Derek Prince (1915 – 2003)

Who Was He?

Derek Prince was born in Bangalore, India, in 1915, to British parents. He was educated at the elite Eton College and then Cambridge University, where he was elected to a prestigious fellowship at King's College for his philosophical dissertation at the age of twenty-four. He described himself at the time as an atheist.

When World War II broke out, Prince joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a conscientious objector. As a self-assigned philosophical exercise, he began to read the Bible. In 1941, while stationed in a milit ary barracks, he had what he described as a “supernatural experience” — a meeting with Jesus Christ. He later wrote: “Out of this encounter I formed two conclusions: first, that Jesus Christ is alive; second, that the Bible is a true, relevant, up-to-date book. These conclusions altered the whole course of my life.” Two weeks later he was baptised in the Holy Spirit.

The morning after his conversion, the man who had never prayed in his life could not stop praying. He was posted to North Africa and Palestine, where during his wartime service he met Lydia Christiansen, a Danish woman running an orphanage for eight girls in Ramallah. They married in 1946, and Prince instantly became the father of eight daughters. He gave up his Cambridge fellowship, was ordained, and founded a Pentecostal church in London.

From London, the Princes moved to Kenya, where Prince led a school and planted churches. He subsequently moved to the United States and Canada, eventually settling in Jerusalem in 1981 — a city he loved with a profound biblical conviction. He wrote over fifty books and 600 audio teachings, translated into more than 100 languages. He died in Jerusalem on 24 September 2003, one of the most widely-heard Bible teachers of the twentieth century.

A Great Answer to Prayer The most dramatic answered prayer in Derek Prince’s life was his own conversion — an unsolicited, unexpected encounter with the living Christ while reading the Bible alone in a dark army barracks. Prince had not been seeking God. He had been studying the Bible as a philosopher studies an ancient text. But God broke through, and the man who had gone to sleep as an atheist woke up as a believer.

Prince often spoke of his grandmother, who had prayed for him faithfully throughout his irreligious years at university. He believed with absolute conviction that her years of prayer for him had prepared the ground for that extraordinary encounter.

Later in his ministry, while serving as a school principal in Kenya in the late 1950s, Prince prayed for people to be raised from the dead on two separate occasions — and both times God answered. These experiences deepened his understanding of the authority available to believers in prayer. He spent the remainder of his life teaching believers that prayer is not a religious formality but a weapon of war, a tool of healing, and a means of advancing the Kingdom of God on earth.

Key Scriptures Ephesians 6:17 – 18 — “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.”

Romans 8:34 — “Christ Jesus who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

1 Timothy 2:1 — “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority.”

His Words on Prayer “Prayer is limitless. It's our intercontinental ballistic missile. We can launch it from anywhere and make it reach anywhere.”

“The people who really rule the world are those who know how to pray.”

“Truth is not obtained cheaply. It demands much time given to prayer and study of the Scriptures, followed by practical application in our daily lives.”

“What kind of spiritual sacrifices does God expect us to offer? Ju st as Jesus offered up prayers and petitions during His life on earth, so should we. When we learn to pray, then we are qualified to rule.”

“If you are praying in faith, you say: “The answer is ten years nearer than when I started praying.””

Prayer and the Word of God “The great revelation of the will of God is the Word of God. And the Word of God is packed from beginning to end with divine promises. The will of God is not hidden from us — it is revealed in Scripture. Pray the promises.”

“God has provide d us three main spiritual weapons: the Word of God, the name of Jesus, and the blood of Jesus. We launch these weapons through prayer, praise, preaching, and testimony.”

Prayer and the Holy Spirit “We cannot effectively serve God without the Holy Spirit.”

“Fasting deals with the two great barriers to the Holy Spirit that are erected by man's carnal nature — the stubborn self-will of the soul and the insistent self-gratifying appetites of the body.”

“The night before my conversion I hadn't known how to pr ay. The next day I couldn't stop praying. Even if I got a mug of water I had to pause and thank God for the water before I could drink it. Prayer was now as natural as breathing. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.”