Topics · Prayer · Lesson 1 of 6
Lord, Teach Us to Pray: The Father's Household in Matthew 6 and Luke 11
How do I pray the way Jesus taught?
By the end of this lesson you should be able to
- Explain what Jesus rejects in Matthew 6:5-8 and why the Father's knowledge does not make asking pointless.
- Trace the Lord's Prayer petition by petition and identify what each asks of the Father.
- Compare Matthew's and Luke's settings and wording for the prayer.
- Identify how the parable of the friend at midnight and the Father's good gifts in Luke 11:5-13 teach confidence in asking.
- Describe how the early church and one later teacher used the prayer.
Scripture at the center
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Tap a reference to read it, then come back to the lesson.
Background
Jewish piety in Jesus' day had fixed hours and set blessings, and teachers gave disciples short prayers. sits in that world: a disciple asks Jesus to teach them to pray 'just as John taught his disciples.' Scholars often suggest the request was for a distinctive prayer that would mark those who follow Jesus.
Matthew places the prayer inside the Sermon on the Mount, in a block about three acts of righteousness (giving, praying, fasting) that Jesus says must not be done 'to be seen by men.' The question there is whom prayer is for. Luke places it on the road, after Jesus has himself been praying, and follows it with teaching on asking. The question there is how a disciple may approach God with need.
Scholars differ on how the two forms relate. Many hold that Jesus taught a prayer more than once and that Matthew and Luke each preserve a form, Luke's shorter. Others think Matthew expanded a shorter original for use in worship. Both forms are Scripture and neither needs to be corrected by the other. The doxology ('for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory') is absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew. It appears in later ones, and a shorter form appears in the Didache.
Outline
- Prayer to the unseen Father, not for an audience
- No babbling: the Father knows before we ask
- The Father's name, kingdom and will first
- Bread, forgiveness and rescue
- Forgiven and forgiving
- Luke's setting: a disciple sees Jesus pray
- The friend at midnight
- Ask, seek, knock: the Father gives the Spirit
How to read it
Read the passage as Jewish teaching delivered to disciples. is instruction in the second person, built from contrasts ('not like the hypocrites... but when you pray'). is a parable, and a parable makes one main point by comparison, here by contrast: if even a reluctant neighbour gets up, how much more the Father (verse 13). Do not press every detail of a parable into an allegory.
The Lord's Prayer is prescriptive in at least one sense: Jesus says 'say' () and 'this is how you should pray' (). Interpreters differ on whether the words are a fixed text or a pattern. The early church used it as a text, and many Protestants have used it as a pattern as well. rules out empty repetition, and gives actual words.
Keep the plural in view: the prayer says 'Our' and 'us' throughout, even when prayed in a closed room.
What the Scriptures say
Secret prayer and empty words
Jesus contrasts two audiences. The 'hypocrites' (the Greek word means actors) pray 'standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men,' and he says 'they already have their full reward.' Standing to pray was normal posture, so the fault is not the posture but the purpose. The disciple is told to 'go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen.' The Greek word means a storeroom or inner chamber.
The second contrast is with the nations. 'Do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard.' The verb is a rare one, and it points to piling up words to move a god. Jesus gives the reason that matters: 'your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.' The Father's knowledge is not a reason to stay silent. It is the reason that no technique is needed, because the one addressed is already a father.
Christ reveals the Father here: only the Son can say who is on the other side of the door ().
Our Father: the name, the kingdom, the will
'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.' 'Father' was a known way to address God in Israel (), but Jesus makes it the opening word of his disciples' prayer. Joachim Jeremias argued that behind it lies the Aramaic Abba, a family address he thought unparalleled in Jewish prayer. Later scholars such as James Barr cautioned against translating it 'Daddy.' Either way, the address assumes the Son's own relation to the Father, which disciples share by adoption ().
The first three petitions are about God, not about us. To 'hallow' the name is to ask that God be treated as holy, and the verb is a divine passive: that God would make his name holy, as says he will. 'Your kingdom come' asks for the reign Jesus announced in to arrive in full. 'Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven' asks that the Father's will, done without resistance in heaven, be done here.
The pattern teaches an order. Request begins with who God is and what he is doing, and only then turns to need.
Bread, debts and the evil one
'Give us this day our daily bread.' The word translated 'daily' (epiousios) is found nowhere else in surviving Greek, and ancient readers already debated it: bread for today, for tomorrow, or bread of the coming age. The plain sense is the day's food, as Israel gathered manna ().
