Luke 11:1

Prayer is one of the great laws of natural religion. That man is a brute, is a monster, that never prays, that never gives glory to his Maker, nor feels his favour, nor owns his dependence upon him. One great design therefore of Christianity is to assist us in prayer, to enforce the duty upon us, to instruct us in it, and encourage us to expect advantage by it. Now here,

I. We find Christ himself praying in a certain place, probably where he used to pray, Luk 11:1. As God, he was prayed to; as man, he prayed; and, though he was a Son, yet learned he this obedience. This evangelist has taken particular notice of Christ's praying often, more than any other of the evangelists: when he was baptized (Luk 3:21), he was praying; he withdrew into the wilderness, and prayed (Luk 5:16); he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer (Luk 6:12); he was alone praying (Luk 9:18); soon after, he went up into a mountain to pray, and as he prayed he was transfigured (Luk 9:28, Luk 9:29); and here he was praying in a certain place. Thus, like a genuine son of David, he gave himself unto prayer, Psa 109:4. Whether Christ was now alone praying, and the disciples only knew that he was so, or whether he prayed with them, is uncertain; it is most probable that they were joining with him.

II. His disciples applied themselves to him for direction in prayer. When he was praying, they asked, Lord, teach us to pray. Note, The gifts and graces of others should excite us to covet earnestly the same. Their zeal should provoke us to a holy imitation and emulation; why should not we do as well as they? Observe, They came to him with this request, when he ceased; for they would not disturb him when he was at prayer, no, not with this good motion. Every thing is beautiful in its season. One of his disciples, in the name of the rest, and perhaps by their appointment, said, Lord, teach us. Note, Though Christ is apt to teach, yet he will for this be enquired of, and his disciples must attend him for instruction.

Now, 1. Their request is, "Lord, teach us to pray; give us a rule or model by which to go in praying, and put words into our mouths." Note, It becomes the disciples of Christ to apply themselves to him for instruction in prayer. Lord, teach us to pray, is itself a good prayer, and a very needful one, for it is a hard thing to pray well and it is Jesus Christ only that can teach us, by his word and Spirit, how to pray. "Lord, teach me what it is to pray; Lord, excite and quicken me to the duty; Lord, direct me what to pray for; Lord, give me praying graces, that I may serve God acceptably in prayer; Lord, teach me to pray in proper words; give me a mouth and wisdom in prayer, that I may speak as I ought; teach me what I shall say."

2. Their plea is, "As John also taught his disciples. He took care to instruct his disciples in this necessary duty, and we would be taught as they were, for we have a better Master than they had." Dr. Lightfoot's notion of this is, That whereas the Jews' prayers were generally adorations, and praises of God, and doxologies, John taught his disciples such prayers as were more filled up with petitions and requests; for it is said of them that they did deēseis poiountai - make prayers, Luk 5:33. The word signifies such prayers as are properly petitionary. "Now, Lord, teach us this, to be added to those benedictions of the name of God which we have been accustomed to from our childhood." According to this sense, Christ did there teach them a prayer consisting wholly of petitions, and even omitting the doxology which had been affixed; and the Amen, which was usually said in the giving of thanks (Co1 14:16), and in the Psalms, is added to doxologies only. This disciple needed not to have urged John Baptist's example: Christ was more ready to teach than ever John Baptist was, and particularly taught to pray better than John did, or could, teach his disciples.

III. Christ gave them direction, much the same as he had given them before in his sermon upon the mount, Mat 6:9, etc. We cannot think that they had forgotten it, but they ought to have had further and fuller instructions, and he did not, as yet, think fit to give them any; when the Spirit should be poured out upon them from on high, they would find all their requests couched in these few words, and would be able, in words of their own, to expatiate and enlarge upon them. In Matthew he had directed them to pray after this manner; here, When ye pray, say; which intimates that the Lord's prayer was intended to be used both as a form of prayer and a directory.

