The pattern Jesus offers is traditionally called the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus does not command his disciples to repeat these words; rather, he gives this as a pattern for prayer. The words are your own, but typically, these are the sorts of things that are part of regular prayer. It cannot be emphasized enough: this is a pattern for prayer, not a list to be memorized and repeated. Nor is the Lord’s Prayer a complete “theology of prayer.” This pattern differs somewhat from the Psalms and other prayers of Jesus in the Gospels. Paul’s letters almost always begin with prayers that do not follow the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus is simply offering his disciples direction to avoid the babbling of the hypocrites (whether Pharisees or pagans).
For other posts in this series on the Lord’s Prayer:
- Praying Like The Pagans – Matthew 6:5-8
- Our Father in Heaven – Matthew 6:9
- Thy Kingdom Come – Matthew 6:10
- Give Us Today Our Daily Bread – Matthew 6:11
- Forgive us Our Debts – Matthew 6:12
- Lead us Not into Temptation – Matthew 6:13
The first line of the prayer focuses on God and God alone. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Addressing God as the father is consistent with Jewish prayers of the first century and radical at the same time. There are many examples of Jewish prayers that address God as a father, although, for the most part, they are prayers that describe God as the father of Israel, or the creator, “Father of All,” not a personal yet divine “father” figure.
The basis for this in Jesus’ prayer is that Jesus creates a new family consisting of his disciples, a family that persists into the present age as well. Paul uses family language to describe our new relationship in faith. We are brothers and sisters to each other; we are co-heirs with Christ, sharing the same father who is in heaven (Romans 8).
For Paul, this means that regardless of our real family (or lack thereof), we have a new family with bonds running deeper than a physical family. This is the radical element in Jesus’ prayer—the sovereign God of heaven can be addressed as father. We are within our rights to call him father, and we are expected to do so.
This prayer is God-centered, beginning with worshiping God for who he is. Hallowed means “holy, revered,” or perhaps even “blessed.” This is quite consistent with the Psalms, which often “bless the name of God,” and the Jewish expression after referring to God, “may his name be blessed.” This is a brief adoration of God and a statement that we revere his name – this can and ought to be expanded! A prayer intentionally focused on God will begin by worshiping God for who he is.
This is where good theology enhances prayer and worship. The more one studies the attributes of God, for example, the more one can worship God in prayer because of his holiness, justice, or mercy. What we learn in a classroom or Bible study ought to inform our prayer life and our worship. I have occasionally joked about this, but I am quite serious. It may not be the case that after lecturing on the arguments for God’s existence, I lead the class in worship, perhaps raising our hands and reciting the ontological argument for God’s existence. But the more we come to know God, the more we can focus our prayer on who is is (as opposed to our immature mental image of who he is).
Unlike this clear focus on God in prayer, popular Christian prayers tend to focus on the needs of the person praying. Anyone who has gone to an evangelical “prayer meeting” can attest to the self-centeredness of the “prayer request time.” This is not wrong; Paul tells his readers to bring their requests to God (Phil 4:6-7).
The opening to the Lord’s Prayer focuses on God’s will to be done in this world. For many Christians, tagging “if it be your will” onto a prayer allows some wiggle room in case their prayer goes unanswered. But that is not Jesus’s point here. Since the prayer calls for God’s kingdom to come,
Does Jesus say we are to pray for God’s will as if it is the complete opposite of “our will”? It is possible to think that God’s will is for us to all be missionaries in Africa and that not to be a missionary is somehow out of God’s will. This is not the case.
God’s will is for us to respond properly as his dearly loved children, with obedience and respect, to love him, and to live out our lives as a dearly loved child of God. Jesus is the ultimate model of submission to the Father’s will. Even during the crucifixion, he prayed “not my will but thine” (Matt 26:39). This prayer does not imply that Jesus’ will was to not die on the cross and that he was grudgingly submitting to the will of the Father. The will of Jesus and the will of the Father are the exact same thing in this case.
If we are praying for God’s will to be done, then we will want to know God’s will and commit ourselves to doing that will. Knowing and committing are really two different things since knowing God’s will is fairly easy; doing God’s will is much more difficult. Beginning our prayer with a clear focus on who God is and what God’s will is a daily commitment (or re-commitment) to being what we are: children of God.
