The simply complex Lord's Prayer

 Most Christians know The Lord's Prayer. As a refresher, from the King James (KJV)

(Matthew 6:9-15) "After this manner therefore pray ye: 

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen 

Probably you are like me, you bow your head, shut your eyes and begin, "Our Father, .." and the rest flows smoothly across our lips. A former pastor of mine would close his prayer by saying, "These things we pray in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray saying, 'Our Father, ..." And the congregration would finish The Lord's Prayer. And we felt good about that!

Now understand, I have no problem with The Lord's Prayer. I am concerned we say it so routinely, we tend to dismiss the significance of the prayer; we say the words without thinking too closely to their meaning. Certainly thousands of sermons have been preached about the meaning of each phrase in the prayer. It is not my intention to repeat those sermons. But it struck me one evening, there are a few details in the Prayer we don't think about. Below are four of those details.

Personal or Corporate?

It seems almost blasphemous to say this, but The Lord's Prayer does not seem to be a personal prayer. It seems to be a corporate or group prayer. Notice the wording (the italics are mine); Our Father, give us, our daily, forgive us, as we, forgive our, lead us, deliver us. It seems my former pastor was on solid theological ground when he asked us to repeat The Lord's Prayer as a group prayer. 

Also in Matthew (6:6-8, 6:14-15) Jesus does instruct his disciples in prayer using the personal pronoun you. For example, "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father ..." If I may speculate, I suspect Jesus wants us to pray on behalf of all those who call Him Lord. When I am praying The Lord's Prayer, I am praying for you and you and even you.

The prayer model is excellent as a personal prayer as well, I suggest you say, "My Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give me this day my daily bread. And forgive me my debts as I forgive my debtors. And lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil: For thine is the Kingdom and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. This is not The Lord's Prayer, but I think it catches the meaning on a personal level.

Thanks for God's gifts

I have heard more prayers thanking God for His blessing than I have asking God to give us our daily necessities. It comes naturally to thank someone when they give us something. Especially when God gives  us something. We thank God for our food, for healing, for safety, for health for our salvation, and His presence in our lives. And this is as it should be!

But Jesus did not include a phrase in His prayer offering any thanks to God. Nothing! It would be a mistake to think Jesus did not want you to be thankful or that He wasn't thankful. There are numerous reference to times when Jesus thanked God. Matthew 14:16-21, Matthew 26:26-27, John11:41, Matthew 11:25. But not in the model prayer! Why? 

I am not a theologian so I am only guessing, so here goes.  The three personal petitions are "Give Me" petitions; give me necessities of life and give me forgiveness and give me protection. They are all asking God for these things because these are things people can not provide for themselves. Only God has the power to grant these petitions. We can not give God anything! He doesn't need anything from us, He only gives. God does not need our thanks! For us to give God our thanks suggests we have some power to give God something He can't provide for Himself. Thus to give thanks to God suggest we are on a somewhat equal plane with God. 

This is not to suggest we shouldn't be thankful for all the blessings God gives us.

The only conditional phrase 

Jesus didn't tell us to pray "give us this day our daily bread, because we give daily bread to others." Neither did Jesus say "lead us not into temptation because I have not tempted others," You get the point, these petitions are not conditioned on our doing anything else. Except for this one, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.". This was important enough for Jesus to expound on it in Matthew 6:14 and 15. "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Other translation use words like debts, or sins, or offenses. In another passage Jesus touches on the same theme. Your treatment by God is based on hold you treat other people. 

Jesus warns people not to be casual in judging other people. (Matthew 7:1-5)  "Do not judge, so that you won't be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same standard measure you use." Note this does not say to not judge period. It sets a standard for judging. When you judge, you must use the same standard to judge others as you want to be used to judge you. (Forgive us our debts (sins) as we forgive others their sins against us). Maybe I can give an example that is popular in today’s climate. It is popular to condemn homosexual people. (In my day, the popular sin to use to condemn others was sex before marriage. In an earlier era, the popular sin to condemn was alcoholism.") But this is the meaning of Matthew 7:1+, If you  condemn people for the popular sin of the day because, it says it is a sin in the Bible, then be prepared to be condemned yourself because there are a good many sins listed in the Bible for which you can be condemned.    

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. 