1. There are some differences between the Lord's prayer in Matthew and Luke, by which it appears that it was not the design of Christ that we should be tied up to these very words, for then there would have been no variation. Here is one difference in the translation only, which ought not to have been, when there is none in the original, and that is in the third petition: As in heaven, so in earth; whereas the words are the very same, and in the same order, as in Matthew. But there is a difference in the fourth petition. In Matthew we pray, "Give us daily bread this day:" here, "Give it us day by day" - kath' hēmeran. Day by day; that is, "Give us each day the bread which our bodies require, as they call for it:" not, "Give us this day bread for many days to come;" but as the Israelites had manna, "Let us have bread today for today, and tomorrow for tomorrow;" for thus we may be kept in a continual dependence upon God, as children upon their parents, and may have our mercies fresh from his hand daily, and may find ourselves under fresh obligations to do the work of every day in the day, according as the duty of the day requires, because we have from God the supplies of every day in the day, according as the necessity of the day requires. Here is likewise some difference in the fifth petition. In Matthew it is, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive: here it is, Forgive us our sins; which proves that our sins are our debts. For we forgive; not that our forgiving those that have offended us can merit pardon from God, or be an inducement to him to forgive us (he forgives for his own name's sake, and his Son's sake); but this is a very necessary qualification for forgiveness, and, if God have wrought it in us, we may plead that work of his grace for the enforcing of our petitions for the pardon of our sins: "Lord, forgive us, for thou hast thyself inclined us to forgive others." There is another addition here; we plead not only in general, We forgive our debtors, but in particular, "We profess to forgive every one that is indebted to us, without exception. We so forgive our debtors as not to bear malice or ill-will to any, but true love to all, without any exception whatsoever." Here also the doxology in the close is wholly omitted, and the Amen; for Christ would leave them at liberty to use that or any other doxology fetched out of David's psalms; or, rather, he left a vacuum here, to be filled up by a doxology more peculiar to the Christian institutes, ascribing glory to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

2. Yet it is, for substance, the same; and we shall therefore here only gather up some general lessons from it.

(1.) That in prayer we ought to come to God as children to a Father, a common Father to us and all mankind, but in a peculiar manner a Father to all the disciples of Jesus Christ. Let us therefore in our requests both for others and for ourselves, come to him with a humble boldness, confiding in his power and goodness.

(2.) That at the same time, and in the same petitions, which we address to God for ourselves, we should take in with us all the children of men, as God's creatures and our fellow-creatures. A rooted principle of catholic charity, and of Christian sanctified humanity, should go along with us, and dictate to us throughout this prayer, which is so worded as to be accommodated to that noble principle.

(3.) That in order to the confirming of the habit of heavenly-mindedness in us, which ought to actuate and govern us in the whole course of our conversation, we should, in all our devotions, with an eye of faith look heavenward, and view the God we pray to as our Father in heaven, that we may make the upper world more familiar to us, and may ourselves become better prepared for the future state.

(4.) That in prayer, as well as in the tenour of our lives, we must seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof, by ascribing honour to his name, his holy name, and power to his government, both that of his providence in the world and that of his grace in the church. O that both the one and the other may be more manifested, and we and others more manifestly brought into subjection to both!

(5.) That the principles and practices of the upper world, the unseen world (which therefore by faith only we are apprized of), are the great original - the archetupon, to which we should desire that the principles and practices of this lower world, both in others and in ourselves, may be more conformable. Those words, As in heaven, so on earth, refer to all the first three petitions: "Father, let thy name be sanctified and glorified, and thy kingdom prevail, and thy will be done on this earth that is now alienated from thy service, as it is in yonder heaven that is entirely devoted to thy service."

(6.) That those who faithfully and sincerely mind the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, may humbly hope that all other things, as far as to Infinite Wisdom seems good, shall be added to them, and they may in faith pray for them. If our first chief desire and care be that God's name may be sanctified, his kingdom come, and his will be done, we may then come boldly to the throne of grace for our daily bread, which will then be sanctified to us when we are sanctified to God, and God is sanctified by us.

