ability which is of course hard to come by. It is not to be achieved simply by “lending half an ear to God for half an hour”. It demands rigorous mental discipline and the paring of one’s thoughts to a fine point of glowing focus. But it can be done.’²⁹ 

For Macpherson, this ‘practising the presence’ comes about through ‘more or less an extended form’ of the short prayers. He doesn’t give a form of words, but he does point to three biblical examples: Peter (when he was sinking), the thief on the cross, and Bartimaeus —whose words form the basis of the Jesus Prayer. So, Macpherson’s teaching here is very close to how the Jesus Prayer has been used through the centuries: as a prayer of which the essence is ‘to seek to come into his presence and to stay there until eventually you were always conscious of that presence and always in communion with him.’³⁰

The Discipline of the Name

Frederica Mathewes-Green writes of the goal of the Jesus Prayer as ‘to help you keep always in touch with the presence of God.’³¹ Yet, she also explains that it is ‘accurately termed a spiritual discipline; it’s a disciplined learning process, like learning to play the cello. It takes perseverance and focused attention.’³² And that’s exactly what Thomas Rees, E.C.W. Boulton, and Ian Macpherson were teaching earlier generations of Pentecostals about: a way of prayer to help us keep in touch with the presence of God, yet which we also need to learn as a spiritual discipline so that it might blossom into a fruitful habit of communion. 

So, how can we learn this spiritual discipline of praying the name of Jesus? 

1. Seeing Jesus and seeing ourselves. If we are to pray the name of Jesus, we need to see who it is we’re addressing. The Singaporean Pentecostal theologian, Simon Chan, warns that ‘the aim of praying the Jesus Prayer is not to induce a certain psychological state but to bring one closer to the person of Jesus.’³³ And we can only truly approach the person of Jesus when we recognise our sin and our need for his forgiveness and cleansing. So, to begin to pray the name of Jesus must start with humble and heartfelt repentance. Frederica Mathewes-Green counsels that ‘you must first get your house in order. If there is major ongoing sin in your life, cut it out.’³⁴ Early Pentecostals agreed. At Azusa Street they were taught that ‘you first have to repent before you can pray.’³⁵ As we take Jesus’ name upon our lips, we are coming to the one who came into the world to ‘save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1.21). This is gospel-filled prayer.

2. Growing by repetition. We learn to speak by repeating. And we learn to speak to God by repeating too. That’s why Jesus gave us a prayer to pray (Luke 11.2). Repetition is not a bad thing at all. Vain repetition isn’t good, but then again, we never want to take the name of the Lord in vain! Repetition of the Jesus Prayer, or any other way of praying Jesus’ name, is a spiritual practice that will require time to practice. We Pentecostals and Charismatics are already well attuned to repetition in our spiritual lives, because our worship songs are full of it. In fact, Simon Chan has compared our use of repetitive choruses to the practice of the Jesus Prayer: ‘Functionally, the Jesus Prayer is similar to the short choruses that are sung in charismatic churches today. Perhaps without knowing it, Pentecostal-charismatics have stumbled on a practice with an impeccable lineage!’³⁶ This type of singing, Chan says, ‘aids continual prayer by letting a truth run through our minds over and over again so that it becomes part of us.’³⁷ What we’ve learnt to do through our songs, we can apply without music too in our life of prayer. 

3. Entrust our praying to the power of the Spirit. By God’s grace, we can turn from our sins to Jesus and grow by repetition as we fix our attention repeatedly on the Lord Jesus. But we need the Holy Spirit to take our spiritual discipline in praying the name of Jesus and through it fill our hearts with the spirit of prayer. As we pray, ‘Jesus comes down among us and breathes on us.’³⁸ Donald Gee was an early British Pentecostal teacher with a world-wide ministry. He compared this to stoking a stove with coal. Through the spiritual discipline of being full of prayer—in this case, the repetitive aspect—the heart is stoked with the material which is set alight through faith and fanned into flame by the Holy Spirit. And so, in this way, the Holy Spirit builds ‘the inner sanctuary of prayer within the heart.’³⁹ It’s in this way that we can grow into a life of ‘praying night and day’ which is ‘not only possible, but also desirable, and extremely fruitful.’⁴⁰ The result is that ‘continual prayer … can go on in the heart, and sometimes in the mind also, while engaged in the multitudinous duties that often comprise the daily round.’⁴¹ This is exactly the aim of the repetitive practice of the Jesus Prayer, which is to become the prayer of the heart and thus, as Kallistos Ware explains, ‘the prayer of the whole person—no longer something we think or say, but something we are: for the ultimate purpose of the spiritual Way is not just a person who says prayers from time to time, but a person who is prayer all the time.’⁴² The eventual aim of the repeated praying of the Jesus Prayer ‘is to establish in the one who prays a state of prayer that is unceasing, which continues uninterrupted even in the midst of other activities.’⁴³ For Donald Gee, such a state of unceasing prayer would mean that ‘grace can so permeate the heart with prayerfulness that it overflows into the hours spent in bed … and the heart can feel prayer even when the mind is resting in sleep.’⁴⁴

