The Lord's Prayer, Line by Line
A warm, line-by-line walk through the prayer Jesus gave his followers.
When the first followers of Jesus watched him pray, something about it made them want what he had. One of them finally asked, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). In reply, Jesus did not hand them a long technique or a secret formula. He gave them a short, ordered prayer that has been on Christian lips ever since. We call it the Lord's Prayer, or the Our Father, and it appears in two places in the Gospels: a fuller version in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13) and a shorter version when the disciples ask directly (Luke 11:1-4).
By the end of this lesson
- Recall the petitions of the Lord's Prayer in order and explain why it moves from God's concerns to our own.
- Locate the two Gospel versions of the prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-4) and describe how they relate.
- Explain in plain terms what each line of the prayer is asking for.
- Describe charitably how different Christian traditions use and word the prayer.
- Use the Lord's Prayer as a flexible framework for one's own daily prayers.
Scripture
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