The Bible Book

212

THIS, THEN,

IS HOW YOU

SHOULD PRAY

MATTHEW 6:9, THE LORD’S PRAYER

C

hristianity’s most famous

prayer, which was taught

to the discipes by Jesus

Himself, starts on a striking note:

“Our Father.” By opening what

became known as the Lord’s Prayer

with those two words, Jesus was

encouraging His disciples to enter

into an extraordinary intimacy with

God—similar to the one that He

Himself enjoyed.

The image of God as a loving

parent was not unknown in the

Hebrew scriptures. As early as

Exodus 4, the Lord refers to Israel

as His “firstborn son.” Nowhere in

the Old Testament, however, is the

idea of God as the Father as central

as it is in Jesus’s teachings. In

telling His followers to say “Our

Father,” He encourages them to

approach God boldly, just as a child

would approach a parent whose

care, provision, and protection they

otherwise take for granted.

Learning to pray

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives the

prayer in response to a request from

one of the disciples: “Lord, teach

us to pray, just as John [the Baptist]

taught his disciples.” Luke’s version

IN BRIEF

PA S SAGE

Matthew 6:9–13

Luke 11:2– 4

THEME

Teaching on prayer

SETTING

c. 27–29 ce The Sermon on

the Mount (in Matthew), a

mountainside in Galilee. Luke

says only that Jesus teaches

the prayer “in a certain place.”

KEY FIGURES

Jesus The Messiah and Son

of God during His ministry in

Galilee and Judea.

Jesus’s disciples A group of

Jewish men and women who

travel with Jesus during His

ministry, and spread the word

about Him and His teachings

after His death.

Translations

The oldest known English

versions of the Lord’s Prayer

date from before 1000 ce. John

Wycliffe, leader of the reformist

Lollard movement, translated it

into English (along with the rest

of the Bible) in the 1380s, and

William Tyndale followed suit in

the 1520s and 1530s. After the

English Reformation, Tyndale’s

version of the Prayer was

included with a few changes in

the new Church of England’s

Book of Common Prayer,

compiled by Thomas Cranmer,

Archbishop of Canterbury, and

first published in 1549. This

has survived with only a few

modifications as the traditional

form of the prayer in English,

which is still the most familiar

version for many people.

The doxology (a short verse

praising God) at the end of the

prayer—“For thine is the

kingdom ...”—is not found in

the Bible, but versions of it have

been used for hundreds of years,

particularly in the Eastern and

Orthodox Church. In its present

form, the doxology is mostly

used by Protestants.

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213

Reciting the Lord’s Prayer was

once a daily ritual in many Christian

families, as shown in this illustration

from Berlin, dating from around 1900.

THE GOSPELS

See also: The Origin of Prayer 38–39 ■ The Divinity of Jesus 190–93 ■ Sermon on the Mount 204–09 ■

Parables of Jesus 214–15 ■ The Nature of Faith 236–41

of the prayer is more pared down

than Matthew’s and includes just

five petitions. In Matthew’s Gospel,

the prayer is the focal point of the

Sermon on the Mount and includes

the salutation and seven petitions

familiar to Christians today.

Different religious traditions had

their distinctive prayers, and Jesus

intended the Lord’s Prayer to be

for His followers to say. The early

Christians recited it three times

a day in the same way that Jews

recite the 18 Benedictions.

Seven petitions

The prayer has become central to

Christian liturgies, but it is also

seen as a “school of prayer.” The

opening salutation stresses the

person’s membership in a family of

fellow children of God: “Our Fat her.”

Three so-called “you-petitions”

follow—hallowed be your name;

your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven—

succeeded by four “we-petitions”:

give us our daily bread; forgive us

our trespasses; lead us not into

temptation; and deliver us from evil.

While the you-petitions concern

God’s desire for love and justice

among people, in the we-petitions

the believer grapples with the

challenges of living out that vision:

the need for material and spiritual

sustenance, forgiveness, mercy,

and the ability to persevere.

In both Matthew’s and Luke’s

Gospels, the prayer is followed

shortly afterward by other famous

pronouncements of Jesus: “Ask

and it will be given to you; seek and

you will find; knock and the door

will be opened to you ...” Through

the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus repeatedly

demonstrates His belief in making

petitions to God, thus encouraging

people to pray. ■

The Lord’s Prayer is the

most perfect of prayers. ...

This prayer teaches us not

only to ask for things, but

also in what order we

should desire them.

Thomas Aquinas

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