Olivia Snow (2017), public domain
You’re probably familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, you might feel like you’ve heard it a million times.
You might pray it as a family or during worship at church. Many pastors have preached through this passage, and most of the church’s historic catechisms analyze this prayer in detail.
But we rarely consider the context of the Lord’s Prayer. Because of the frequency with which this prayer is recited, the Lord’s Prayer might be the passage of Scripture most often removed from its context.
But context matters. The Bible is not a collection of independent stories, proverbs, and prayers. Each book was written by an author with a purpose. If we learn to read the Bible for what it is, we’ll discover that some of our most familiar passages take on different or deeper meanings than we’ve always assumed.
The Sermon on the Mount
As recorded by Matthew, the Lord’s Prayer falls in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. (Peter has written about this portion of Matthew’s Gospel recently here and here.)
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9–13)
This sermon is for Jesus’s disciples (Matt 5:1), and in chapter six Jesus is teaching about spiritual practices and values. For a watching world, these are crucial aspects of life that denote one of Jesus’s followers.
Private Religious Practices
In Matthew 6:1–18, Jesus is concerned with the disciples’ religion. And Jesus contrasts the children of God with the hypocrites and Gentiles. The overarching command is this: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 6:1).
- When you give to the poor, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, give to the poor in secret. (Matthew 6:2–4)
- When you pray, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, pray to your Father in secret. (Matthew 6:5–6)
- When you fast, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, fast in secret. (Matthew 6:16–18)
In each of these situations, Jesus says the hypocrites will reap the reward they seek (honor or praise from people) but nothing else. Those whose practices are done in private—without concern for notoriety—will be rewarded by God.
The Lord’s Prayer falls in the middle of this instruction. It is not a prayer that is prayed to attract attention, but it is private, trusting communication between a disciple and God.
God is Father
In the Lord’s Prayer we are famously instructed to address God as “Our Father,” but this is part of a longer and wider point Jesus is making about God’s family.
Until the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had not spoken of God as Father in Matthew’s Gospel. But in these three chapters, Jesus refers to God as Father 17 times, with a whopping 12 of them coming in chapter six. Part of Jesus’s point is that his disciples have a new relationship with God. He is not simply the law-giver or judge, but he is father.
This is the exact point Jesus is making when he introduces the Lord’s Prayer. He tells the disciples not to “heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.” The Gentiles think that when they pray they will “be heard for their many words.” But for disciples, God is Father, and “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
You do not need a lengthy or eloquent prayer to turn God’s gaze. You already have his attention. You are his child! Of course he will listen!
The way we pray, including the way we pray the Lord’s Prayer, reveals whether or not we believe God is our loving father.
Forgiveness
The fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer concerns forgiveness, and Jesus continues to teach about the topic after saying “Amen.”
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14–15)
The word “for” at the beginning of this sentence is instructive. For disciples, Jesus’s teaching on prayer must be connected to their interactions with other people. The way they approach God in prayer, and even the forgiveness they seek from God, is connected to the way they forgive others.
We don’t have the space to exhaust the Bible’s teaching on forgiveness, but many other passages teach that we cannot earn forgiveness from God. What Jesus says here must make sense when considering other portions of the Bible which are more straightforward.
In short, the way people treat those who have sinned against them reveals an important part of their heart toward God. Those who are forgiven by God make a consistent practice of forgiving others. And those who do not forgive others may not know the forgiving love of God.
Conclusion
The Lord’s Prayer is not an isolated collection of six requests. And while it is instruction from Jesus on how to pray, it is more than that.
The Lord’s Prayer is an illustration of what it looks like to pray to a heavenly Father who knows what you need before you ask him. It is an example of how to pray in secret, how not to practice your righteousness before men, and how to seek reward from God. And it is a reminder that our relationship with God cannot be divorced from our relationship with other people.
Context matters.
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