How to Pray by R. A. Torrey: A Chapter-by-Chapter Summary
How to Pray is a short book by R. A. Torrey, first published in 1900, when he was leading the Bible institute D. L. Moody had founded in Chicago. It runs twelve chapters and takes about two hours to read. Torrey's aim is practical. He wants to show from the Bible why a Christian must pray, what kind of prayer God answers, what keeps prayer from being answered, and when to pray. The last two chapters turn to the need for revival and the part prayer plays in every true one.
Below is a summary of each chapter, with a link to read it in the free reader. If you'd rather start with his best lines, see R. A. Torrey's quotes on prayer. For the man himself, see Who Was R. A. Torrey?
Chapter I: The Importance of Prayer
Read chapter I. Torrey opens with Ephesians 6:18 and its piled-up words: all prayer, all seasons, all perseverance, all saints. He then gives eleven reasons for "constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer." There is a devil. Prayer is God's appointed way of getting things, and we have not because we ask not. The apostles made prayer their main business. Jesus prayed early and all night, and prayer is the main work of the risen Christ now, who "ever liveth to make intercession." Prayer is how we get mercy and grace, fullness of joy, freedom from anxiety, the Holy Spirit, and readiness for Christ's return. Last, prayer works: it grows us, gives power for service, converts others, and blesses the church. He tells how he was converted in the middle of the night and only later learned that his mother and a college classmate had been praying for him.
Prayer and power are inseparable.
How to Pray, chapter I
Chapter II: Praying unto God
Read chapter II. Using Acts 12:5, where the church prayed for Peter in prison, Torrey draws out three secrets. First, prayer must be "unto God." Before we ask anything, we should be sure we are really in His presence and thinking of Him, not only of our needs. Second, it must be earnest. The Greek word means stretched out, the soul reaching toward God with intense desire. That earnestness can't be worked up; the Holy Spirit gives it. Fasting belongs here, for times of crisis. Third, it was the prayer of "the church." There is special power in united prayer when the Spirit lays the same burden on two hearts.
Chapter III: Obeying and Praying
Read chapter III. First John 3:22 says we receive what we ask "because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." Torrey tells of a woman who gave up her faith because prayer "failed," until she admitted she had not been obeying God. A true child goes beyond the letter of the commands and studies to please his Father. Psalm 145:18 adds that God is near to those who call on Him "in truth," that is, sincerely. Many pray for a husband's conversion, a revival, or the baptism with the Spirit while not really wanting what those things would cost.
Chapter IV: Praying in the Name of Christ and According to the Will of God
Read chapter IV. To pray in Jesus' name is to come to God on Christ's credit, not ours. Torrey's picture is a bank check: a check signed in my name is worthless where I have no account, but one signed by a large depositor is honored at once. He tells of a judge who prayed for forgiveness and found no peace until he asked "for Christ's sake." Then, from 1 John 5:14-15, we are to pray according to God's will, and we can know that will two ways: by the promises in the Word and by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Where God has promised, we need not tack on an "if."
Chapter V: Praying in the Spirit
Chapter V follows chapter IV on the same page of the reader, here. Torrey calls "in the Spirit" the whole secret of prayer. We don't know what to pray for as we ought, so we should come quietly, wait on the Holy Spirit, and let Him lead our desires. When we feel least like praying, that's when we most need it. The chapter then turns to faith. Faith can't be pumped up by willpower. It comes by hearing the Word of God, so it must rest on a promise or on the Spirit's clear leading.
Faith must have a warrant. Trying to believe something that you want to believe is not faith. Believing what God says in His Word is faith.
How to Pray, chapter 4
Chapter VI: Always Praying and Not Fainting
Read chapter VI. The friend at midnight (Luke 11) and the widow before the unjust judge (Luke 18) teach importunity. The word means something like shamelessness: a holy boldness that won't take no for an answer. Torrey says God often delays to make us strong men and women of prayer. Giving up after one or two tries is usually not submission but spiritual laziness. He points to George Müller, who prayed for two men daily for over sixty years; one was converted shortly before Müller died and the other after.
Chapter VII: Abiding in Christ
Read chapter VII. John 15:7 gives two conditions for prayer that gets what it asks. To abide in Christ is to be like a branch that lives only by the vine's sap: to give up an independent life and look to Christ to think, purpose and desire in us. Then His words must abide in us, read, memorized, obeyed and meditated on. Torrey describes Müller beginning his prayer time with the Bible until a prayer formed in his heart.
Chapter VIII: Praying with Thanksgiving
Read chapter VIII. Two words in Philippians 4:6 are often skipped: "with thanksgiving." We are specific when we ask and vague when we thank. Torrey suggests God sometimes withholds answers to teach us gratitude, as Jesus asked of the ten lepers, "where are the nine?" Thanking God for past answers builds faith for new ones.
Chapter IX: Hindrances to Prayer
Read chapter IX. Torrey lists seven things the Bible says hinder prayer: selfish motives (James 4:3), sin (Isaiah 59:1-2), idols in the heart (Ezekiel 14:3), stinginess toward the poor (Proverbs 21:13), an unforgiving spirit (Mark 11:25), wrong relations between husband and wife (1 Peter 3:7), and unbelief (James 1:5-7). We walk through each one in Torrey's hindrances to prayer.
Chapter X: When to Pray
Read chapter X. Torrey follows the example of Jesus. He prayed early in the morning, sometimes all night, before the great crises of His life, after its great successes, when life was busiest, and before great temptation, as in Gethsemane. And Scripture says to "pray without ceasing," so the whole of life should be a life of prayer.
Nights of prayer to God are followed by days of power with men.
How to Pray, chapter X
Chapter XI: The Need of a General Revival
Read chapter XI. A revival is a time when God gives new life to His people and through them to sinners. Torrey describes what it does in ministers (love for souls, faith in the Bible, power in preaching), in Christians (separation from the world, prayer, soul-winning, joy, love for the Word) and in the world (conviction of sin and conversions). He then looks plainly at the state of the ministry, the church and the world in his day, and his answer to all of it is to pray for revival.
Chapter XII: The Place of Prayer Before and During Revivals
Read chapter XII. Every true revival, from Pentecost on, began in prayer. Torrey surveys Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Charles Finney at Rochester (with long extracts about the praying man Abel Clary), the revival of 1857, Ulster in the 1600s, Ireland in 1859, and Moody's work in Britain. The church of his day, he says, trusted machinery more than prayer. Revival begins with a few people God burdens to pray, and he closes asking God to use the book to raise up many more.
The great cry of our day is work, work, work, new organizations, new methods, new machinery; the great need of our day is prayer.
How to Pray, chapter XII
Reading the book
Torrey writes the way he preached: numbered points, plain words, a verse for every claim, and stories from his own ministry. You can read How to Pray in one evening, or take a chapter a day for twelve days with your Bible open to the verses he cites. If it helps you, his later book The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power covers similar ground at more length.