The Didache (late 1st or early 2nd century), one of the earliest non-biblical Christian texts, explicitly instructs: pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer \u201cthree times each day,\u201d in place of Jewish practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historically, early Christians practiced set times of prayer, commonly three times a day (often at the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day\u2014roughly 9 a.m., noon, and 3 p.m.), building on Jewish customs and developing into the broader Liturgy of the Hours (or Divine Office).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This traces to Jewish roots. Scripture records Daniel praying three times daily (Daniel 6:10), and Psalm 55:17 refers to prayer \u201cevening and morning and at noon.\u201d Jews observed fixed prayer times tied to Temple sacrifices and daily rhythms (such as the Amidah\/Eighteen Benedictions), which early Jewish Christians continued and adapted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the New Testament, the Apostles pray at these hours: the third hour (Acts 2:15, Pentecost), the sixth (Acts 10:9, Peter\u2019s vision), and the ninth (Acts 3:1, Peter and John at the Temple).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orthodox Christians continue this practice as we always have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Didache (late 1st or early 2nd century), one of the earliest non-biblical Christian texts, explicitly instructs: pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer \u201cthree times each day,\u201d in place of Jewish practices. Historically, early Christians practiced set times of prayer, commonly three times a day (often at the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day\u2014roughly 9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eoc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1809,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions\/1809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}