The Prayer of Jabez

Bruce Wilkinson, Multnomah, 2000

I was surprised—pleasantly—by this book. It was all the rage in popular Christianity when I was a kid. I remember seeing the book and (if memory serves) derivative products all over Christian book stores. Back when those existed. I also remember a vague connection of this book with the prosperity gospel. And so, combined with my aversion to all things popular, I never read it. But I picked up a free copy off a book table at a conference a while back, in part because it was the right size for a tree-stand book.

What I found was certainly not prosperity teaching. Rather, Wilkinson gives a pretty straightforward explanation and application of 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. His discussion of blessing explicitly renounces prosperity teaching, and makes clear that God is the arbiter of what “blessing” looks like.

There are times when Wilkinson’s illustrations seem to undermine his argument; but on the whole, I think his push to help Christians believe that God is good, God is for them, and God is a God of blessing is a helpful corrective. Too many folks—myself included—can be given over to a defeatist mindset and low expectation theology that needs corrected by the Bible. This is something I have been convicted of lately in pondering the early verses of Romans 2, in the shape of Psalm 8, among other places; I was glad for the reminder here from Wilkinson.

Whoever would please God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). As the author ably illustrates, Jabez was such a believer. And because of this, he was more honorable than his his brothers. May we all seek such honor.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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