What are prayer beads? Is it okay to use beads while praying?

But the credulity of the people was imposed upon in other ways by the clergy; and to this period belongs the institution of the rosary and crown of the Virgin Mary. The rosary (from rosarium, a bed of roses) consists of a string of beads on which the possessor counts the prayers which he repeats. Fifteen repetitions of the Lord's Prayer and a hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin complete the rosary; and the crown consists, as a rule, of seven repetitions of the same prayer and seventy salutations. Moreover, an absurd belief that the archangel Michael celebrated mass in the court of heaven every Monday, was very general; and the clergy were not slow to profit by the ignorance of the people, who crowded the churches dedicated to St. Michael, in order to obtain his intercession.

The rosary consists of a string of beads, a mere mechanical device for saying prayers. It is of heathen origin. In Asiatic Greece the rosary was commonly used, as was seen with the image of the Ephesian Diana.

Riding by train between the towns of Worcester and Malvern, in England, a short time ago, I saw a woman in widow’s weeds sitting in the compartment. Her eyes were closed, her lips were moving as if in silent prayer, and underneath her crape veil her fingers moved—she was counting her beads. When she had finished, I leaned forward to her, and said, “Would you kindly let me look at your beads?” She at once put them into my hands, and explained how to begin, with a sort of introductory prayer at the beginning of the circlet and then go around and around the beads with the “Hail Marys” as long as you please.

Riding by train between the towns of Worcester and Malvern, in England, a short time ago, I saw a woman in widow’s weeds sitting in the compartment. Her eyes were closed, her lips were moving as if in silent prayer, and underneath her crape veil her fingers moved—she was counting her beads. When she had finished, I leaned forward to her, and said, “Would you kindly let me look at your beads?” She at once put them into my hands, and explained how to begin, with a sort of introductory prayer at the beginning of the circlet and then go around and around the beads with the “Hail Marys” as long as you please.

As to repeating over and over again some formal prayer, this is forbidden. It is tragic error to think that the more often one says his prayers (using different beads, etc. for each different expression), the greater favor he will draw from God. Would any parent want to hear merely this from his child? If unbelievers in their ignorance do this, let us not be in anyway like them. God is concerned about prayers that come from the heart, and desires to see that faith that fully believes that He knows what is good for us. As a Father He knows what we need before we ask, so that our asking should be in a spirit of dependence and confidence. Certainly, repeating empty words will not persuade God to our point of view!

Repetitions are not wrong. The Lord Himself prayed three times in Gethsemane; but verse 7 speaks of vain repetitions. Have not I seen such instructions as, that it is a good thing for the soul to repeat the Lord's prayer ten times and such like? There you get the thought; the heathen thought they would be heard for much speaking, but a soul may be very stammering yet the Lord knows the heart, the meaning of a sigh, when we cannot put it into words, and before ye ask, your Father knoweth. He loves to hear us! "Let me see thy countenance; let me hear thy voice," what wonderful grace! How can I have a comely countenance when looking up to God? It is the comeliness of Christ and the sweetness of Christ's voice.

The way in which "the Lord's Prayer" is repeated by some Christians upon all occasions, and sometimes several times over — in the Church of England when the Litany and Communion Service are used, five times in one morning — savours really of superstition, as if there were some charm in the mere repetition of the words.

The way in which "the Lord's Prayer" is repeated by some Christians upon all occasions, and sometimes several times over, savours really of superstition, as if there were some charm in the mere repetition of the words.

Vain repetitions were, we suppose, the iteration of the same entreaties in the same words, because it was thought that there was merit in thus persevering in their cries, and that, as the Lord says, they would be heard for their much speaking. Even the Jews were not free from the same tendency, for their rabbis taught that there was great merit in reciting their eighteen prayers; and certain professing Christians have reproduced the very evil which the Lord here condemns. Even more might be said: for there are very few who are not tempted in this direction. It is well, therefore, to consider the twofold, all-efficacious antidote. The Lord speaks plainly of the one, and as clearly implies the other. The first is confidence in God: "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him"; and in the consciousness of this the soul will be satisfied to leave its petitions to His care and love. The second is, that prayer must be divinely taught: "After this manner, therefore, pray ye." This was a prayer given to the disciples for their use until the Spirit of God should come, after which all prayer must be in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18; Jude 20, etc.) in order to be efficacious. This cannot be overlooked without great danger. If borne in mind, long prayers in public would be avoided, as well as the catching up and repetition of current phrases and expressions. No prayer is of any avail with God, if it be not begotten in the heart at the moment by the present action of the Holy Ghost. God loves reality, and ten words uttered before Him which are the fruit of the power of the Spirit are of infinitely more value than ten minutes of fluent expression of well-known sentences and truths. The latter, indeed, would not be prayer, but rather "vain repetitions."

