Men don't need to kneel in public for God to know their prayers. As He says, He knows what we need before we ask.
***No, I don’t go into a closet, but I pray and sometimes kneel in solitude, as Christ rightly instructed us.***
Very rightly.
***Men don’t need to kneel in public for God to know their prayers. As He says, He knows what we need before we ask.***
Then why ask? Does it change God’s mind? If everything is predestined, then why bother at all, except as a mechanical exercise that means nothing.
That is a much better explanation of Christ's meaning. For a minute, I thought you might be a literalist. That image is pretty amusing.
***Men don’t need to kneel in public for God to know their prayers.***
Does that mean that public prayer is evil?
Let’s see what the Bible has to say about it. It wasn’t forbidden on Mount Carmel.
1 Kings 18:
36
At the time for offering sacrifice, the prophet Elijah came forward and said, “LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things by your command.
37
Answer me, LORD! Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
Ezra
Chapter 10
1
While Ezra prayed and acknowledged their guilt, weeping and prostrate before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israelites gathered about him, men, women, and children; and the people wept profusely.
John 11:
41
So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, 8 I thank you for hearing me.
42
I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
Acts 20:
35
In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
36
Acts 4:
23
After their release they went back to their own people and reported what the chief priests and elders had told them.
24
And when they heard it, they raised their voices to God with one accord and said, “Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them,
25
you said by the holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant: ‘Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples entertain folly?
26
The kings of the earth took their stand and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.’
27
Indeed they gathered in this city against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, Herod 4 and Pontius Pilate, together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
28
to do what your hand and (your) will had long ago planned to take place.
29
And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and enable your servants to speak your word with all boldness,
30
as you stretch forth (your) hand to heal, and signs and wonders are done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31
5 As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Acts 12:
11
Then Peter recovered his senses and said, “Now I know for certain that (the) Lord sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting.”
12
When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who is called Mark, where there were many people gathered in prayer.
I don’t believe that the Calvinist understanding of the exhortation to pray in public is accurate. We are instructed to pray in public. We are also instructed not to pray as the Pharisees did - with public airs.
When he had finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all.