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Verbal Bean: Prayer
In 1968, Verbal Bean taught young ministers lessons on prayer. These lessons were recorded and circulated for years. Steven Carrier transcribed and edited the teachings according to the subject matter. The fact that this book is in its 10th edition speaks of the practical benefits the Elder's teachings have provided those who seek a closer walk with God.
- GenresPrayerChristian Living
172 pages, Paperback
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 31, 2023
What a book! I wish I was taught some of these principles when I first received the Holy Ghost/started praying.
His stories and testimonies are so challenging/convicting. I feel better equipped not only as a minister’s wife, but as a praying saint.
I will definitely be rereading!
His stories and testimonies are so challenging/convicting. I feel better equipped not only as a minister’s wife, but as a praying saint.
I will definitely be rereading!
April 26, 2020
The best
January 1, 2022
Highly highly recommended
January 10, 2022
3 Stars
Book about Christian Prayer from an old-time preacher. If that ain't your cup of tea, skip this book.
Thoughts below:
An "Apostolic Classic" from the dearly departed Rev. Verbal Bean, this book can be a bit all over the place. There are enormous grammatical issues, sentence structure issues, punctuation issues, etc. For the first few chapters, stories/message themes for were repeated verbatim nearly every few chapters. Thoughts and topics were all over the place at times, which ended up getting a little confusing.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this mess of a book once I got past the first couple chapters. It's all over the place, but it carries so much insight and nuggets of wisdom that I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to go into the ministry.
-----
Notable Quotes:
-Preachers who don't pray, produce preachers who don't know how to pray.
-2 Kings 8: 11 "...the man of God wept"
-If I walk with God like I ought, my very presence is going to bring God.
-Joel 2:17 "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar."
-When the problems of your church, the deficiencies of your saints, their awkwardness, or their failings become a common joke, you have lost the touch.
-I've heard people say that if you're not touching God you're not doing any good, so you might as well give up. I believe I am a doing good. I may not be feeling much, but I believe I'm doing well. If I'm not doing any more than teaching Verbal Bean a little self-denial to stay there before Him, and it takes persistence to pray when there’s no desire to pray.
-God is very affectionate, and enjoys worship. You are nearest to your original purpose when you are praising Him. God didn't make man to preach, or to hear sermons. He made man to have fellowship with Him, and for man to love Him by choice.
-How do I get God's attention? When he has your attention, you have his attention.
-Self-justification is the first step toward a reprobate mind.
-I believe every once in a while; we need to tell God how sorry we are. But dear Lord Jesus in heaven, help us if our prayer life is going to stop there! We will be without results, because by the time we've spent one solid hour telling God how sorry we are, and Him ignoring it, we have throughly brainwashed ourselves into believing we are unworthy of whatever we were asking.
-You'd be surprised how many saints live their prayer life in self-defeat, thinking they're being humble.
-If you're ever going to pray a successful prayer, it will [be] because you have faith in God's mercy, and his ability to justify you.
-I have found saints who have had the Holy Ghost for thirty years, living under the pressure of condemnation, because they feel evil. How can I touch God if I believe I have sinned? I don't have much faith in His forgiveness, so I repent of the same old sin for hours.
-"Son, you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair!"
-The meekest man on earth with divine glory crackling all around him, stood there and said to the eternal God, "[Exodus 32:11]".
I thought you were supposed to say, "Oh, forgive me, Lord. Don't hit me right now, let me take one little lamb, and let me live in peace!". The meekest man on earth recognized his position. His rod gave him the golden opportunity to be bold enough to say, "I didn't bring them out, You did!".
Look at your Bible, and notice there is a definite pause. A real genuine break in a sentence, where it says, "[Exodus 32:32]".
That pause tells me Moses in an intercessory spirit, broke with travail for the people, but not one time did he back down from his pleading with God.
-If I were the devil, I would see to it that preachers wouldn't pray! That's the first thing I'd do, to stop the progress of the church. I'd get him so busy until he felt justified not to pray.
-There is no substitute for prayer and fasting. You can't preach well enough, you cannot sing pretty enough, you cannot have a good enough personality to make up for prayer.
