One of the most famous prayers in Christianity, if not in the entire history of the world, is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. What is interesting in the passage is that Jesus is going above and beyond simply giving his disciples a prayer; he is also giving them a format by which they should pray. This essay examines the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. It explores the focus of prayer itself, the relationship expressed through the prayer, the reverence in which God is held, and the requests made by the one praying. Additionally, the righteousness sought in the prayer and the reality acknowledged in the prayer are explained.
The Focus of Prayer
Matthew 6 is about halfway through Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Earlier in the Sermon, he taught that the concept behind portions of Mosaic law—the spirit of the Law—was just as important as the letter of the Law, and that violating the spirit of the Law was just as bad as breaking the letter of the Law (Matthew 5). Then in Matthew 6, Jesus kept with that same vein but approached it from a different angle—that charitable acts done to be seen are essentially not charitable, and therefore without reward from God (Matthew 6:1-4). This push towards purity in one’s motives continues in verse 5, as Jesus admonishes people not to pray so that they are seen, and in verse 7, when he warns against wasting one’s breath with idle babbling while praying. The second half of verse 8 states that God knows what someone praying wants before he or she even says anything.
This may make prayer seem counterintuitive, because why bother praying if God knows what we want already? The answer is in that prayer is the means of communicating with God. In verse 9, Jesus begins the Lord’s prayer by acknowledging the paternal relationship that God has with humanity. The focus is no longer transactional, but one of relationship, and of recognizing one’s place in that relationship. The focus becomes one of pursuing God, rather than one of getting rewards from God.
The Relationship Emphasized in Prayer
Jesus states in Matthew 6:9, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in Heaven” This is the recognition that God wants from us, according to Christ. God positions Himself as paternal towards us. This relationship is mentioned again in Matthew 7:11, where Jesus says, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” This relationship stressed—that God wishes us to talk to Him as if He were our parent, the desire for that close a relationship—helps to underscore why Jesus preached humility, restraint, peace-making, and mercy towards our fellow human beings.
The Reverence Referenced in Prayer
“hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9b-10). The previous verse revealed the relationship God desires with us; this verse underscores God’s position and authority as being supreme. As God is the absolute ruler of heaven, his will is done instantaneously there. In Genesis 1, God spoke, and then the universe came into existence immediately. This verse places the supplicant as directly submissive to God—not that this is contradictory to the previous verse, as children are under the authority of their parents while they are still minors.
The Requests Emphasized in Prayer
“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Even though Jesus has already stated that God knows what a person needs before he or she asks, one is still to make requests towards God in order to acknowledge the reliance one has on God for his or her daily needs. This request is that God simply would provide for his children, as a father would, which Jesus touches on again in Matthew 6:25-34 and Matthew 7:11. The supplicant has already confessed his or her reverence towards God and the acknowledgement that God is paternal towards him or her. The other request—“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12)—expresses not only a recognition of the need for forgiveness, as it is an implicit confession of sin. If there were no debt to forgive, there would be no mention of it.
The Righteousness Emphasized in Prayer
However, to demonstrate that the supplicant understands that such forgiveness comes with a need to forgive others. As Jesus mentioned in Matthew 6:14-15, God’s willingness to forgive a person of their sins is contingent on whether or not the supplicant is willing to forgive others for sinning against him or her. So Matthew 6:12 is also a call for enhanced righteousness, since it is incredibly difficult to forgive someone who has done significant harm. Matthew 6:12 requires the supplicant to love others the way God loves him or her; the mission of Jesus being the measure of that love (John 3:16). This also reminds the reader again of God’s paternal nature, wanting to see His children getting along happily together rather than in conflict with each other—hence the blessing on peacemakers in Matthew 5:9.
The supplicant also asks to be protected from the temptation to keep sinning (Matthew 6:13a). There is a recognition that one’s faith is sometimes tested by God—otherwise the request not to be led into temptation would seem superfluous. The righteousness within this request is a recognition of the continual reliance on God, and echoes a desire to cling to His commandments and therefore also to Him. The final request, to be delivered from the evil one (Matthew 6:13b), also recognizes both a righteous desire to do good as well as the inability to rescue oneself from evil, furthering the pattern that Jesus preached in that righteousness is, in part, recognition of one’s complete reliance on God (Matthew 6:25-34).
The Reality Emphasized in Prayer
“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13c). In this last part of the prayer, the supplicant embraces the reality of God’s position. The kingdom of heaven is God’s personal possession; it is implied that He has the right to do with it as He pleases. God also has the power; he is the center of power within existence itself, as He spoke it into being. But this was not a one-time thing; He did not cease being able to create or make miracles happen. “For thine is” indicates a continued state of that possession of power, which is always in the present, whenever that present is. It is an acknowledgement that God has power over one’s life, and therefore He also has the ability to do all that He promised. God is not a distant watchmaker, He is active and continues to be active. God also did all the creative work, and engineers good in the world, and so He also possesses the glory, or credit, for those works. The prayer therefore concludes with an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty over existence and therefore over the lives of all people, including the supplicant.
Conclusion
This paper examined the Lord’s Prayer through six lenses: its focus, its statements of relationship and reverence, the place of requests within prayer, prayer as a confession of a desire for righteousness, and finally, prayer as an acknowledgement of the state of spiritual reality. When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he did so with an angle of teaching them how to relate to God, what to ask, and what to do. And when he ended the prayer, he ended it with an acknowledgement of God’s substantial place in the universe and in the lives of those who follow Him.
