In Luke 18 Jesus presents prayer in adversarial terms. The three players in the unfolding drama, are a poor widow, an unrighteous judge and an unnamed adversary. The word for adversary, ἀντίδικος (antidikos) was used in the ancient world in a precise way to describe someone who was bringing an accusation in court against another. In that regard the widow is seeking to defend herself in an undescribed struggle, the severity of which is indicated by her desperate approaches to the judge to find reprieve

Whilst the Parable of the Persistent Widow frames prayer in the setting of a courtroom, elsewhere in the New Testament prayer is spoken of as something happening in a throne room. Both places are intimidating, and a throne room, in the ancient world, was not a place to be entered lightly, or without invitation. The writer of the book of Hebrews, however, casts a vision of approaching God’s throne in a way that is, to say the least, surprising.