According to the Bible, prayer is communication with God. It is the way believers of God talk to Him, make their praise and requests known, and seek His favor. Prayer can be audible or silent, private or public, formal or informal, but it must be offered in faith, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is central to the Christian life, and Christians are commanded to pray continually as they seek God and grow in intimacy with Him.

The Bible describes prayer as seeking Gods favor, pouring out ones soul to the Lord, crying out to Him, seeking Him, making supplication, drawing near to Him, and bowing the knees. Prayer presupposes a belief in the personality of God, His ability and willingness to hold intercourse with us, His personal control of all things and of all His creatures and all their actions.

The purpose of prayer in the Bible is to make our praise or request known to God, to enjoy His presence, and to tell Him what is going on in our lives. Through prayer, we can ask God for deliverance, mercy, healing, and miracles, and seek His guidance and wisdom. Prayer is not seeking our own will but seeking to align ourselves with the will of God more fully.

In the Hebrew Bible, prayer is an evolving means of interacting with God, most frequently through a spontaneous, individual or collective, unorganized form of petitioning and/or thanking. Standardized prayer such as is done today is non-existent, but by the Bibles later books, prayer has evolved to a more standardized form, although still radically different from the form practiced by modern Jews.