What does a high school English teacher who spends most of his spiritual energy praying his students actually read the assigned chapters know about intercessory prayer?
More than you'd think, actually. Because prayer - the real kind, the kind where you're on your knees at midnight not sure if anyone's listening - has a lot in common with teaching. You show up. You do the work. You trust the process even when the results are invisible. Dutch Sheets gets this, and that's what makes Intercessory Prayer more interesting than the title might suggest to the skeptical literary types in my orbit.
The Theology Professor Who Remembers He's Talking to Humans
I'll be honest - this isn't my usual lane. I spend my listening hours with Faulkner and Dostoevsky and the occasional historical biography. But Denise has been on a prayer kick lately, and she suggested we listen to this together during our Saturday lakefront walks. So for several weeks, Robertson Dean's bass-deep voice accompanied us past Montrose Harbor while joggers and cyclists flew by us at speeds my knees can only dream about.
What surprised me is how much Sheets functions like a good teacher rather than a pulpit-pounder. He breaks down the mechanics of intercessory prayer - literally, the nuts and bolts of standing in the gap for someone else - with the patience of someone who's explained this concept hundreds of times and still finds it worth explaining again. He draws from Hebrew and Greek word studies, which - and this is where the English teacher in me perked up - actually changes your understanding of familiar passages. When he unpacks the original language behind "intercession" and shows how the biblical concept is closer to "meeting" or "striking upon" than our passive modern sense of "asking nicely," that's genuine insight. That's the kind of close reading I beg my students to do with Shakespeare.
But here's where I'll push back: Sheets occasionally repeats his core points more than necessary. At 8 hours and 19 minutes, this could have been tighter. There are stretches in the middle where the same theological framework gets reapplied to slightly different scenarios, and I found my attention drifting toward the lake. If you're already bought in on the premise, those sections reinforce. If you're on the fence, they might test your patience.
Robertson Dean Narrates Like He Actually Believes What He's Reading
This is where the audiobook earns its keep over the print version. Robertson Dean has one of those voices that sounds like it was specifically engineered for conveying conviction without theatrics. Deep, resonant, measured - but not monotone. There's genuine energy in his delivery, particularly during the passages where Sheets shifts from teaching mode to storytelling mode, recounting specific instances of prayer being answered in dramatic ways.
What struck me is how Dean handles the tonal shifts. Sheets moves between scholarly exegesis, personal anecdote, and passionate exhortation sometimes within the same chapter, and Dean tracks those shifts without making them feel jarring. He doesn't oversell the emotional moments, which I appreciate. The narrator understands that pause is punctuation - and Dean uses silence well when Sheets lands on something weighty.
No sound effects, no music, no production gimmicks. Just a man reading with clarity and purpose. At 1.0x speed (because the author chose those words), Dean's pacing feels right. Not rushed, not dragging.
The Comparison That Kept Nagging Me
I kept thinking about C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters while listening - not because they're the same kind of book, but because both take the invisible mechanics of spiritual life and make them concrete and tactical. Lewis did it through satire and fiction. Sheets does it through direct instruction and personal testimony. Different approaches, same ambition: making the unseen feel real and urgent.
Sheets is no Lewis as a prose stylist - let's be clear about that. His writing is functional, clear, occasionally repetitive. But his teaching instinct is strong, and he has a gift for analogies that land. When he compares the intercessor to a "go-between" who literally bears the burden of another person's situation, carrying it to God - that's an image that sticks.
Who This Is For (And Who Should Keep Walking)
If you're already part of a prayer community or church that values intercession, this is foundational listening. Sheets gives you language and framework for something you might already practice but haven't fully understood.
If you're a skeptic or someone outside the Christian tradition, this probably isn't your entry point. Sheets writes from deep inside evangelical theology, and he's not trying to convince doubters. He's equipping believers.
And if you're somewhere in the middle - spiritual but frustrated, praying but unsure it matters - this might be exactly the nudge you need. Denise told me after our third walk that she felt like she finally understood why to keep praying when nothing seems to change. That's not nothing. Denise and I had a similar moment of unexpected clarity working through Live in Love together — that particular experience of a book landing differently because you're reading it alongside someone who matters to you.
Worth Pausing the Faculty Meeting For
My students would have zero interest in this. I love it anyway. Not because it changed my theology overnight, but because Sheets and Dean together make a compelling case that prayer is work - real, structured, purposeful work. And as someone who's spent 20 years believing that showing up and doing invisible labor eventually matters, I found that message worth the 8 hours. Even the repetitive parts.