(7.) That in our prayers for temporal blessings we must moderate our desires, and confine them to a competency. The expression here used of day by day is the very same with our daily bread; and therefore some think that we must look for another signification of the word epiousios than that of daily, which we give it, and that it means our necessary bread, that bread that is suited to the craving of our nature, the fruit that is brought out of the earth for our bodies that are made of the earth and are earthly, Psa 104:14.

(8.) That sins are debts which we are daily contracting, and which therefore we should every day pray for the forgiveness of. We are not only going behind with our rent every day by omissions of duty and in duty, but are daily incurring the penalty of the law, as well as the forfeiture of our bond, by our commissions. Every day adds to the score of our guilt, and it is a miracle of mercy that we have so much encouragement given us to come every day to the throne of grace, to pray for the pardon of our sins of daily infirmity. God multiplies to pardon beyond seventy times seven.

(9.) That we have no reason to expect, nor can with any confidence pray, that God would forgive our sins against him, if we do not sincerely, and from a truly Christian principle of charity, forgive those that have at any time affronted us or been injurious to us. Though the words of our mouth be even this prayer to God, if the meditation of our heart at the same time be, as often it is, malice and revenge to our brethren, we are not accepted, nor can we expect an answer of peace.

(10.) That temptations to sin should be as much dreaded and deprecated by us as ruin by sin; and it should be as much our care and prayer to get the power of sin broken in us as to get the guilt of sin removed from us; and though temptation may be a charming, fawning, flattering thing, we must be as earnest with God that we may not be led into it as that we may not be led by that to sin, and by sin to ruin.

(11.) That God is to be depended upon, and sought unto, for our deliverance from all evil; and we should pray, not only that we may not be left to ourselves to run into evil, but that we may not be left to Satan to bring evil upon us. Dr. Lightfoot understands it of being delivered from the evil one, that is, the devil, and suggests that we should pray particularly against the apparitions of the devil and his possessions. The disciples were employed to cast out devils, and therefore were concerned to pray that they might be guarded against the particular spite he would always be sure to have against them.

IV. He stirs up and encourages importunity, fervency, and constancy, in prayer, by showing,

1. That importunity will go far in our dealings with men, Luk 11:5-8. Suppose a man, upon a sudden emergency, goes to borrow a loaf or two of bread of a neighbour, at an unseasonable time of night, not for himself, but for his friend that came unexpectedly to him. His neighbour will be loth to accommodate him, for he has wakened him with his knocking, and put him out of humour, and he has a great deal to say in his excuse. The door is shut and locked, his children are asleep in bed, in the same room with him, and, if he make a noise, he shall disturb them. His servants are asleep, and he cannot make them hear; and, for his own part, he shall catch cold if he rise to give him. But his neighbour will have no nay, and therefore he continues knocking still, and tells him he will do so till he has what he comes for; so that he must give it to him, to be rid of him: He will rise, and give him as many as he needs, because of his importunity. He speaks this parable with the same intent that he speaks that in Luk 18:1 : That men ought always to pray, and not to faint. Not that God can be wrought upon by importunity; we cannot be troublesome to him, nor by being so change his counsels. We prevail with men by importunity because they are displeased with it, but with God because he is pleased with it. Now this similitude may be of use to us,

(1.) To direct us in prayer. [1.] We must come to God with boldness and confidence for what we need, as a man does to the house of his neighbour or friend, who, he knows, loves him, and is inclined to be kind to him. [2.] We must come for bread, for that which is needful, and which we cannot be without. [3.] We must come to him by prayer for others as well as for ourselves. This man did not come for bread for himself, but for his friend. The Lord accepted Job, when he prayed for his friends, Job 42:10. We cannot come to God upon a more pleasing errand than when we come to him for grace to enable us to do good, to feed many with our lips, to entertain and edify those that come to us. [4.] We may come with the more boldness to God in a strait, if it be a strait that we have not brought ourselves into by our own folly and carelessness, but Providence has led us into it. This man would not have wanted bread if his friend had not come in unexpectedly. The care which Providence casts upon us, we may with cheerfulness cast back upon Providence. [5.] We ought to continue instant in prayer, and watch in the same with all perseverance.

