The "Sinner's Prayer"

I recently ran across some research on the "Sinner's Prayer" that is practiced widely among many evangelists and denominations. I did some further reading on the subject and found that Wikipedia had what seemed a fair and accurate summary of the history of the prayer. Further quotes here will be from Wikipedia.

The Sinner's Prayer is "prayer of repentance." "Often at the end of a worship service an evangelist will invite those desiring to receive Christ (become converted) to 'repeat after me' the words of some form of a sinner's prayer." The practice has been traced to as "early as the 18th century."

The problem with this is that in order to know how to become Christians and live the Christian life, we need to go back to the 1st century and see what the Bible is telling us and what the early Christians were doing as they had been instructed by Christ and His apostles. It is true that people were taught to repent and call upon the Lord as their Savior. But that isn't all that was taught in being converted. Jesus taught His apostles in Mark 16 to go into all the world and "preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved..." And when Paul was converted in Acts 22 we see that he was taught to "arise, be baptized and wash away your sins." It never was enough to just repeat a confession before an evangelist whether in person or in front of the tv.

Let's just follow the Bible pattern in matters of becoming Christians, living the Christian life, and worshiping together as local churches. Thanks for reading. Have a great week!