For some Christians, there is a serious problem with using father terminology. It may appear patriarchal, implying God is a “big man in heaven” everyone must obey. Not everyone particularly likes their human father, and in far too many cases, the metaphor of “God as Father” evokes horrible images of people whose earthly father has hurt. How do we make this work in the modern world?
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I’m not sure I agree entirely with your assertion Jesus intends this as a pattern rather than a form of words. First, there is sufficient variation between Matthew and Luke to suggest either that it is a very loose pattern, or that we can’t be quite that certain about what Jesus himself said. Second, Luke’s introduction comes much closer to implying a form of words than Matthew’s does, and Matthew’s “thus” is ambiguous. What people read into it – pattern, set form of words, or both – seems to me to owe more to the theological presuppositions of the reader, than to the actual words in the text.
Hello Doug, what I meant by pattern was “pray stuff like this.” I didn’t mean to imply that he wanted his followers to pray these exact words.
Maybe each line could be thought of as a potential section of a prayer, maybe “ when you pray, pray about these sorts of things.”
Thanks for the quick reply, Phil. I appreciate your point, I’m just not sure that the text (or the diversity between Matthew and Luke, with the Didache thrown in for good measure) allows us to be sure whether Jesus’ intention was “pray this” or “pray stuff like this” or even “pray this and stuff like it”.
Many individuals view God as their father, but as you mentioned many people see their earthly father and say “wow if God is anything like that, then I do not want him around”. Which is hard to explain that God is nothing like our earthly fathers, to a modern society. People do not believe something unless they see it done, and I believe that is why Prayer is not as common, and if we do pray it is all about what we want to be done in our lives. Which should not be the case, we should worship God in our prayers and thank him for what he has done in our lives. Granted everyone prays differently, but it should all be the same concept which is, to praise God and to be in constant communication with him. “Prayer is not informing God of something unknown but drawing oneself in the divine life of the Trinity and into the very mission of God in this world- this God loves us and invites us into his presence with our petitions”.(McKnight,173) God knows the desires of our hearts, he doesn’t want us to pray to him because he doesn’t know what is going on in our lives, he wants us to come to him to be in his presence and know that he loves us no matter where we are at in life. He just wants us to have a relationship with him and many people do not know how to do that. To explain that to a modern society is difficult because they do not know what that means and when we try to explain it we may even confuse them even more.
It is important to note that Jesus shared the Lord’s prayer to his disciples for the purpose of it being used as a model of how to make our prayers less selfish and more focused on the Lord. The Pharisees were all about religion, not so much about relationship. In Matthew 23:27-28 Jesus says to them, “woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” We so easily become like the Pharisees, especially in our prayer life. Instead of digging deep into the idols of our hearts, we just assume that we have it all under control or that our sin really isn’t that bad. Ultimately, we are missing an amazing opportunity for intimacy in prayer with our Abba Father. We are given an invitation of connection through our prayers, which then reveals our hearts. Prayer is not about showing off to God or to others and acting like we are righteous. Rather, we are told in Matthew 6:6, “when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” It is about coming before the Lord, recognizing His significance and being in awe that He is on the throne, and humbling ourselves at His feet. Once we realize that our righteousness is solely because of Jesus we can more clearly see our need for God on a daily basis. We don’t have enough grace for ourselves or for others, but God freely gives an exceeding amount of grace for today. God desires to communicate with us and He wants to be involved in all the small details of our lives. It is up to us whether or not we will accept His invitation.
“This then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name (Matthew 6:9).” What does this mean? I can tell you what it doesn’t mean, we don’t need to pray this exact prayer every time we pray to God. “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words (Matt. 6:7).” But when you ask God for something be honest and ask whole heartedly. “That theology empowers him to teach his followers to approach God in confidence (McKnight pg. 173).” When it comes to the question of how do we deal with the Father terminology? I don’t have an answer for. I was lucky enough to have a good Dad who never hurt me or abused me so I thank God for that, because I know a lot of other people who were not as fortunate as I was. But I can relate to those people in a way not exactly. My grandpa on my mom’s side is an abusive alcoholic who was very abusive to me over the years. The problem with the terminology is not the word Father but rather the negative memories for some people who associate those memories with the word father. When it comes to this I think we have to show those people who were hurt by their earthly fathers that God the heavenly Father is not the same as their fathers.