Matthew 6:9-15
The most extraordinary thing about the prayer Jesus gave is that it is so ordinary.
Most of us have read and recited what we call The Lord’s Prayer so many times that we no longer know how unusual it sounded to Jesus’ listeners that day.
For his model prayer, Jesus could have chosen a more complex, longer one in use at the time. He could have chosen one of the Psalms, which he loved. Instead, Jesus gave this eloquently simple prayer.
In most of our modern translations, it is a little over fifty words long, and according to how it is punctuated, it is five or six sentences. Its language style is simple, perhaps what one would call generic. Even at a leisurely pace, it only takes a little over 15 seconds to say it.
The prayer briefly touched on perhaps ten topics; about half of them dealt with God and his plans and about half dealt with the one saying the prayer. Jesus had just said, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling” (Matt. 6:7), and this prayer is starkly different from a babbling prayer.
Two aspects of the prayer are curious. First, there is no thanksgiving.
Jesus certainly emphasized giving thanks to God in his teaching. Maybe he assumed that because God already knows everything about us (consider Matt. 6:8), every important topic did not have to be included in every prayer. On the other hand, he may have been giving a model of praying and not a model prayer; in other words, he was telling how to talk to God, not what to say.
Second, all the first-person pronouns were plural: not my and I but our and we. He may have been giving a model prayer for public use, which connected to his earlier discussion about hypocrites praying in public. Perhaps, if he was giving a model for how to talk to God, the plural pronouns are not important.
In giving this model, Jesus took prayer out of the hands of experts and distributed the right to pray to the masses. His model is one almost anyone can use—just say simply what is on the heart and do not worry about leaving something out.
WELCOME
14 years ago
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Never thought of a model prayer for
ReplyDeletepublic meetings. Sure looks like it
though. Thank you. I like what you
said about God knowing our hearts.
If we have God on our minds throughout
the day, perhaps this is a living
prayer of the highest order. One that
says we are mindful of His presence
and our dependence on Him for everything.
I appreciate your thought provoking comment. What would our lives be like if we became the "living prayer" you mentioned? You've given me something to think on today. Thank you!
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