'And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' Debt is a common Aramaic image for sin, and says 'sins.' Verses 14-15 explain the clause: 'if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.' Jesus does not say that forgiveness is earned by forgiving. He says that the forgiven who will not forgive show they have not understood what they were forgiven ().
'And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' The Greek peirasmos means a test as well as a temptation, and God does not tempt anyone to sin (). The request is that we not be brought to a test we cannot bear. The Greek allows 'from evil' or 'from the evil one.'
Luke's setting and shorter form
Luke begins with a scene: Jesus has 'just finished praying' and a disciple says, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.' Luke's Gospel repeatedly shows Jesus praying before decisive moments (; ; , ), so the request follows what the disciples have seen.
Luke's form has five petitions: 'Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.' 'Each day' suggests a continuing habit, and the forgiveness clause is stated as already true of the disciple: forgiveness received becomes forgiveness given.
The friend at midnight and the Father's gifts
The parable describes a village host who has no bread for a traveller and goes to a neighbour at night. The neighbour refuses at first, and Jesus says he will get up because of the man's 'persistence.' The Greek word (anaideia) literally means shamelessness. Interpreters differ on whose it is: some say the asker's bold importunity, others (Kenneth Bailey, in Poet and Peasant) say the neighbour's concern to avoid shame in a village. Both readings agree on the point: if a grudging friend gives, a willing Father will.
Then the commands: 'Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.' The Greek verbs are present tense, so they mean keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. The illustrations of a fish, an egg and a father who would not give a snake or a scorpion make the same argument from a good parent to a better one.
says the Father gives what is good. Luke ends with the gift that includes all others: 'how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!' Luke's two volumes show this answered at Pentecost ().
Key terms
- Abba Aramaic abba
- The Aramaic word for father that Jesus used (). Paul says believers cry 'Abba' by the Spirit (; ). Scholars debate how much 'family closeness' the word itself carries.
- Daily (bread) Greek epiousios
- A word found nowhere else in surviving Greek. The common sense is 'for the coming day' or 'needed for existence.'
- Debts / trespasses / sins Greek opheilemata; paraptomata; hamartiai
- Matthew has 'debts' in the prayer and 'trespasses' in the explanation (6:14). Luke has 'sins.' Different churches pray different English words.
- Temptation / test Greek peirasmos
- Can mean a test that proves faith or a temptation that invites sin; the context decides.
In the whole Bible
Prayer in Scripture is covenant speech: God has spoken first and his people answer. Israel prayed to a God who had named himself (; ) and bound himself by promise. Jesus keeps that frame. God is the Father who knows before we ask () and yet commands us to ask (). Both stand in the same teaching, and dropping either end drifts from Jesus.
The prayer has an order the rest of the Bible follows. The Father's name, kingdom and will come first (; ). Needs for bread, pardon and protection follow (; ). The prayer is also corporate: a family speaking. Paul's teaching on prayer in the Spirit, who moves believers to cry Abba, Father (), and Jesus' promise that the Father will give what is asked in his name (), stand on this ground.
Luke ends with the disciples blessing God in the temple (), and Acts opens with them praying together (), the Spirit having been promised in .
Where Christ is
Jesus is the teacher of this prayer because he is first its pray-er. Luke places the request after the disciples saw him praying, and his own prayers use the same pattern: 'Father' on the cross (, ), 'Father' in Gethsemane (), 'Father, glorify Your name' (). The first petition, that the Father's name be hallowed, is the aim of his whole mission ().
He also fulfils the prayer. The kingdom that disciples ask to come is the kingdom he announces and inaugurates (; ). The bread is provided in his feeding of the crowds, which he explains as pointing to himself (). The forgiveness is given at the cross, 'for the forgiveness of sins' (). The 'deliver us from the evil one' is answered in his victory over Satan (; ). The Spirit that promises is sent by the risen Christ from the Father ().
The Father who 'sees what is done in secret' saw the Son's secret prayers () and answered him by raising him. A tentative echo, not stated in the text: some later teachers have linked the door opened to those who knock () with Christ the door ().
How traditions read it
All traditions pray the Lord's Prayer; they differ on how it is used. The Didache (chapter 8, late first or early second century) tells believers to pray it 'thrice in the day.' Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican worship keep it as a fixed text: Luther's Small Catechism and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer both use it in set form, and the Catholic Mass and the Orthodox Divine Liturgy include it shortly before communion. John Bunyan, in I Will Pray with the Spirit (1660s), argued against a compulsory prayer book and for prayer led by the Spirit.