(2.) To encourage us in prayer. If importunity could prevail thus with a man who was angry at it, much more with a God who is infinitely more kind and ready to do good to us than we are to one another, and is not angry at our importunity, but accepts it, especially when it is for spiritual mercies that we are importunate. If he do not answer our prayers presently, yet he will in due time, if we continue to pray.

2. That God has promised to give us what we ask of him. We have not only the goodness of nature to take comfort fRom. but the word which he has spoken (Luk 11:9, Luk 11:10): "Ask, and it shall be given you; either the thing itself you shall ask or that which is equivalent; either the thorn in the flesh removed, or grace sufficient given in." - We had this before, Mat 7:7, Mat 7:8. I say unto you. We have it from Christ's own mouth, who knows his Father's mind, and in whom all promises are yea and amen. We must not only ask, but we must seek, in the use of means, must second our prayers with our endeavours; and, in asking and seeking, we must continue pressing, still knocking at the same door, and we shall at length prevail, not only by our prayers in concert, but by our particular prayers: Every one that asketh receiveth, even the meanest saint that asks in faith. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, Psa 34:6. When we ask of God those things which Christ has here directed us to ask, that his name may be sanctified, that his kingdom may come, and his will be done, in these requests we must be importunate, must never hold our peace day or night; we must not keep silence, nor give God any rest, until he establish, until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, Isa 62:6, Isa 62:7.

V. He gives us both instruction and encouragement in prayer from the consideration of our relation to God as a Father. Here is,

1. An appeal to the bowels of earthly fathers: "Let any of you that is a father, and knows the heart of a father, a father's affection to a child and care for a child, tell me, if his son ask bread for his breakfast, will he give him a stone to breakfast on? If he ask a fish for his dinner (when it may be a fish-day), will he for a fish give him a serpent, that will poison and sting him? Or, if he shall ask an egg for his supper (an egg and to bed), will he offer him a scorpion? You know you could not be so unnatural to your own children," Luk 11:11, Luk 11:12.

2. An application of this to the blessings of our heavenly Father (Luk 11:13): If ye then, being evil, give, and know how to give, good gifts to your children, much more shall God give you the Spirit. He shall give good things; so it is in Matthew. Observe,

(1.) The direction he gives us what to pray for. We must ask for the Holy Spirit, not only a necessary in order to our praying well, but as inclusive of all the good things we are to pray for; we need no more to make us happy, for the Spirit is the worker of spiritual life, and the earnest of eternal life. Note, The gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift we are every one of us concerned earnestly and constantly to pray for.

(2.) The encouragement he gives us to hope that we shall speed in this prayer: Your heavenly Father will give. It is in his power to give the Spirit; he has all good things to bestow, wrapped up in that one; but that is not all, it is in his promise, the gift of the Holy Ghost is in the covenant, Act 2:33, Act 2:38, and it is here inferred from parents' readiness to supply their children's needs, and gratify their desires, when they are natural and proper. If the child ask for a serpent, or a scorpion, the father, in kindness, will deny him, but not if he ask for what is needful, and will be nourishing. When God's children ask for the Spirit, they do, in effect, ask for bread; for the Spirit is the staff of life; nay, he is the Author of the soul's life. If our earthly parents, though evil, be yet so kind, if they, though weak, be yet so knowing, that they not only give, but give with discretion, give what is best, in the best manner and time, much more will our heavenly Father, who infinitely excels the fathers of our flesh both in wisdom and goodness, give us his Holy Spirit. If earthly parents be willing to lay out for the education of their children, to whom they design to leave their estates, much more will our heavenly Father give the spirit of sons to all those whom he has predestinated to the inheritance of sons.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk_11:1-13. The Lord’s Prayer. Persistence in Prayer.

