Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen! [Psalm 41:13 (NLT)]
Praise the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does such wonderful things. Praise his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen! [Psalm 72:18-19 (NLT)]
The version of what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” in Luke 11 and the one we find in Matthew 6 are somewhat different. The shorter version in Luke was given to His disciples (probably on the Mt. of Olives) while the one in Matthew was taught to the crowd gathered on the hill by the Sea of Galilee as part of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s quite likely that Jesus gave this prayer example several times during his three-year ministry, each time with slightly different wording. Both versions, however, are probably shorter than the prayer most Protestants recite today. Missing is the phrase, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen.” Because this phrase was not found in the two earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew’s gospel, most modern Bible translations do not include it. Although found in later manuscripts, most Biblical scholars believe it to be a later liturgical addition to the original prayer. So, how did we come to pray this prayer in its longer form?
That those additional words were not found in the earliest New Testament manuscripts doesn’t necessarily mean Jesus never said them; after all, the gospels don’t include everything our Lord did or said. If the additional words did not come from Jesus, they probably came from any one of several psalms, 1 Chronicles 29:11, or some other Jewish prayer. Jesus never said this was the only prayer to be said nor did He tell His followers to stop saying the prayers they learned in the temple. The Apostles and early church were Jewish and Jewish prayers often ended with what is called a “doxology.” Meaning to speak glory and praise, a doxology is a short, hymn-like verse exalting the glory of God. It’s understandable that this prayer, taught to Jewish disciples by a Jewish Jesus, took on some of its Hebrew heritage and flavor with the addition of this doxology.
The version of the Lord’s Prayer with which most of us are familiar comes from a Christian manual written before 300 AD. Bearing neither date nor author, some scholars believe it was written as early as 65 to 80 AD. The only complete copy has two titles: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles. Known now as the Didache, meaning teaching, it is not part of the Biblical canon because it is not considered God-breathed or divinely inspired. Nevertheless, as a sort of handbook for the early Christians, it gives us valuable insight into the early church. Beginning with a statement of faith, the Didache may be the first Christian catechism. Its second section describes how to perform rituals like Baptism and the Eucharist and gives instructions to recite the Lord’s prayer three times a day. This direction reflects Christianity’s Jewish heritage since Jewish men were supposed to pray the Amidah three times a day. The Didache’s third section covers ministry and dealing with traveling teachers while the fourth includes several passages from the New Testament and reminds believers that Jesus will return.
As famed radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.” As for me, knowing the rest of the story—that the Lord’s Prayer was regularly prayed by the earliest followers of Jesus—makes it an even more meaningful prayer to say.
Neither pray you as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray you: Our Father, Who are in heaven, hallowed be Your name; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth; Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; For Yours is the power and the glory for ever and ever. Pray this three times in the day. [Didache 8:3-11]
Our Colorado church had a large worship center with excellent acoustics so, when the local Jewish congregation wanted to present a concert of Jewish music by a well-known Jewish performer, we were happy to offer our venue to them. The Christians in attendance never expected the evening to end with Jews and Christians joining hands and dancing the hora around the church while singing “Hava Nagilah” (Let Us Rejoice). What the Jews hadn’t expected were the Bibles on the back of every chair. Before the concert began, many intently looked through them and, after the concert, they expressed their surprise at finding their Hebrew Scriptures in our Christian Bibles!
Since we both attended liturgical churches as girls, my friend and I were trying to recall the terms for the various parts of a traditional church building. We knew the foyer is called the narthex and the congregation sits the church’s nave. We also knew the altar rail usually separated the nave from the chancel in the front. It’s from the chancel that the service is conducted and where the altar, pulpit, and lectern are located. We even recalled that the sacristy was the room holding Communion supplies and linens. Since we were worshipping in a park that morning, my friend asked the location of our sanctuary. In historic usage, sanctuary and chancel were synonymous but, in modern usage, a sanctuary consists of the entire worship space of a church. With no building, we had no narthex, nave, or chancel but we did have a worship space; our sanctuary was a gazebo in a county park.
When researching another devotion, I learned that a Jeopardy contestant missed this $1,000 clue: “It’s the ascension heavenward by true Christians both living & dead at Christ’s second coming.” Although the answer was the Rapture, the contestant, an Episcopal priest, remained silent. He later explained that he didn’t believe in the Rapture or hold to a literal reading of Revelation, adding that the literal reading of Revelation is a “a product of the modern era.” His words gave me pause.