The teachers of the Jesus Prayer have much in common with earlier Pentecostal teachers of the spiritual life. And for both, praying the name of Jesus combines repentance, fixed attention on Christ, spiritual discipline, and the Spirit’s work of transforming us into people of unceasing prayer. 

The Jesus Prayer is, in the words of Simon Chan, ‘a prayer that sums up the essence of the gospel.’⁴⁵ The Swedish Lutheran, Per-Olof Sjögren says this prayer ‘opens the door to the deep treasure chamber of grace.’⁴⁶ But this isn’t tied to an exact form of words. 

‘Strictly speaking, it can be further shortened—to a single word. Sometimes it is enough just to use the name, JESUS … All that Jesus said and did when he was here on earth, all that he is today, where he sits at God’s right hand, all that he has done and is still doing day by day for me personally and for the whole of our world—this is brought into focus when the name Jesus resonates in our ears.’⁴⁷

Shortening the prayer to that one word is what Pentecostals have often—though not always—done. But that one word is full of such glorious gospel meaning. We pray his name because he is our wonderful Saviour and glorious Lord. We pray his name because we are in awe of who he is and what he has done. We pray his name because we need his ongoing work in our lives. We pray his name because we long for his presence and the joy of communion with him. We pray his name because we love him. 

1. Thomas Ball Barrett, ‘Pentecost With Signs’, Confidence 1.8 (November 1908), 8. ↩︎
2. Esther B. Harvey, ‘When God Multiplied the Grain in a Time of Depression’, Latter Rain Evangel 24.8 (May 1932), 20-21. ↩︎
3. Roy C. Sheehan, ‘Miracle Car’, Message of the Open Bible (June 1990), 6. ↩︎
4. Henry Proctor, ‘The Name of Jesus’, Elim Evangel 14.44 (3^rd November 1933), 699. ↩︎
5. E.C.W. Boulton, ‘The Name of Jesus’, Elim Evangel 3.4 (April 1922), 54-55. ↩︎
6. Philip Wittich, ‘Christ typified by the spices: Digging precious treasures from God’s Word’, Elim Evangel 8.6 (15^th March, 1927), 92. ↩︎
7. Diadochos of Photike, ‘On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination: One Hundred Texts’, 31. In Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, The Philokalia, translated and edited by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard & Kallistos Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 1979), 1:261. ↩︎
8. Diadochos of Photiki, ‘On Spiritual Knowledge’, 33 (1:262). ↩︎
9. Pat Hoggard, ‘They Found the Answer’, Light of Hope (January 1980), 8. ↩︎
10. Aimee Semple McPherson, “Go and Tell”, Foursquare Crusader 8.16 (January 1934), 2. ↩︎
11. George Holmes, O Come Let Us Adore Him: Studies in Worship (Luton: AoG, n.d.), 26. ↩︎
12. Thomas Ball Barrett, ‘Pentecost With Signs’, Confidence 1.8 (November 1908), 7. ↩︎
13.  Ian Macpherson, Alone With God: A Primer on Prayer (Bradford: Apostolic Church Witness Movement, 1963), 18. ↩︎
14. ‘Testimony of a Yorkshire Farmer’, The Apostolic Faith 1.11 (January 1908), 1. The rest of his testimony could have just as easily been written by a medieval mystic as by an early twentieth century Pentecostal farmer. ↩︎
15. ‘Children Receive Pentecost’, The Apostolic Faith 1.11 (October-January 1908), 1. Early Pentecostals taught that the baptism in the Holy Spirit would have the result that ‘we shall be so utterly lost in the contemplation of Himself as to forget all about our blessings.’ A.F. Carter, ‘Be Controlled’, Latter Rain Evangel 1.4 (January 1909), 23. ↩︎
