How Much Should We Pray?

5 to 10 minutes per day is plenty in general. This is about how long it takes to pray several Psalms, or other biblical prayers. Of course, extended prayer on special occasions is warranted (Matt. 26).

Pietists have heaped guilt on Christians for "not praying enough" or having a deficient "prayer life."

Yet Christ's instruction on prayer is to to condemn "heaping up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words." And the example prayer He gives is remarkably brief (Matt. 6).

Career success is a function of four factors, each of which has dual components.

1) Competency & hard skills -- Are you good at the basic tasks your job requires?
  a) Retaining already acquired skills
  b) Building relevant new skills

2) Industriousness -- How hard do you work?
  a) Number of hours you put in
  b) Productivity within those hours

3) Network -- Your connections with customers & coworkers, subordinates & superiors.
  a) Number of connections
b) Strength of those connections

4) Blessing -- God's blessing on your work.
a) Blessings from common grace
b) Blessings from covenant faithfulness

I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. (Gal. 5:6; Rom. 3:22.) It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light. Wherefore we do not separate the whole grace of regeneration from faith, but claim the power and faculty of justifying entirely for faith, as we ought.

– John Calvin, Antidote to the Council of Trent, 6th Session on Justification, Canon 11

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into Hades.
The third day He rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven,
And sits on the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting. Amen.

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed 381AD

We believe in one God,
The Father almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
Of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
The only-begotten Son of God,
Begotten from the Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of very God,
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father,
By whom all things were made;
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man,
And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
He suffered and was buried.
On the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures;
And ascended into heaven
And sits at the right hand of the Father,
and shall come again with glory
To judge the living and the dead,
Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
The Lord and Giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son;
Who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,
Who spoke through the Prophets.

And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church;
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Chalcedonian Creed

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved and both concurring into one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the Fathers has handed down to us.

Since God has prescribed to us how He would be worshipped by us, whenever we turn away in the very smallest degree from this rule, we make to ourselves other gods, and degrade Him from His right place.

-- John Calvin, Commentary on Exodus [20:3]

Can we throw in California, too? How much cash do we need to make this deal happen?

Decalogue from the Geneva Psalter:

As a part of Calvin's liturgy, the church would sing the Ten Commandments, notably following confession and absolution. This ordering plus the pleasant tone of the music conveys the third use of the law, that it is indeed a joy to obey our Father.

Happy Sabbath, brothers. Psalm 46, from the Scottish Psalter.

https://youtu.be/GGzuUfQD-G4

One of the best pastor's conferences ever, the Federal Vision Conference held in 2002 at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, is available in full audio here. I would highly recommend it to your listening, especially the Q&A panels.

https://archive.org/details/2002TheFederalVision

There are two parts in the [Second] Commandment -- the first forbids the erection of a graven image, or any likeness; the second prohibits the transferring of the worship which God claims for Himself alone, to any of these phantoms or delusive shows. Therefore, to devise any image of God, is in itself impious; because by this corruption His Majesty is adulterated, and He is figured to be other than He is.

-- John Calvin, Commentary on Exodus [20:4]

P1: The church is commanded to baptize the nations (Matt. 28:20)
P2: Nations include infants.
C: Therefore, the church is commanded to baptize infants.

P1: If God has previously prescribed a standard, we are to assume it remains in force unless explicitly or logically deducibly told otherwise.
P2: In the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic administrations all explicitly included children in the covenant and when God attached signs, the children also received them.
P3: There is no explicit or logically deducible command contrary.
C: Therefore, children remain in the covenant and recieve its signs.

If God had wanted to give us the Bible in film or movie format, he would have done so.

The Chosen and similar idolatries are just images and icons that move on a screen.

A covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered.

With the phrase "bond in blood," we may infer both that this is a life and death bond, and that it follows one's bloodline.

With the phrase "sovereignly administered," we may infer both that one's inclusion is not voluntary, nor are the terms of the administration.

The Book of Acts Is Not Normative:

It was written, along with Luke's gospel, to chronicle the extraordinary events of Jesus' coming and the ramifications thereof. Numerous errors arise from attempting to make it normative.

1) Charismaticism and continuationism, which ignore the later portions of the New Testament and attempt to make the sign gifts normative.

2) Credobaptists, who assume no children were present at Pentecost or in the households, and make adult confession the prerequisite for all.

3) Pacifists and anabaptists, who blot out the entire Old Testament in their pseudo-masochistic desire to make the church once again a persecuted minority with no power.

On reflection, it was unfair to compare journalists to prostitutes.
Prostitutes actually provide a service.