Worship & law

Set times of prayer in the early church

Muslims pray at five set times each day. Many people think set prayer times have no place in Christianity. But the Bible and the earliest Christian writings tell a different story.

1The question

Did Jesus’s first followers pray at fixed times of the day?

2What Christians believe

Christians answer that the first believers were Jews who kept the prayer customs they had grown up with. As the church spread among Gentiles, these customs were adapted freely, and most Christians today pray whenever they wish.

Some Christian traditions kept set hours of prayer, such as the daily offices of monks and the morning and evening prayers of many churches. Christians see these as helpful habits, not commands.

3What the texts say

Prayer three times a day

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

Psalm 55:17 · KJVRead in context →

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.

Daniel 6:10 · KJVRead in context →

The apostles keep the hours

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

Acts 3:1 · KJVRead in context →

On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:

Acts 10:9 · KJVRead in context →

A Gentile who prayed at the ninth hour

And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing,

Acts 10:30 · KJVRead in context →

4What scholars say

Paul F. Bradshaw (Daily Prayer in the Early Church, 1981) traces how the first Christians took over Jewish patterns of daily prayer, morning, afternoon and evening, and how these grew into the hours of prayer.

The Didache, from around the end of the first century, tells Christians to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.

Scholars agree that Jewish practice in Jesus’s time included set daily prayers, and that Acts shows Peter and John keeping the hour of prayer at the temple.

5The Islamic perspective

The Qur’an commands prayer at set times of the day and night, and tells believers to guard their prayers:

Establish worship at the two ends of the day and in some watches of the night. Lo! good deeds annul ill-deeds. This is reminder for the mindful.

Qur’an 11:114 · PickthallRead in context →

Be guardians of your prayers, and of the midmost prayer, and stand up with devotion to Allah.

Qur’an 2:238 · PickthallRead in context →

Muslims see the five daily prayers as the continuation of what Daniel, David and the apostles did: praying to God at fixed times, wherever they were. The early Christian practice of praying three times a day shows how close the first followers of Jesus were to this way.

6Objections and responses

“Set prayer times were Jewish customs, not something Jesus commanded.”

Response: Jesus himself prayed early in the morning (Mark 1:35) and taught his disciples a fixed prayer. His closest followers kept the hours of prayer after him (Acts 3:1), and the Didache tells Christians to pray at set times. The custom came with the faith from the start.

“Fixed times can make prayer mechanical.”

Response: Any prayer can become empty without the heart. Islam teaches that prayer must be offered with devotion (2:238). Fixed times are meant to keep God in mind through the whole day, not to replace sincerity.

7Conclusion

Both sides agree that the prophets and the first followers of Jesus prayed at set times of the day. Christians see this as a custom the church was free to adapt. Muslims see it as the way of the prophets, kept in the five daily prayers.

Read Daniel 6:10, Acts 3:1 and Acts 10:9–30, and note the hours when each person prayed.