Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

I am changing things up for a bit when I post excerpts from “Matthew Henry on a Practical Method of Daily Prayer.”¹ These will be without the usual comments and study references. My hope is that people will be like the Bereans, as described in Acts 17:11, and will put Henry’s writing to the test.

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Matthew Henry on a Practical Method of Daily Prayer

JOEL R. BEEKE

I love prayer. It is that which buckles on all the Christian’s armour. —MATTHEW HENRY

INTRODUCTION

Few Bible commentators are better known than Matthew Henry (1662–1714). The Commentary on the Whole Bible that bears Henry’s name continues to be reprinted, although Henry himself died after finishing Genesis through Acts, and the remainder was written by his friends drawing on his notes. The great evangelist George Whitefield (1714–1770) repeatedly read through Henry’s commentary during his devotions and found it rich food for his soul. For all the fame of his commentaries, few people know that Henry also wrote a book on prayer that has been a bestseller for a century and a half. And though his commentaries are read today around the world, few people know much about Henry’s life.

Matthew Henry was an English Puritan born in 1662, the same year that Puritan ministers were ejected from the Church of England for refusing to conform to prescribed forms of worship. His father, Philip Henry, had already lost his pulpit in 1661. The period of the 1660s to the 1680s was a dark time of persecution for the Puritans. Though frail in health, Henry distinguished himself intellectually early in life, reading the Bible to himself when he was only three. He initially studied to be a lawyer, but the Lord had other plans for him. From age twenty-four to fifty, Henry served as pastor of a church in Chester, having been privately ordained by Presbyterian ministers such as Richard Steele (1672–1729). The church began in private homes but over time grew to 350 communicant members, with many more adherents. Henry spent eight hours a day in study, sometimes rising at four o’clock in the morning. In addition to serving his own church, he preached monthly in five nearby villages and to prisoners. Henry’s first wife died in childbirth, and three children from his second wife died in infancy.

Henry began writing his Bible commentary at age forty-two, drawing from the well of his years of expository preaching and research in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French. He spent the last two years of his life serving a prominent church in London. Henry died after falling from his horse, leaving the task of completing his commentary on the New Testament to thirteen of his ministerial friends.

In 1710, Henry published A Method for Prayer with Scripture Expressions Proper to Be Used under Each Head. In 1712, he preached sermons that were published as Directions for Daily Communion with God. Those books reveal Henry’s passion for biblical spirituality, for it must have been difficult for a busy pastor and author of a massive Bible commentary to find time to write about prayer as well. We will consider Henry’s directions on prayer from his second book, then move on to his method of praying the Scriptures.

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1. Joel R. Beeke, “Matthew Henry on a Practical Method of Daily Prayer,” in Taking Hold of God: Reformed and Puritan Perspectives on Prayer, ed. Brian G. Najapfour (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 141. ↩︎