1. And it came to pass that, as he was praying in a certain place] The better order is ‘as he was in a certain place, praying.’ The extreme vagueness of these expressions shews that St Luke did not possess a more definite note of place or of time; but if we carefully compare the parallel passages of Mat_12:22-50; Mat_15:1-20; Mar_3:22-35, it becomes probable that this and the next chapter are entirely occupied with the incidents and teachings of one great day of open and decisive rupture with the Pharisees shortly before our Lord ceased to work in Galilee, and that they do not belong to the period of the journey through Peraea. This great day of conflict was marked (1) by the prayer of Jesus and His teaching the disciples what and how to pray; (2) by the healing of the dumb demoniac; (3) by the invitation to the Pharisee’s house, the deadly dispute which the Pharisees there originated, and the terrible denunciation consequently evoked; (4) by the sudden gathering of a multitude, and the discourses and incidents of chapter 12. For further details and elucidations I must refer to the Life of Christ.

praying] Probably at early dawn, and in the standing attitude adopted by Orientals.

as John also taught his disciples] The form of prayer taught by St John has perished. Terrena caelestibus cedunt, Tert.; Joh_3:30. It was common for Jewish Rabbis to deliver such forms to their disciples, and a comparison of them (e.g. of “the 18 Benedictions”) with the Lord’s Prayer is deeply instructive.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_11:1

Lord, teach us to pray

The Christian taught to pray

I.

WHAT THE REQUEST IMPLIES.

1. A conviction of the importance of prayer. This, in this ease, seems to have had its origin in the habits and example of Christ. He prayed often and much; in sorrow, and in joy; alone, and with His disciples.

2. This request implies also some knowledge of the real nature of prayer. The disciples had heard their Master pray. They had witnessed His fervour, the seriousness, the abasement, and perhaps something of the elevation, of His spirit in His supplications, and their understandings were opened. Prayer appeared to them in a new light. Before, it was a ceremony; it was now an inward, spiritual service. They regarded it for the first time as the work of the heart, and conscious that their own hearts had hitherto been but little engaged in it, their request was, Lord, teach us to pray. They wished their prayers to be in future of a higher and more spiritual character, and, beyond this, they scarcely knew, perhaps, their own meaning or object.

3. An impression, too of the difficulty of prayer is plainly to be traced in the disciples words. And this undoubtedly sprung out of their conviction of its importance, and their newly-acquired knowledge of its real nature. That which is so important must, they concluded, be done aright; and that which is so spiritual, they were conscious they could not do at all; and thus they were constrained to seek help and instruction.

4. Besides intimating a conviction of the importance, the real nature, and the difficulty of prayer, it plainly indicates also a desire for an increased ability to pray.

II. How MAY WE EXPECT SUCH A PETITION AS THIS TO BE ANSWERED? In the instance before us, it was answered at once. We owe to it the well-known prayer we call the Lords prayer--a model of supplication, which claims at once our admiration and gratitude. But with all its excellencies it is in itself powerless. It could not teach these disciples to pray. It showed them indeed what their prayers ought to be, but it did not communicate to them the power of making their prayers like it. Our Lord well knew this. Accordingly, as soon as He had given His disciples a pattern for their supplications, we find Him immediately directing them where to go for the ability to follow it. He sends them to the Holy Spirit for the inward principle of prayer, urging them to importunity in their petitions for His grace, and assuring them at the same time that their importunity shall not be lost. How then does this Holy Spirit teach us to pray? In many ways. Among others, in these four:

1. By discovering to us our spiritual poverty; showing us our wants and helplessness, or giving us a more lively sense of them.

2. Affliction, too, is often made to answer the same gracious end.

3. At other times Christ stirs up the soul to prayer, by glving it an enlarged view of the Divine promises and goodness.

4. Sometimes the Holy Spirit carries us yet farther. He teaches us to pray by giving us clearer views of Christ as a Mediator and Intercessor. You are aware, brethren, that I might still go on. I might say, Christ teaches us to pray by much that is passing around us, by what we call accidents--events that make, perhaps, a whole parish or nation start; crushing, and crushing in an hour, the hopes and prospects and happiness that seemed almost out of the reach of decay or change. And He teaches us by deliverances, by bringing us to the edge of some precipice, and then, as our foot goes over it, snatching us away from it; showing us in the same moment our danger and our deliverance. (G. Bradley, M. A.)

