Is the ‘Sinner’s prayer’ Biblical, or misleading?

We love receiving questions, like the one above, from students! And we aim to answer them in the light of Christ, under God’s word, and with an eye to our context.

Here is one of those questions:

“I would like to know whether the 'Sinner's prayer' is Biblical, or a misleading way of being saved?”

1.Firstly, it depends what you mean by ‘Biblical’. 

Option A: Are you asking whether the ‘Sinner’s prayer’ is straight from the Bible? In other words, with a verse or passage we can reference? 

Option B: or do you mean that can it be in line with the Bible?

If you mean option A (a direct part of the Bible), then the answer is: No, the Sinner’s prayer is not Biblical in that sense.

That is to say, there isn’t a specific passage, like for the Lord’s prayer, which forms THE ‘Sinner’s prayer’ (SP from here on).

There are some great admission of sin passages in the Bible – Psalm 51 for instance – but I’ve personally never heard those offered as a SP word for word. And then we do get the line from Luke 18:13 where in a parable from Jesus, the tax collector says: ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ The Eastern Orthodox church use a version of this called ‘The Jesus prayer’ where they say ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’. But even they largely (as far as I know) use that prayer within Christian meditation and prayer.

So, not only is the SP not directly from the Bible, but also as you perhaps well know, the prayer often changes from Christian context to Christian context. That is to say, there isn’t ONE set SP but instead a prayer that changes from church to church, or preacher to preacher – depending on what words or phrases they like to use. Some of them using direct biblical quotes or phrases, some of them not. While using Biblical quotes or phrases is hardly a guarantee of anything (it’s not a magic charm we’re saying), some so called SP are decidedly unbiblical – offering prayers to God that go against the grain of the Scriptures.

If however, you’re asking whether the SP can be in line with the Bible (Option B), then the answer is: Yes, it can be.

Take a step back. 

In the light of Christ, we are commanded by God to repent and believe the good news of Jesus (Mark 1:15 – cf Peter in Acts 2:38, or the reality Paul describes in Romans 10:9). So, those coming to Christ, as the Spirit works in them, will recognise/confess their sin and profess faith in Jesus.

Before God, we will do that by prayer – either silent or out loud, either alone or with others – as we speak to him about our sin, and trust in Jesus. And a SP could form a part of praying that repentance (admitting our sin), and faith (confessing faith in Jesus). 

And perhaps some of our individualistic tendency of ‘just us and God’ should be challenged to realise that often God will use others in helping us come to faith. Not only in terms of someone telling us about Jesus, but perhaps also this someone chatting us through what it looks like to speak to God about what He has convicted us of. That could totally fit within the Matthew 28:18-20 command of us making disciples - us coming alongside others.

So, I don’t see why someone or many people (a friend, a preacher up front, or words in the back of a book) can’t help another person in expressing those things – helping them with those words. Again, I think the situation needs to be weighed on a case-by-case basis, and it wouldn’t be my first choice of doing things in certain contexts, but I’d hesitate to say someone saying a SP can’t be as a genuine response of God drawing them to Christ.

2.However secondly, we should exercise caution with the SP.

I would imagine that many of us know ways in which the SP has been misused or manipulated, especially in contexts of tent meetings, revivals and conferences, but also in regular Sunday gatherings. 

And many of us likewise know people who have prayed the SP again, and again, and again (and again) – quaking with a lack of assurance about whether the last one really was the one that ‘sealed the deal’. 

And likewise, especially in South Africa with our high levels of cultural Christianity, we might know many who might say they have prayed the SP (especially in some revival meeting). But we know there is hardly a present godly hunger to flee sin and pursue righteousness flowing out of being a new creation in Christ.

With that in mind, here are  a few words of caution related to the SP:

1. We create issues when we pretend or promote a specific prayer as the only way to repent and believe the good news. 

That is to go beyond the call of Jesus to repent and believe the good news of his life and death and resurrection. Those convicted of sin and righteousness and judgment by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8) and drawn to Jesus will pray to God – but there is no specific prayer to express that.

2. We create issues when sometimes we force or create an atmosphere where people are almost manipulated to come forward to pray a SP.

Or where the environment might induce temptations for recognition (this person coming forward before the cheering crowd), rather than thoughtful identification with the cross-carrying Jesus before a hating world (1 John 3:13). 

I suppose here I am highlighting a desire to encourage people to sober judgment. To take seriously Jesus’ call for us to follow him – with all that  it entails (eg. Mark 8:34-38). Some of the environments we conjure work against that – we are swayed more by the music or shouting or recognition, than by Christ.

3. We create issues when we judge the efficacy of God’s word or a preached sermon by how many people pray the/a SP. 

We should expect people to be saved through the message of Jesus - and some of us are so faithlessly pessimistic here! But it is also true that that’s not always how God’s proclaimed word works. For instance, God’s message about Jesus both saves, and judges people. In this case, people walking out the door might be just as much proof that the message of Jesus was proclaimed as people coming forward. (Or of course you could just be a jerk who proclaimed it in a jerk-like way). 

Or even: those saved, may not be saved at that moment – God might take more time to work it into them. 

The point? Do not judge the effectiveness of God’s word or a preached sermon by how many people pray the/ a SP.

4. Lastly, we create issues when we turn a prayer, which is meant to be an expression of our faith in Jesus, into the object of our faith. 

This is perhaps one of the biggest concerns related to the SP.

What I mean is: that saying a prayer (in and of itself) does not save you! Jesus saves you, even as we show our trust in him to save us by praying to him. 

Prayer here is simply an expression of trust/faith in him. It is a subtle difference but a very important one. We trust in Jesus, not a prayer, even as the prayer can be an expression of trust in Jesus. This is something that repetitive SP prayers might need help to see – do not trust in the prayer, trust in the One you prayed to. He holds you, not the prayer.

And of course, there are other ways we can make a SP the object of our faith instead of Jesus. For example, a person leading a double life who keeps bringing up the SP they prayed at X or when they were Y is perhaps again making that SP the object of their faith. Rather than the Jesus who not only saves us but by the Holy Spirit also transforms us through continued repentance and faith. And several passages (for instance from Hebrews) will also question whether a life lived in blatant hypocrisy of some SP ‘event’ is a life lived in faith to Jesus.

So, is the ‘Sinner’s prayer’ Biblical, or misleading?

A ‘Sinners Prayer’ can be used in ways that match the Scriptures. In other words, we can have or use a version of a SP which helps people to confess their sin and to profess faith in Jesus as a genuine God-wrought response to the news of Jesus. But there are also significant ways it can and has been misused – and we’d do well to be aware of that.