-The more sensitive you become to God, the more sensitive you become to the devil. Understand, when you train your feelers to feel after God, you are automatically able to feel the other spirits. It's impossible to know the one without knowing the other. The closer you get to God, the more the devil's are going to fight you. He doesn't want you praying, that's why he tries scaring you while you pray.
-Psalm 22:3"O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." ; Praying creates an atmosphere that entices God. By the same token, when there are fears, it has the same results with the devil, as praying does to God. When you start praising the Lord, it's not long until you start feeling the Lord. When you allow fears to start building up, it's not long until you feel the devil.
-We ought to have enough God that they'd [devils] scream out at us during church, and we'd have enough authority to tell them to be still, hold their peace, to come out, without any big commotion.
-Don't let the devil scare you. The devil operates in the imagination. He is as big as your mind imagines him to be.
-Jeremiah 48:11 "Moab... hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel... therefore... his scent is not changed" ; When you fool around with the world all day long, even though you didn't participate, your thinking has been affected, and it'll absorb the anointing away from you.
-Fleeces are crutches for inadequacies in us. The first fleece that was ever offered was because of a lack of faith at that moment. He questioned the voice of God, and had to have an assurance. This shows you the origin is an inadequacy. It's an imperfect way of finding God.
Book about Christian Prayer from an old-time preacher. If that ain't your cup of tea, skip this book.
Thoughts below:
An "Apostolic Classic" from the dearly departed Rev. Verbal Bean, this book can be a bit all over the place. There are enormous grammatical issues, sentence structure issues, punctuation issues, etc. For the first few chapters, stories/message themes for were repeated verbatim nearly every few chapters. Thoughts and topics were all over the place at times, which ended up getting a little confusing.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this mess of a book once I got past the first couple chapters. It's all over the place, but it carries so much insight and nuggets of wisdom that I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to go into the ministry.
-----
Notable Quotes:
-Preachers who don't pray, produce preachers who don't know how to pray.
-2 Kings 8: 11 "...the man of God wept"
-If I walk with God like I ought, my very presence is going to bring God.
-Joel 2:17 "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar."
-When the problems of your church, the deficiencies of your saints, their awkwardness, or their failings become a common joke, you have lost the touch.
-I've heard people say that if you're not touching God you're not doing any good, so you might as well give up. I believe I am a doing good. I may not be feeling much, but I believe I'm doing well. If I'm not doing any more than teaching Verbal Bean a little self-denial to stay there before Him, and it takes persistence to pray when there’s no desire to pray.
-God is very affectionate, and enjoys worship. You are nearest to your original purpose when you are praising Him. God didn't make man to preach, or to hear sermons. He made man to have fellowship with Him, and for man to love Him by choice.
-How do I get God's attention? When he has your attention, you have his attention.
-Self-justification is the first step toward a reprobate mind.
-I believe every once in a while; we need to tell God how sorry we are. But dear Lord Jesus in heaven, help us if our prayer life is going to stop there! We will be without results, because by the time we've spent one solid hour telling God how sorry we are, and Him ignoring it, we have throughly brainwashed ourselves into believing we are unworthy of whatever we were asking.
-You'd be surprised how many saints live their prayer life in self-defeat, thinking they're being humble.
-If you're ever going to pray a successful prayer, it will [be] because you have faith in God's mercy, and his ability to justify you.
-I have found saints who have had the Holy Ghost for thirty years, living under the pressure of condemnation, because they feel evil. How can I touch God if I believe I have sinned? I don't have much faith in His forgiveness, so I repent of the same old sin for hours.
-"Son, you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair!"
-The meekest man on earth with divine glory crackling all around him, stood there and said to the eternal God, "[Exodus 32:11]".
I thought you were supposed to say, "Oh, forgive me, Lord. Don't hit me right now, let me take one little lamb, and let me live in peace!". The meekest man on earth recognized his position. His rod gave him the golden opportunity to be bold enough to say, "I didn't bring them out, You did!".
Look at your Bible, and notice there is a definite pause. A real genuine break in a sentence, where it says, "[Exodus 32:32]".
That pause tells me Moses in an intercessory spirit, broke with travail for the people, but not one time did he back down from his pleading with God.
