BIBLICAL STUDIES

Jesus teaches this prayer to his disciples as a paradigm of proper prayer as he trains them for the missionary task of the messianic age that he is inaugurating in his own person as the incarnate Son of God and Son of man. The prayer needs to be seen in the larger contexts of the Sermon on the Mount and the Gospel of Matthew. The shorter version in Luke 11:2-4 appears in a different setting; during Jesus' itinerant ministry he paraphrased important teachings in training his followers for prayer and mission. Both versions of the Lord's Prayer imply the importance of a vertical dimension of personal purity in worship of the Father as a prerequisite of valid missionary activity on the Lord's behalf.

A second requirement of successful mission is the horizontal bearing of fruit, as evidenced in Jesus' teaching that his true followers will be known by their fruits ( Matt 7:15-20 ). Both vertical and horizontal dimensions are emphasized as a unit in the Sermon on the Mount, which summarizes the purpose of the Gospel of Matthew as a whole. The Gospel was likely written to serve as a manual for mission in the early church and was based on eyewitness accounts of Jesus' work and teaching. Matthew then would have been written within the nascent Jewish Christian mission originating in and emanating from Jerusalem, reflecting Jesus' exemplary training of the first line of missioners with a view to serving as model for all his subsequent followers.

A study of the four Gospels affirms a recurrent pattern: Jesus as incarnate Son of God and Son of man models in action for his disciples what he teaches, since he embodies the ideal image of God in humanity. Where Adam failed he succeeds in his redemptive and exemplary work. Since God is the relational Trinity in everlasting and inexhaustible fellowship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the divine design and nature of created humanity are to reflect relatedness and fellowship both vertically and horizontally as the Old Testament Decalogue indicates, and this Jesus does to perfection. While his relation to the Father and the spirit is unique in view of his oneness and equality within the Triune Family, as incarnate Son he also exemplifies direct address, passionate intent and purity, unostentatious setting in prayer, and concern with the two dimensions of proper prayerhonoring the Father vertically and asking for help in realizing the Father's will in the present mission horizontally. These two dimensions constitute the heart of the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer.

The immediate context of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 is the triple teaching of Jesus on alms (vv. 1-4), prayer (vv. 5-15), and fasting (vv. 16-18). In each Jesus warns against ostentatious hypocrisy and requires worship en to krypto ("in secret"). This has to do not so much with privacy and isolation ("Our Father" indicates a communal prayer), but praying with pure intent for the honor and pleasure of the Father, not for selfish and transient approval from the world. When this proper attitude is fulfilled God rewards the worshiper, but "in secret, " on his own terms (vv. 4, 6, 18).

With the crucial matter of proper intent established at the outset, Jesus instructs his disciples as to the priority and content of the ideal prayer. The prayer is not necessarily given for strict liturgical use, for Jesus says, "This, then, is how you should pray." If used as a set prayer, the conditions of the teaching unit are to be observed, especially the warning not to "keep on babbling like pagans" ( 6:7 ). The significance of the Lord's Prayer lies in the fact that every prayer directed to God should function in two spheres. The basic format of the prayer is accordingly divided into two sections. The first is directed vertically in glorification of the Father and in petition that his name be hallowed, his reign realized, and his will accomplished on earth as in heaven. Where the first section (vv. 9-10) focuses on the Father, the second (vv. 11-13) focuses on us: give us, forgive us, lead us. The priority is important, for according to Jesus' own formula the second set will not function without the first in place. Glorification of God must be given pride of place in prayer and takes precedence over "us" petitions.