I know this is in the King James Version of the Bible out of which most of us learned The Lord's Prayer. But frankly the translators in 1611 made a mistake. It is not part of older transcripts of Matthew. The KJV translators assumed they had the most ancient manuscripts and they didn't. Honest mistake! But hey I like the ending and will probably continue using it , but it is not what Jesus taught in Matthew.

Hope this helps you understand The Lord's Prayer. It is simple and complex. But so is life!

God Bless You! 

 

What's Love Got To Do With It?

 We all know the bible verses found in Matthew and in Mark where Jesus is asked, "Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replies, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and  with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." This is the response you would expect from Jesus. It is the response his listeners would expect, any other answer would have been blasphemous. Jewish leaders who heard this would not have been able to argue with Jesus response. 

But then Jesus went beyond the original question and said something not so obvious to the crowd. He said, "And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." This second commandment was not so obvious to his listeners. And truthfully, it is not so obvious to us today!

We can understand the first commandment; it may be hard to quantify and thus hard to really do. But we, at least, understand the idea and strive to obey it. But the second commandment involves other people and this is not hard to quantify. These other people include our family, our neighbors, those who love us. Sure we can and do love them. Jesus recognized our natural love for those who love us. In fact he states the obvious when he said, "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? Yes He know how we are and he wants more from us!

There are a few clues in the Bible to tell us what this love of others really means. The first is in Matthew where he says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." Now that is not easy, in fact, it is hard, almost impossible! But that is what he said. If you want to obey the second commandment, you must love those who don't love you even those who hate you! Don't just love them, pray for them!   

Maybe the next clue to loving your neighbor will be easier. Jesus taught, "Do not judge, or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use; it will be measured to you." Put in another way, You must use the same standard for judging your neighbor as you would want your neighbor to use when judging you! That is harsh. Assume my neighbor stole money from a local charity. If I condemn him without knowing the reasons he stole the money, I am giving him the right to judge me for stealing from the PTA treasury without knowing why I took the money. Love my neighbor as I love myself. Judge my neighbor as I want to be judged. 

The third way to love your neighbor is in the way you treat those who are in need. For this go to First John the third chapter and the seventeenth verse. John the Apostle writes, "If anyone has material possessions and see his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" Notice, John does not set any qualifying conditions on the person in need. He does not mention why the person is in need. He does not say to see if the person is able to work, or is in real need. Jesus also talks about this giving to those in need in Matthew 25:31-46. In this passage ay judgement day, people are separated into sheep and goats. The sheep gave to those in need while the goats did not. In verse 45, Jesus says to the goats, "I tell you truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Read the full passage to see those Jesus sees in need.

Love for those who inhabit this world can be complicated or it can be easy. Love and pray for those who you love as well as those you hate. Be loving in your judgment of others, give them the same benefit of the doubt as you would want for yourself. Be conscience of and eager to help those in need. By helping, you are loving them.

What does love have to do with it? Everything! Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as yourself. 

How's your anchor?

The temperature was unseasonably warm. On the open seas, you noticed the weather more than usual. And you did not want to hear "unseasonably warm" in regard to the weather especially in the North Atlantic. Low winds and high humidity and higher than normal water temperature were the ingredients for bad weather, really bad weather!

The first mate remaindered Captain Thomas, "Cap'n, winds calm. We ain't moving. You thinkin what I'm thinkin?"

"Probably", the Captain responded.

"Think, we can run it, sir?"

"Expect not. We're too heavy after loading in Boston. These ships not really built for speed."

"What ya gonna do, Cap'n?" The experienced first mate knew what he would do. "But", he wondered, "does this young inexperienced captain know what to do?" 

Then to the grizzled old sailor's surprise, the young buttoned down Captain turned to him and said, "What do you think we should do, Mate? You've been here before."

"Were it up to me, Sir, I'd steer toward the bay off the starboard. We need to get close enough for the anchor to grab hold, but not too close."

"Don't want to run aground, right?"

"No Sir, Cap'n."

"Well, get the boys going and let's run for cover."

"Yes Sir", the mate replied as he rushed out to bellowed his orders to the crew.

The ship made it to the bay and put down their anchor before the storm hit. The winds tossed  the ship around. Waves washed over the deck sweeping everything not tied down into the angry sea. Black surrounded the tiny ship as brilliant lightning zipped through the darkness. Mother nature seem angry this evening!

But the anchor held through the night!