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as those who are of the nations: for they think they shall be heard through their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like them, for your Father knows of what things ye have need before ye beg anything of Him." Martin Luther says on this: "Here He censures the abuse of prayer, when they that are praying make use of many words and babblings; He calls this a heathenish practice, a loose, idle and useless talk, of such who think they would otherwise not be heard. The spirit of the worshiper prays, and because he knows that God will hear him, he dares not use such endless, idle talk -- the fewer the words, the better the prayer." (Luther's notes on the Gospels.) The Pharisees had their long prayers with many vain repetitions. One only needs to take up an orthodox Jewish "prayer book" to see the numerous vain repetitions, repeating phrases over and over again. That our Lord had this first of all before Him seems clear. Yet what else is Christendom but, as one has said, "an unauthorized revival of a departed shade"? (Adolph Saphir on Hebrews.) It is an aping after that which no longer exists. The rituals of Christendom with their liberal use of the Psalms in responsive readings, set forms of prayer for all occasions, their chant and rapid delivery, are but the daughters of the old mother -- Phariseeism. Here we mention especially rituals which are used at the Lord's supper, generally called by that unscriptural word "sacrament." There are used repeatedly phrases like "Lamb of God, have mercy on us," "Almighty God, have mercy on us," "O Lord, save us." These indeed are vain repetitions, and at the Lord's table when they are used by a believer (who only has a right to the Lord's table) they are worse than vain. Vain repetitions, however, may also be used by such who use no formal prayers, ritual and prayer book. This is often done when the name of God and the Lord is falsely used in public prayer as well as other oft-repeated phrases. Others have gone into an extreme and have declared that the Lord teaches here that a petition should be made only once, and that if we have asked in faith for something once, to ask again is only proof of our unbelief. The Lord teaches no such thing. Our Lord Himself in Gethsemane made the same petition three times, and Paul with his thorn in the flesh had besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him (2 Cor. 12:7).

This is followed by a model for prayer which the King now gives. This prayer is generally called throughout Christendom "the Lord's prayer." Where is the authority in Scripture to call it by this name? If any prayer can be called the Lord's prayer it certainly is the one contained in John 17. It is not the Lord's prayer, but the disciples' prayer. This model for prayer has become the formal prayer, the ritualistic prayer of every sect in Christendom. That which our Lord forbids, vain repetitions, is practiced with this divine model by those who call themselves Christians. In the Roman and Greek Churches , so-called, it becomes a good work to repeat so many "Our Fathers," and the poor deceived souls expect blessing in this world and in eternity from the mechanical repetition of so many prayers. This of course is very little different from the prayer machines of Thibet, upon which a certain number of prayers written on paper are placed and unwound before some god or goddess. In "evangelical" denominations it is not much better. We remember well in childhood, being strictly brought up in the Lutheran denomination, how constantly this prayer was used. In sickness, in pain, in danger, at mealtime, in the morning and at night, in severe storms, etc., it was ever repeated as if a miraculous power indwelt these words sufficient to dispel sickness, deliver from danger and bring blessing which otherwise would not come. It is one of the rags which Luther brought away from the old Roman sepulchre. Yet it is the same in other denominations. In one of the strongest it is used at the burial of the dead, sprinkling of infants, Lord's supper, "ordination" of deacons and elders, "consecration" of bishops, and it is repeated in public by the congregation. All this practice, the use of this model for prayer, as the Lord's prayer given to the Church, to be used by the Church, is wrong, decidedly unchristian, nor can it be proven from the New Testament that it is intended for the Church. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the breaking of bread, the gifts of the Spirit, the assembly of believers, the baptism of believers, but do we read anywhere in the divinely inspired record of the beginning of the Church that the so-called Lord's prayer was used by the apostles or by the primitive church? Is there a hint anywhere in the New Testament that the prayer is to be repeated in public and used by believers? Not even the faintest hint that this should be so, but many strong proofs and arguments that it should not be so. Centuries passed before it became a settled custom to make the prayer the King gave to His Jewish disciples the prayer for Christians and to use it in the form and in the way it is used now. An unknown hand then added something to the last petition, "Deliver us from the evil one." The words, "for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever -- Amen," are an interpolation. They do not belong into your Bibles, for the Lord never uttered them. The revised version (though so imperfect in many of its revisions) has done well in omitting them altogether. When it was decided to use this model for prayer as a prayer, this ending was written by some one and added to it and thus making it a prayer with the "Amen" attached to it. No such "amen" belongs there.