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When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:6, ESV).
There are thousands of books and pamphlets published on the topic of prayer every year. Alice, my AI assistant, researched the matter and told me, “A reasonable guess is roughly 10,000 to 15,000 new book titles specifically focused on prayer were published globally in 2025.”
There are two facts about prayer: first, almost 67 percent of Americans pray regularly, and of those, about 90 percent have questions about how to pray more effectively. There’s a desire to pray and a need to understand how to pray.
In this blog post, I can’t answer all the questions about prayer (as if I knew all the answers), but there are five words in the New Testament used for “prayer.” Let’s look at each one to learn how to pray.
Proseuche and Proseuchomai
These two words (one a noun and the other a verb), used about 120 times in the New Testament, are the most common words for “prayer.” We witness this word in action in the lives of New Testament Christians…
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42, emphasis added).
The words mean to literally talk to God. The words most often used about prayer in the New Testament are relational words of intimacy and conversation. What a framework for praying effectively!
Deesis
This word, used 18 times, can be translated as “supplication,” “petition,” or “prayer.” The inference is intensity. This isn’t a daily “bless me” prayer, but a “God, I need $100 to pay my gas bill today” request.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6, emphasis added).
Entuexis
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people (1 Timothy 2:1, emphasis added).
Used only twice in the Bible and translated as “intercession” and “prayer,” the word is the antonym of “sin.” Whereas the Greek word for “sin” means “missing the mark,” amazingly, the Greek word “entuexis” or “intercession” means “hitting the mark.”
Intercession discovers the nexus between earthly events and God’s will, stands strong at that point, and prays fervently. It hits the target.
Eucharistia
This word describes the attitude of great praying…
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving (Colossians 4:2).
And the word can be used for “prayer” itself as Paul writes, “How can anyone … say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving [prayer] when he does not know what you are saying?” (1 Corinthians 14:6b, emphasis added).
Thanksgiving not only motivates prayer but also provokes the Spirit to bring blessings and answers, with many saying, “Amen.”
Euche
One of my favorite passages about prayer uses “euche.”
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven (James 5:14-15, emphasis added).
This word can be translated as “vow” and “prayer.” It’s an earnest word, a willingness-to-pay-the-price word, a “when someone is sick, we will do anything” type of word. I love the following quote by P.T. Forsyth about “euche” or the “prayer of faith”…
The deeper we go down into the valley of despair, the higher we must rise on the mount of prayer.
Five words that can help us pray. Let’s remember how Jesus described prayer: “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14).