The Work
With Christ in the School of Prayer was first published in 1885 by James Nisbet and Co. (London). Like Abide in Christ, it is organized as thirty-one chapters - one for each day of a month - making it practical for a month-long devotional discipline. Murray wrote the book as a systematic meditation on the teaching of Jesus on prayer in the Gospels, arguing that Jesus is not merely an example of prayer but a teacher of it - and that the disciples' request 'Lord, teach us to pray' (Luke 11:1) is the appropriate posture of every Christian who wants to pray effectively.
The book was immediately recognized as one of the finest treatments of prayer in the evangelical tradition and has been in continuous print ever since. It has been translated into dozens of languages and has been foundational for evangelical prayer movements worldwide, from the early twentieth-century intercessory prayer movements through the twenty-first century prayer movement associated with organizations like the International House of Prayer.
Murray's approach to prayer is neither mystical (prayer as contemplative silence) nor charismatic (prayer as spontaneous Spirit-utterance) but didactic: prayer is a learned discipline with specific principles that can be taught, practiced, and developed. This emphasis on prayer as something that must be learned - as a school subject - gave the book its unusual combination of theological depth and practical usefulness.
Biblical Engagement
Matthew 6:6 ('But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly') is the foundational instruction about prayer's character: private, direct, relational. Murray builds an entire chapter around the 'closet' of prayer - the deliberate withdrawal from public performance and social noise that is the condition for genuine encounter with the Father. He argues that the closet is not merely a physical location but a disposition of the heart: the willingness to be alone with God without audience.
Luke 11:1 ('And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples') is the book's foundational scene. Murray reads this verse carefully: the disciples do not ask Jesus to pray for them but to teach them to pray as he prays. They recognize, watching him pray, that his prayer is qualitatively different from anything they have experienced - that it has a power and an intimacy they do not yet possess. Their request is the appropriate posture of every Christian who desires to learn.
John 16:24 ('Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full') introduces the concept of praying 'in the name of Jesus' that Murray develops at length. He argues that praying in Jesus's name is not a formula or an appendage to prayer but a description of its entire character: praying in Jesus's name means praying in union with Jesus, in accordance with his character and will, as his representative. This concept directly connects the book's prayer theology to the union-with-Christ theology of Abide in Christ.
Luke 18:1 ('And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint') is the basis for Murray's emphasis on perseverance in prayer. The parable of the importunate widow - which follows in Luke 18:2-8 - teaches that persistent, tenacious, apparently rude insistence on receiving an answer is not a failure of faith but an expression of it. Murray develops this theme in his chapters on 'the prayer of perseverance' and on intercession, arguing that the willingness to continue asking despite apparent silence is the evidence of genuine faith.
Author and Context
Murray wrote With Christ in the School of Prayer in the early 1880s, shortly after his encounter with the Keswick Higher Life movement and several years after the 1860 Worcester revival. He was at the height of his influence as a Dutch Reformed pastor, writer, and spiritual director, and the book reflects his mature understanding of prayer as developed through decades of personal prayer practice and pastoral observation.
Murray was deeply influenced by the intercessory prayer tradition of the Dutch Reformed pietist movement and by the late nineteenth-century prayer revival associated with figures like George Mueller, Hudson Taylor, and D.L. Moody. His emphasis on intercession - praying not only for oneself but for others, for the church, for missions - reflects this tradition.
Themes
The book's central themes are: prayer as a relationship with the Father through the Son in the Spirit (a fundamentally Trinitarian framework); prayer as a learned discipline rather than a spontaneous gift; the necessity of perseverance in prayer; the role of the Holy Spirit as the agent who enables prayer and who intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26); and the connection between union with Christ and effective prayer.
The book gives particular attention to intercession - prayer for others - which Murray regards as the highest form of prayer and the one most directly related to Christian mission. His chapters on intercessory prayer have been widely used in training prayer teams and intercessors.
Reception
The book was immediately received as a classic of evangelical devotional literature. It was widely distributed in missionary contexts and shaped the prayer culture of several generations of evangelical missionaries and church workers. E.M. Bounds's celebrated series of books on prayer (Power Through Prayer, 1907; Prayer and Praying Men, 1921; and others) is partly indebted to Murray's framework.
Legacy
The book's legacy is the entire tradition of twentieth and twenty-first century evangelical and charismatic prayer literature. Its systematic treatment of Jesus's teaching on prayer provided the framework that has been elaborated in different directions by the Pentecostal prayer movement, the intercessory prayer movement, and the contemplative evangelical synthesis associated with writers like Richard Foster. Murray's concept of prayer as a school - something to be learned through practice, failure, and renewed effort - has been widely influential in evangelical spiritual formation.