For the gathering of our Bible school staff in YWAM Europe in May, I prepared a Bible meditation. I made it an exercise in practicing the basic steps of inductive Bible study. I was amazed how much there was still to discover in an overly familiar Bible passage (one you may well know by heart) by doing very basic observation (step 1) and interpretation (step 2) in preparation for application (step 3).
You can also watch this content as a VIDEO PODCAST or listen to it as an AUDIO PODCAST
The passage I chose is the Lord’s prayer, taken from the gospel of Matthew:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
[For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.] (Mt. 6:9-13 ESV; for the final line, compare 1 Chron. 29:11)
You will notice that I have arranged the text phrase by phrase. The first line consists of the address, identifying who is being spoken to. It is followed by seven petitions, each marked by the presence of an imperative, the form of the verb that tells the recipient what to do. Then follows a concluding line. Since it begins with ‘for’, it gives a reason or explanatory background for what has gone before.
I placed the final line in square brackets Even though it is very old and is virtually always included when the prayer is prayed, the manuscript evidence makes clear it is not part of the original gospel text. However, ancient Jewish prayers usually finished with a doxology, a statement glorifying God. Similar to the way we expect the Hebrew word amen at the end of a prayer, the earliest believers would have expected some sort of doxology. In fact, when the prayer is quoted in the Didache, an ancient Christian text probably composed before the end of the first century, it already ends with a line almost identical to the one we know so well; only the kingdom is missing: “For yours is the power and the glory, forever. Amen.”
Since it is part of how the prayer is normally used, I included this final line for the exercise.
A Few Observations
Below, I show how I marked observations in the text. A few remarks. The most frequent repetition is that of pronouns. We start off with the word our; the word group we/us/our appears nine times. Your or yours appears four times, in each of the first three petitions and in the concluding line.
You will see I marked a few words, in part because they are repeated and in part because their meaning is not immediately clear.
Important to notice is also what I left out: the context! This is one of the hardest observations to make: to see what is not there. Jesus presented this prayer as part of a longer discourse. And in Matthew 6:14f, he added an important clarification related to forgiveness. I have not included this material in the exercise simply to keep it manageable, and also because the prayer is usually prayed without consideration for its context in Matthew. But I do want to acknowledge the incompleteness.
Interpretation 1: Meaning
Pronouns. When it comes to interpretation, let me start with pronouns as well. Right from the start, from the very first word, the prayer places us in community. We pray this together with all believers and for all believers, never just for ourselves. There is no ‘I’ in this prayer. What we ask for in petition 4 through 7, we ask for all of us.
God first. But although our is the first word in translation, in Greek the first word is Father. And we noticed that the first three petitions are about God. His concerns come first. Our needs take second place; they are the subject from petition 4 onwards. Or perhaps it is not so much about whose ‘needs’ take priority, but about perspective: a heavenly one rather than earthly, God’s perspective rather than ours. Linked with this, the movement is decidedly from heaven (where God is and rules) down to earth.
Address. The address is crucial. If God is our father, we may expect him to be open to our petitions. If God is in heaven, he is in a position to do something about them.
Kingdom. Some meaning questions are in place. Kingdom can carry a static meaning, referring to a realm or territory. Considering that the prayer is for God’s kingdom to come, this meaning does not fit. It must therefore have its dynamic meaning here: the kingly act of ruling or exercise of royal authority.
Understood thus, its meaning is not all that different from the next line, “your will be done”. In fact, as we will see next, the preceding line is close in meaning as well. A similar thought is expressed in each of these three petitions. They are not quite synonyms, but they are close in meaning and somewhat overlap. This makes for a strong emphasis: God’s name, rule, and will must take priority and prevail (cf. Mt. 6:33).
This is the framework within which other petitions, if legitimate, can find their place: his name (or character; therefore, his standards must be acknowledged and practiced), his rule (which is based on righteousness, which we must likewise follow in prayer and practice), and his will.
Hallowed. But what does it mean to pray, “hallowed be your name”? To hallow means to sanctify or make holy. But surely, we cannot make God’s name more holy than it already is. It may therefore be a prayer that the name of God is to be treated as holy, and that people on earth should adjust their lives and live in accordance with the name and character of God. The meaning may also be that his name is to be shown as holy on earth, is to be manifested as such by God’s intervention (Is. 29:23). In the latter case, the petition would be even closer in meaning to the two that follow it, and it would fit well with Ezekiel who speak repeatedly of God’s name and holiness being vindicated (Ezek. 20:41; 36:23; 38:16, 23; 39:27).
