ZA MAGAZINE // seek truth.

It’s got to be the most recited prayer in history. If you’ve had any kind of background with a church, you can probably say it. It’s the Lord’s Prayer, and I have mixed feelings about it. As a prayer I love it; there’s so much depth to it and it provides a great model for our own prayers. But as a set piece in just about any traditional church, I hate it, because it’s so insincere. I know that I wasn’t the only one who sat in the pews and recited it in a zombie-like monotone. But what are you saying when you do so?

My first serious attempt to study the Lord’s Prayer happened in December of 2006 when I taught a Bible study to four people on a really cold and snowy night. I remember finally learning what “hallowed be thy name” really meant, and being very ashamed that I had been saying that prayer for probably ten years without knowing. I’m not pointing fingers at anybody. It might be the system’s fault, it might be a church’s fault, and it might be (and probably is) my fault. But that doesn’t matter now. Let’s just go through this prayer and figure out what it means, so that nobody is without excuse!

The prayer

Matthew 6:9-13
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Since you know I love context, let’s set it up. This is in the Sermon of the Mount, which is arguably Jesus’ best message in all of Scripture. You could probably spend weeks on it and still be picking up new stuff. In this specific section, Jesus prefaces this prayer by taking about the religious hypocrites and how they loved to pray out loud and pray for a really long time without saying anything. Jesus was saying that instead of that, people needed to get alone with no audience and not waste their words. Jesus then gives this prayer, showing them what such a prayer looked like.

But don’t think that this is about length of prayer; it’s about content. Every line in this prayer is packed with significance. There’s no empty phrases, there’s nothing said for show. This prayer is all business.

What is it saying? Let’s break it down.

The first thing we need to realize is that it’s a series of petitions, or requests. There are times to thank God, praise God, worship God, confess to God, and listen to God, but this is a prayer that deals with the business end, the requests. But what’s interesting about the requests is while there are six of them, only three are about us. The first three petitions involve God and God’s name and God’s will…nothing about us! This fits right in line with something Jesus says later on in verse 33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” The point here is that we shouldn’t just be going after what we want. When we seek God, we should want what He wants, and what we want isn’t just anything, but very specific things that will help us in the pursuit of God!

Now, let’s get into it line by line.

Our Father in heaven

This is easy to pass by because it’s pretty basic, but it’s sort of a declaration of faith. When you say this line, you’re declaring that you have a Father and He is in heaven. Also, don’t forget about that three-letter word at the outset! The use of ‘our’ here tells me that this is the type of prayer that we should be saying together. So I suppose that it isn’t the church that’s at fault for having us say it together. It’s our fault for being so monotonous about it! The use of Father here is cool as well. This prayer could have started out as a lot of things: Lord, King, Massive Creator of the Universe, but it’s Father. Dad. Jesus wants to approach God as children coming up to their loving Fathers. It’s a level of intimacy that probably roused the interest of those who heard the sermon.

Hallowed be your name

The best way to paraphrase this verse would be to say, “Let Your name be regarded as holy.” To hallow means “to make holy,” and holy, applied to God, is “perfectly pure, immaculate, and complete in moral character.” Basically, we pray that the name of the Lord might be respected for what it is…really really amazing.

You can go a couple of ways in this line, but I think it’s interesting that we pray for God’s name to be regarded as perfectly pure, but then we’re okay with people just taking the name of Jesus Christ and dragging it through the mud. I don’t know if we should be taking an active role in seeing this line fulfilled (that is, yelling at people who use Christ’s name wrong), but we’re definitely praying that lives would be transformed so that people respect Jesus for who He is.

Your kingdom come

This one is interesting because it is a reflection of the teachings of both John the Baptist and Jesus. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Commentator Matthew Henry says that “we should turn the word we hear into prayer” - that is, if we hear a sermon about faith, we often end up praying for more faith. If we hear a sermon about love, we often end up praying about love. So when Jesus and John the Baptist talk about the kingdom of heaven being at hand, it only makes sense that Jesus would then pray something along those lines.

The next logical question is, “What is the kingdom?” Romans 14:17 gives us an answer: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” The kingdom is spiritual, and we’re praying that it would come! Do we want it to come? Is our desire such that we’d live in a way that helps answer this prayer? If it came perfectly tomorrow, would you be okay with that, would you want it? Just some food for thought.

Ancient Jews prayed something along the lines of this line every day. They declared that “He who doesn’t pray about the kingdom isn’t praying at all.” I think that’s one more interesting bit to consider about this line.

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

This is an interesting line to me. Think about it. We all know from our reading about how great heaven is, how it’s absolutely perfect. Why is it perfect? I believe it’s because God’s will is done there, and it’s done perfectly. So when we pray that God’s will would be done here, we’re emphasizing the last line, that the kingdom would come!

But don’t be mistaken. God’s will for earth isn’t the same as God’s will for heaven. In heaven there’s no marriage, there’s no pain, sin, suffering, or dying. God’s okay with having some of this stuff on earth, because earth is filling a different role. But the Bible teaches that this earth will pass away, and that a new earth will be formed, one that will truly be perfect and where the will of God is done perfectly. Pray for that day!

What is the will of the Lord? Well, you can go a lot of different ways with that. If you’re hungry, check out Matthew 22:36-39, Micah 6:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, and Joshua 24:14; that gives you a good idea. Romans 12:2 also indicates that we can actually discern what the will of God is! Amazing.

Conclusion so far

I know I keep using the word interesting, but you’ve got be intrigued by this prayer! I think it’s really interesting just because of the depth of what is said in such few lines. We’ve had so much to talk about, and we’re only halfway through. Commentators have pulled other observations from this text, but I think there’s enough to consider for a week. Be ready for next week, where we look at the prayers for ourselves and what that means in our lives!

Grace and peace,
Brendan