-If I were the devil, I would see to it that preachers wouldn't pray! That's the first thing I'd do, to stop the progress of the church. I'd get him so busy until he felt justified not to pray.
-There is no substitute for prayer and fasting. You can't preach well enough, you cannot sing pretty enough, you cannot have a good enough personality to make up for prayer.
-The more sensitive you become to God, the more sensitive you become to the devil. Understand, when you train your feelers to feel after God, you are automatically able to feel the other spirits. It's impossible to know the one without knowing the other. The closer you get to God, the more the devil's are going to fight you. He doesn't want you praying, that's why he tries scaring you while you pray.
-Psalm 22:3"O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." ; Praying creates an atmosphere that entices God. By the same token, when there are fears, it has the same results with the devil, as praying does to God. When you start praising the Lord, it's not long until you start feeling the Lord. When you allow fears to start building up, it's not long until you feel the devil.
-We ought to have enough God that they'd [devils] scream out at us during church, and we'd have enough authority to tell them to be still, hold their peace, to come out, without any big commotion.
-Don't let the devil scare you. The devil operates in the imagination. He is as big as your mind imagines him to be.
-Jeremiah 48:11 "Moab... hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel... therefore... his scent is not changed" ; When you fool around with the world all day long, even though you didn't participate, your thinking has been affected, and it'll absorb the anointing away from you.
-Fleeces are crutches for inadequacies in us. The first fleece that was ever offered was because of a lack of faith at that moment. He questioned the voice of God, and had to have an assurance. This shows you the origin is an inadequacy. It's an imperfect way of finding God.
April 4, 2024
Read this book when I was 16 years old during the covid 19 pandemic, I am turning 20 next month. This book changed my prayer life drastically. I come back to this book more than I can remember. Highly recommend to every believer in the faith.
April 9, 2025
Such an impactful book. This book has changed my view on prayer dramatically. If you are thinking about getting this book, get it! It will not disappoint. Through every season this book ministers to my spirit and heart.
December 31, 2025
one of my favorite books of all time
I reread this almost every year. This book is rich with insights on prayer. My prayer life has been forever changed and challenged by the insights Verbal Bean shares.
I reread this almost every year. This book is rich with insights on prayer. My prayer life has been forever changed and challenged by the insights Verbal Bean shares.
February 3, 2024
Oh my goodness this was so powerful and fantastic!!! 🙌🏼💃🏼🔥👏
October 28, 2025
I re-read this often
Read
September 19, 2022Reading and finishing this has been an accomplishment! This read has been deep and convicting! At one point, I finished a chapter and had to take a break and meditate and pray over some of these principles in my own work/life. I definitely recommend this book for those who are serving in a church, especially on a full-time basis. There are many principles that I could have used when beginning to travel and speak in churches. I personally wouldn't recommend it for those new to the faith. For those familiar with Billy Cole's Teachings, this material reminded me a lot of that. Bro Bean's words were transcribed in a similar way. Some of the examples were a bit hard to follow because of the time and cultural gap between the speaker and modern-day reader, but nonetheless, Bro Bean's teachings on prayer will be a blessing!
July 20, 2021
Great Book - Love the format
This book was recommended to me, and I have since recommended it. An easy read, information is in the format of transcription of old tapes that recorded the lectures when done live.
It is not just a teaching session, but also includes some question and answer which prove helpful. Also, are stories from the ministry of Bro. Verbal Bean himself as well as other ministers which bring the concepts to life, while giving the readers productive examples.
This book was recommended to me, and I have since recommended it. An easy read, information is in the format of transcription of old tapes that recorded the lectures when done live.
It is not just a teaching session, but also includes some question and answer which prove helpful. Also, are stories from the ministry of Bro. Verbal Bean himself as well as other ministers which bring the concepts to life, while giving the readers productive examples.
July 26, 2021
Such a help!
I started reading this because my pastor is reading it with his evangelist grandson. I often struggle with prayer, and this book gave me lots of insight and help. I will put some things into practice for sure. God bless Bro Bean!
I started reading this because my pastor is reading it with his evangelist grandson. I often struggle with prayer, and this book gave me lots of insight and help. I will put some things into practice for sure. God bless Bro Bean!
July 15, 2016
Highly recommended
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews