This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
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We continue our exploration of prayer as an expression of joyful gratitude to God (ref. “A Redefinition of Prayer“).
In Part 1, we explored the first part of the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven.
— Matt 6: 9-10, KJV
We highlighted a few aspects of these sentences, which are so deep that they should each be regarded as a self-contained prayer1.
Having established the right attitude towards our God, which should be reflected in our way of life, we can pray:
Give us this day our daily bread
We have stated several times that The Father knoweth what we need before we ask Him (ref. “Does ‘Take No Thought’ Make Any Sense?“), so why the need for this request?
We have to situate it within the framework established by the first part of the prayer.
We committed to prioritising His Will and to building His Kingdom. Given our materialistic civilisation, and our own imperfect nature, we need help to navigate the earthly challenges that are sure to arise.
We wish to be so focused on spiritual development that we shall be more at risk of losing sight of earthly necessities than of seeking to do His Will.
We are also requesting His Blessing on our work, such that our basic needs will be met and we shall not be tempted to make excuses for failing to achieve the things we have promised.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us
We have explored the Law of Sowing & Reaping, which Christ often alluded to (ref. “I Asked, But It Was Not Given Unto Me“, “Judging You, Judging Me“, “Creating Is Perpetual“).
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In “Blessed Are The Merciful” we stated that we should not think of this Law, or any of the Eternal Laws of God, in a narrow, transactional manner e.g. “I will show you mercy on this matter because you showed mercy to Mr X on that other matter”.
Forgiveness is automatic in the Law of Sowing & Reaping (ref. “The Unforgiven, Part 2“). Furthermore our Heavenly Father knows that we urgently need forgiveness without our asking – we don’t need to remind Him.
The prayer is for our own sake; for us to be granted the strength to cultivate mercifulness which, as we elaborated in “Blessed Are The Merciful“, is the cultivation of love.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Many who have studied this prayer closely have wondered about the word “but“. It appears to be connecting two somewhat independent sentences, thereby creating a potentially confusing picture…
This leads to the thought that either we have been misinterpreting “lead us not into temptation“, or that there is a translation issue with one or both sentences.
This is not a fringe idea. In 2017, Pope Francis had the Catholic version of this sentence changed to “do not let us fall into temptation“. He did not agree with the belief that the Almighty tempts human beings.
Many students of the Bible are of a contrary opinion. They believe that God tempts, and point to Bible accounts relating to Abraham, Job, and Christ to support this position.
There is insufficient space here to investigate the Abraham and Job stories. Thus far, our explorations, including the Temptations of Christ series, do not support the idea that God tempts. Neither does our position that God is Love, and that it is quite impossible for evil (including by way of temptation) to emanate from Him.
On this matter, the Pope’s revised position appears to be more defensible than the traditional interpretation. God does not tempt. We should read this prayer as “Let us be helped to avoid wrong paths and to overcome temptations, even if we need to experience pain“.
We conclude this discussion in the next essay.
Today’s Resolution:
- We shall humble ourselves before each sentence of The Word, including the Lord’s Prayer, so that the insights they contain can be revealed to us.
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- For a deeper and more extensive treatment of the subject, the reader is referred to Abd-ru-shin, “The Ten Commandments of God/The Lord’s Prayer” (Grail Foundation Press, 1995) ↩︎
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