Daily. It is not visible in English translation, but the Greek word used for daily is an uncommon one, only used twice in the entire NT (Lk. 11:3, a parallel to Mt. 6:11). As the ESV footnote makes clear, its meaning may well be tomorrow’s. It would undoubtedly reduce stress to start the day with food already there rather than heading into the day without it, hoping it will come.
And it seems reasonable to extend this request to other needs; it is not limited to bread.
Interpretation 2: Toward Understanding
Eschatological? Sometimes, “your kingdom come” is understood eschatologically, as essentially a prayer for the second coming. It is a relatively new understanding, based on the assumption that Jesus expected the end in the very near future and taught his disciples to pray for it – and then was proven simply wrong as more and more time went by. But in the immediate context, it makes much more sense to think of it as a prayer for God to exercise his royal rule from heaven in the present, so that his will be done on earth, now, in the specific circumstances in which we find ourselves – not only at the end, after his return.
Obviously, this makes a huge difference in our application of the passage and in our prayers. We are not merely praying for Jesus to finally come back, a prayer that has not been answered for almost 2000 years now. We are taught to pray that God’s will is to prevail here and now.
Forgive. The perhaps toughest line in the prayer is also the longest: petition 5. The problem is not interpretation. The words are clear enough. The term debt, since it is combined with forgive, must be a metaphor, signifying moral debt or guilt. The difficulty is that the petition comes with a condition. Notice that this line includes the only past tense in the prayer: “as we also have forgiven our debtors”. Let’s face it: we often find it easier to pray for God to manifest his holiness and to rule with a rod of iron. But forgiveness is part of how God chooses to establish his royal rule on earth, and therefore we are called to forgive. Before we receive the answer to our prayers. Before we even pray .
Also notice that this is the line Jesus expands on in Matthew 6:14f, perhaps anticipating that we might want to look for exemptions on this point, perhaps pointing to an awareness that this is the real crux of the prayer and certainly its stumbling stone. This is God’s will. This is what sanctifies his name. This is what brings the kingdom to earth.
Temptation and evil. The concluding two petitions are connected by a strong but. Instead of the one (lead us into temptation) God is petitioned to do the other (deliver us from evil). These two lines are not easy to understand; what exactly are we praying here?
There is the obvious difficulty of God ‘leading’ into temptation. Perhaps a soft or weak form of ‘leading’ is in mind. If God is sovereign, then everything that happens is, in a weak sense, his doing; after all, he could have stopped it from happening. In that case, we might paraphrase: keep us safe from temptation and evil.
Evil is the very opposite and denial of God’s kingdom and will. To deliver from evil is therefore the counterpart to the coming of the kingdom, since kingdom and evil do not go together; eventually, there is no room in God’s kingdom for evil.
Perhaps the combined petition 6 and 7 is meant to make us sensitive to the presence or at least potential for evil in ourselves; we should not be too quick to locate it ‘out there’, on the opposite side, not recognizing our own capacity to succumb to it.
Only two chapters earlier, Jesus faced his temptation and stood his ground (Mt. 4:1-11). But this was exceptional. No human before him had managed to do likewise. Israel failed repeatedly and consistently during its 40 years of testing in the desert. Do we really think we can do better?
It is shocking what ordinary people are capable of when they find themselves in an environment where norms are suspended, where evil is considered good and is warmly affirmed as such. We should not overestimate our ability to discern and resist. We are better off not being led into temptation and testing.
A final point: the aim of all intercession is deliverance from evil – because it takes us right back to the first three petitions. They stated in positive terms what petition 7 states negatively.
Yours. Although the final line included here is not part of Matthew, it makes for a meaningful conclusion. Attention returns to God (yours) and to his kingdom. Because royal authority and power and glory are already his, he is fully able and competent to grant the petitions made.
Application: Pray It!
Open prayer. All the petitions of this prayer are remarkably open and therefore highly adjustable to varying circumstances, contexts, and needs. It makes for a great template to use in praying and interceding. Every line can be expanded on and made more concrete and specific in the act of prayer. I have found it tremendously helpful in praying for Ukraine and Russia (yes, Russia too; remember petition 5).
The Lord’s prayer is a paradigm for praying; let’s pray it!
Attribution
jclk8888. 2015 <https://pixabay.com/photos/bible-rosary-prayer-pray-holy-706662/> CC0
References
Unless indicated differently, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.