Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

LORDS PRAYER

The prayer attributed to Jesus in Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4. The prayer appears in two different forms. Matthew’s opening invocation (“Our Father who is in the heavens”) is longer than Luke’s single word address “Father.” While both versions share the next two petitions (“May your name be hallowed,” “May your kingdom come”), Matthew has a third not present in Luke (“May your will be done as in heaven also on earth”). The next three petitions, the “us” petitions concerning bread, forgiveness, and temptation, are essentially the same. But Matthew adds a further petition absent from Luke (“deliver us from the evil one”).

The most common explanation for the differences between the two versions posits that the Lord’s Prayer originated in some form with Jesus in Aramaic. It was then added to the sayings collection Q, the common source for Matthew and Luke unknown to Mark (hence the Prayer’s absence from Mark). Matthew and Luke incorporated it into their Gospels, making changes to reflect their different theological outlooks and pastoral situations. Matthew, for instance, adds his extra lines. Luke changes the word “debts” to “sins,” “today” to “each day,” and makes the tense of “give” and “forgive” present (rather than aorist) to emphasize daily discipleship. Joachim Jeremias summarizes this view: “in length the shorter text of Luke is to be regarded as original, and in general wording the text of Matthew is to be preferred” (New Testament Theology 1:196).

Other ways of explaining the differences have also been proposed. One view attributes the Prayer’s origin not to Jesus but to the early tradition. The Jesus Seminar thinks that Jesus taught disciples to address God as Father. He may also, at various times, have taught them to pray concerning God’s name, reign, provision of bread, and forgiveness. But it was the Q tradition that assembled a prayer around these four petitions. Matthew and Luke later elaborated the Lord’s Prayer.

Michael Goulder has suggested that Matthew, not Q (which Goulder thinks did not exist), created the Lord’s Prayer from parts of Mark’s Gospel. For example, Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness in Mark 11:25-26 provides the basis for the opening address and the petition on forgiveness. The garden of Gethsemane scene (Mark 14:32-42) provides the petitions about doing God’s will and being delivered from evil. On this view, Luke alters Matthew’s version to accommodate it to his different situation.

Ulrich Luz proposes a further view. He has argued that while some of the changes in Matthew’s version are typical Matthean redactions, others are not (e.g., the noun “earth” without an article, the singular form “heaven,” the passive form “be done,” the “as . . . also” construction in Matt. 6:10). He argues that the presence of Matthean and non-Matthean language indicates that while the Gospel author’s language is essentially that of his tradition and community, the two are not always identical. The Gospel’s author is not responsible for the Lord’s Prayer in its current form. Rather, the author incorporates the Prayer in the form in which it was used in the liturgy of his community. This means, then, that in hearing the Lord’s Prayer as part of the Gospel, Matthew’s audience recognizes a familiar unit and recalls its liturgical experience of this prayer. The issue of origin continues, then, to be debated.

Also debated is the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. Here two questions are central: how is the Prayer answered and when? Is the Prayer completely oriented to the future when God will do these things? Or does it focus on both the future and present, with either the first three petitions more concerned with the future and the rest with the present, or with each petition involving dimensions of both present and future, of divine response and action by disciples? This last view is the most convincing.

The opening address to God as “Father” articulates a particular relation between those who pray and God. Both Gospels recognize that disciples of Jesus enter into the same relationship with God as Jesus enjoys (Matt. 2:15; 3:17; 5:16, 45, 48; Luke 2:49; 6:36). The “our” distinguishes the community of disciples. The term “in heaven” recognizes God’s traditional abode and the origin of God’s saving initiative (Matt. 1:18-25; 4:17).

To pray that God’s name be hallowed or sanctified is to pray for the manifestation of God’s power and presence. This can be done by God (Ezek. 36:22-38, return from exile) and by humans through enacting God’s will now as well as in the final completion of God’s purposes.

Likewise to pray for God’s reign recognizes that the reign is God’s dynamic, powerful presence. This reign is to be manifested in future glory, but both Gospels affirm its presence already in the ministry of Jesus (Matt. 4:17; 12:28; Luke 11:20) and in the lives of those who encounter him (Matt. 5:3, 10; 6:33; Luke 6:20; 8:10). To pray for God’s will to be done similarly involves a response from both God and disciples, in the future and the present (Matt. 7:21; 12:46-50; 26:42).

Debate about the petition for bread has focused on the meaning of Gk. epioúsios. The word is infrequently used, and scholars have sought its meaning in possible Aramaic originals, the form (or etymology) of the word, the context of the prayer, and understandings of its meaning from Church tradition. Possible translations include “the bread necessary for existence,” “bread for today,” “future bread” (for the eschatological banquet), or “bread for tomorrow.” The last translation is supported by the form of the word and a 2nd-century translation. The petition would be understood, then, as a request for the continuing supply of the bread needed for survival, though an additional eschatological reference cannot be ruled out.

The fifth petition continues the focus on “us” and is a petition for forgiveness. Both Gospels recognize that God’s forgiveness is available through the ministry of Jesus (Matt. 1:21; 9:1-8; 26:28; Luke 5:17-26; 7:47-50). The petition recognizes that God’s forgiveness mandates forgiveness of others, a theme Matthew emphasizes (Matt. 6:14-15; 18:21-35).

The next petition is problematic in several respects. The notion that God tests God’s people appears for instance in Ps. 11:5; 26:2. Yet Jas. 1:13 asserts the contrary, while 1 Cor. 10:13 promises help in temptation. Some have understood “temptation” to refer to the final time of trial or testing which marks the end of the age. But it is preferable to understand the term to indicate primarily daily temptations and the petition as a request by vulnerable disciples for God’s help to resist such temptations and apostasy. Matthew’s addition (“deliver us from the evil one”) seems to support this reading. It makes explicit the origin of the temptation in the power of the evil one, the devil, to resist God’s purposes (so Matt. 4:1-11; 13:19, 38). There is, though, a future dimension in that at the end of the age God will bring about a final deliverance in the victory over all evil.

Some liturgical versions of the Lord’s Prayer include a doxology (“for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen”). This doxology was added to some earlier manuscripts, but was probably not in the original Gospels.

Bibliography. R. E. Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” TS 22 (1961): 175-208; W. Carter, What Are They Saying About Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount? (New York, 1994), 42-45, 93-95; “Recalling the Lord’s Prayer,” CBQ 57 (1995): 514-30; M. D. Goulder, “The Composition of the Lord’s Prayer,” JTS n.s. 14 (1963): 32-45; R. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount (Dallas, 1982), 272-320; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology 1 (New York, 1971); The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1978); U. Luz, Matthew 1–7 (Minneapolis, 1989).

Warren Carter

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

LORDS PRAYER

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)