Exegesis: Matthew 6: 9-13
Prayer
Matthew 6: 9-13
Passage
Matthew 6: 9-13
9Pray then like this:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
10Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread;
12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from evil1
Introduction
Matthew 6:9-13 is commonly referred as the “Lord’s Prayer”. In this paragraph, Jesus presented a pattern of prayer to the disciples, thus suggesting the manner in which God should be addressed and the petition we are entitled to present to Him. What is it about this paper that intrigues so many people to dig into the meaning of it? It is interesting to see from the verses above that Jesus’ prayer puts God in the first place. The first half of the prayer focuses exclusively on God and His agenda as believers adore, worship, and submit to His will before they introduce their own personal petitions. The second half of the prayer focuses on how should disciple invite God to their daily life and live upon God’s continuous spiritual provision. Even with the second half where their wills are introduced, God still takes dominant position in the relationship. The discipleship of the followers thus is being presented through day-to-day prayers.
Socio-Historical Background
To fully understand the meaning of the text, the first thing to do is to step back to examine the society where the text was written, back to the time where the incident happened, thus we can fully grasp the context of the paragraph. The Gospel of Matthew as we know it was almost certainly written before A.D 100. It is quoted by Ignatius (Smyrn. 1.1), writing in approximately 110-115 A.D., and probably referred to in the Didache, which may date to sometime in the late 90s.2 External evidence helps us to confirm that Matthew wrote primarily to Jewish Christian congregation or
Matthew 6: 9-13
Passage
Matthew 6: 9-13
9Pray then like this:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
10Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread;
12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from evil1
Introduction
Matthew 6:9-13 is commonly referred as the “Lord’s Prayer”. In this paragraph, Jesus presented a pattern of prayer to the disciples, thus suggesting the manner in which God should be addressed and the petition we are entitled to present to Him. What is it about this paper that intrigues so many people to dig into the meaning of it? It is interesting to see from the verses above that Jesus’ prayer puts God in the first place. The first half of the prayer focuses exclusively on God and His agenda as believers adore, worship, and submit to His will before they introduce their own personal petitions. The second half of the prayer focuses on how should disciple invite God to their daily life and live upon God’s continuous spiritual provision. Even with the second half where their wills are introduced, God still takes dominant position in the relationship. The discipleship of the followers thus is being presented through day-to-day prayers.
Socio-Historical Background
To fully understand the meaning of the text, the first thing to do is to step back to examine the society where the text was written, back to the time where the incident happened, thus we can fully grasp the context of the paragraph. The Gospel of Matthew as we know it was almost certainly written before A.D 100. It is quoted by Ignatius (Smyrn. 1.1), writing in approximately 110-115 A.D., and probably referred to in the Didache, which may date to sometime in the late 90s.2 External evidence helps us to confirm that Matthew wrote primarily to Jewish Christian congregation or