16. Mrs Polman, ‘The Victory of the Lord’, Confidence 4.11 (November 1911), 250. ↩︎
17. Clara E. Dammes, ‘In the Last Days: Visions’, Trust 20.2 (April 1921), 13. ↩︎
18. Diadochos of Photiki, ‘On Spiritual Knowledge’, 33 (1:262). ↩︎
19. Diadochos of Photiki, ‘On Spiritual Knowledge’, 59 (1:270-1). ↩︎
20. Tomaš Špidlík, Prayer: The Spirituality of the Christian East, volume 2, translated by Anthony P. Gythiel (Athens, OH: Cistercian, 2005), 330. ↩︎
21. Kallistos Ware, The Jesus Prayer (London: CTS, 2014), 7; Irénée Hausherr, The Name of Jesus, translated by Charles Cummings (Trappist, KY: Cistercian, 1978), 202, 211-12; Christopher D. L. Johnson, The Globalization of Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer (London: Continuum, 2010), 33-34. ↩︎
22. Simon Barrington-Ward, The Jesus Prayer: A Way to Contemplation (Boston: Pauline, 2007), 3. ↩︎
23. Hausherr, The Name of Jesus, 121-2. ↩︎
24. Hesychius of Jerusalem, ‘To Theodulus: Texts on Sobriety and Prayer’, 5. In Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, translated by E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (London: Faber & Faber, 1951), 280. ↩︎
25. By early teaching here, what I really mean is teaching about the Jesus Prayer without full-blown Hesychasm (a set of monastic teachings and practices, including especially a psychosomatic method for prayer involving breathing techniques, which came to be associated with the Jesus Prayer in later Eastern Orthodoxy). My interest here is in the prayer itself, not in the psychosomatic method. ↩︎
26. Thomas Rees, Prayer (Penygroes: Apostolic Church, n.d.), 13. ↩︎
27. E.C.W. Boulton, The Focused Life (London: Elim, 1932), 3. ↩︎
28. Boulton, The Focused Life, 10. ↩︎
29. Ian Macpherson, Alone With God: A Primer on Prayer (Bradford: Apostolic Church Witness Movement, 1963), 8-9. Interestingly, Macpherson wrote this in a discipleship guide for teenagers. ↩︎
30. Barrington-War, The Jesus Prayer, 81.Cf. Kallistos Ware’s description: ‘a prayer that enables us to reach out beyond words into silence … an attitude of waiting upon God, of listening to Him, of responding to His love.’ Kallistos Ware, ‘Foreword’, in Ignatius Brianchaninov, On The Prayer of Jesus (Boulder: New Seeds, 2005)), xxxi. ↩︎
31. Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2009), xiii. ↩︎
32. Mathewes-Green, The Jesus Prayer, xii. ↩︎
33. Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), 146. ↩︎
34. Mathewes-Green, The Jesus Prayer, 49. ↩︎
35. ‘Prayer’, The Apostolic Faith 1.12 (January 1908), 3. ↩︎
36. Chan, Spiritual Theology, 146. ↩︎
37. Chan, Spiritual Theology, 166. ↩︎
38. ‘Prayer’, The Apostolic Faith 1.12 (January 1908), 3. ↩︎
39. Donald Gee, After Pentecost (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1945), 89. ↩︎
40. Gee, After Pentecost, 88. ↩︎
41. Gee, After Pentecost, 88. ↩︎
42. Kallistos Ware, The Othodox Way (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 171. ↩︎
43. Ware, The Othodox Way, 171-2. ↩︎
44. Gee, After Pentecost, 90. ↩︎
45. Chan, Spiritual Theology, 146. ↩︎
46. Per-Olof Sjögren, The Jesus Prayer, translated by Sydney Linton (London: SPCK, 1975), 82. ↩︎
47. Sjögren, The Jesus Prayer, 82-3. ↩︎