The closing doxology divides worship practice. Most Protestant churches and the Orthodox add the doxology to the prayer itself. The Catholic Mass places a similar line after a separate prayer rather than inside the Lord's Prayer. Churches also differ on 'trespasses' and 'debts.' This lesson follows the text of Matthew and Luke and holds that Jesus meant the prayer both as words to say () and as a pattern for what to ask.
How praying people lived this
Tertullian c. 155 - c. 220 · Early church, Latin North Africa
Tertullian's On Prayer is often described as the earliest surviving Latin treatise on the Lord's Prayer. He works through the petitions, then adds teaching on reconciliation before prayer and on set hours. He allows believers to add their own requests to the prayer. He later joined the Montanist movement, so some readers use his later writings with care.
The principle: The Lord's Prayer is the foundation on which one's own requests are built.
“in the Prayer is comprised an epitome of the whole Gospel”
Cyprian of Carthage c. 210 - 258 · Early church, bishop of Carthage
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, wrote On the Lord's Prayer (about 252) for his church. He notes that Christ taught us to say 'Our' Father, so that prayer is not private, and he recommends praying at the third, sixth and ninth hours and at morning and evening. He was executed under Valerian in 258.
The principle: Because the prayer says 'our,' the church prays as one body.
“Our prayer is public and common.”
Augustine of Hippo 354 - 430 · Late antique Latin church
Augustine's Letter 130 answers Proba, a wealthy Roman widow who had moved to Carthage after Rome fell to Alaric in 410 and asked how to pray. He argues that Jesus warns against many words, not long prayer, which can come from sustained desire. He also speaks of a 'learned ignorance' taught by the Spirit ().
The principle: Any right prayer asks the same things the Lord's Prayer asks.
“if we pray rightly, and as becomes our wants, we say nothing but what is already contained in the Lord's Prayer”
Andrew Murray 1828 - 1917 · Dutch Reformed, South Africa
Murray was a Dutch Reformed minister. At Worcester during the 1860 revival, an eyewitness reports, he stopped a youth meeting in which everyone prayed aloud at once, saying God is a God of order; prayer meetings were then held every evening. He later wrote With Christ in the School of Prayer (1885), 31 lessons beginning from .
The principle: Jesus is the best teacher of prayer because he prays himself.
“It is Jesus, praying Himself, who teaches to pray.”
Review questions
- What two practices does Jesus contrast with true prayer in , and what reason does he give for the second?
- List the petitions of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew. Which concern God, and which concern human need?
- How do Matthew's and Luke's settings and wording of the prayer differ, and what are two explanations scholars give?
- What is the point of the parable of the friend at midnight, and how do the fish and egg illustrations in extend it?
- What gift does name, and where in Luke's second volume is it given?
Read further
The Didache, chapter 8 · Anonymous, late 1st or early 2nd century free to read
The earliest outside the New Testament to tell Christians to pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day, with a doxology added.
Read it ↗On Prayer · Tertullian, c. 200 free to read
A short commentary on the Lord's Prayer, then practical teaching on how and when to pray.
Read it ↗On the Lord's Prayer · Cyprian, c. 252 free to read
A bishop's sermon-treatise to his church on the prayer, stressing its shared voice and the hours of prayer.
Read it ↗Letter 130 to Proba · Augustine, c. 412 free to read
A pastoral letter on how to pray, arguing that the Lord's Prayer contains everything a right prayer asks.
Read it ↗Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20 · John Calvin, 1559 free to read
A Reformation treatment of prayer in the Reformed tradition, with a long exposition of the Lord's Prayer petition by petition.
Read it ↗Sermon 26, on the Sermon on the Mount · John Wesley, 1740s-80s free to read
A Methodist sermon on that reads the Lord's Prayer as a gift to be asked for.
Read it ↗With Christ in the School of Prayer · Andrew Murray, 1885 free to read
Thirty-one short lessons beginning with that treat Jesus as teacher and intercessor.
Read it in AideThe Prayers of Jesus · Joachim Jeremias, 1967 link only
A critical New Testament study of Jesus' prayer language, including the Aramaic Abba and the Lord's Prayer.
The Lord and His Prayer · N. T. Wright, 1996 link only
A short reading of the prayer set against its first-century Jewish background.
Prepared with AI assistance from public-domain sources and other books' published teaching. A scholar's review is still to come; if you spot anything to correct, please tell us.
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