Christ the Teacher of prayer

I. THE DISCIPLES REQUEST:--

1. This was a pertinent request, considering them as dependent, needy, sinful, and dying creatures.

2. A seasonable request, as Christ had been just now praying before them, and was shortly to be taken from them.

3. A short and comprehensive request, much being contained in a few words.

4. It would also appear to have been an acceptable request, for it was immediately answered, and that in a very gracious manner.

II. WHAT WAS IMPLIED IN THE REQUEST.

1. A consciousness of the importance and necessity of prayer. The breath of the newborn soul. Prayer softens our affections, sweetens our enjoyments, and is the principal means of keeping up an intercourse with heaven. God approves of it, and the soul is every way benefited by 2:2. A sense of weakness and inability, and that this duty cannot be performed aright without Divine assistance.

3. It also implies that those who are appointed of God to instruct others, will, among other things, teach them to pray.

III. THE PROPRIETY OF THIS APPLICATION, AS MADE TO CHRIST:--

1. None ever prayed like Christ--so pertinently, fervently, and effectually.

2. As none ever prayed, so none ever taught like Christ.

3. It was Christ who taught John to pray, else He could not have taught His disciples. He teaches those who are teachers of others. (B. Beddome, M. A.)

The disciples request

I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THIS REQUEST? Clearly it implies--

1. A conviction of the propriety of prayer.

2. It implies a sense of their need of being taught.

3. It implies a sincere desire to learn.

4. It implies something of the true spirit or disposition of prayer already possessed.

5. The request implies a high opinion of the ability and grace of Christ.

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE REQUEST WAS REGARDED. We may observe, in the general, it was answered. The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. The Lord Jesus did teach them.

1. By convincing us more clearly of the necessity of prayer,

2. By giving us more impressive views of our wants.

3. By strengthening our faith in Divine promises.

4. By instructing us in the great utility of His own mediation.

5. By increasing our pleasure and delight in the duty. (T. Kidd.)

Lord, teach us to pray

After listening to a fervent prayer we sometimes say, We wish we could pray like the person who has offered it; how much more should we have thus wished, if we had heard Jesus Christ pray! No doubt His manner was very impressive, sincere, fervent, reverent.

1. Lord, teach us to pray, because we are ignorant in asking. St. Paul says, We know not what we should pray for as we ought. A consciousness of inability to pray aright grows with a Christians growth.

2. Again, a sense of our sinfulness, as well as of our ignorance, should cause us to offer the petition in our text. Who does not feel at times as if it was a wonder of mercy that God does not cut us down in anger, even while in the act of praying, so miserable and defective are our purest offerings! What a gift of prayer would it be if our God would enable us always to delight in the duty, restrain every wandering thought, and fix our whole soul in sweet and full communion with Him! Can you think of many things more desirable in this world, Christians, than the perfect spirit of prayer? If we could enjoy always as much as we do in our happiest devotional seasons, that would be a blessed privilege; but, alas! our happy seasons are few and far between, and even in them there was much imperfection. Lord, teach us to pray.

3. To make us prevalent in prayer, we have need also to offer the petition in our text. We might have unnumbered mercies more than we do enjoy if we prayed for them aright. There are favours in Gods right hand for ourselves, our children, our friends, and fellow-creatures, the bestowal of which is suspended on our faithfulness in asking. Here is more than life, here is eternal welfare resting on our prayers to God.

4. And who can so well teach us how to pray as that blessed Saviour to whom the request of our text was addressed! Prayer was His frequent work on earth, intercession is His employ in heaven. He knows what pleas will prevail with God, and He can put them into our hearts and order them aright upon our tongues. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)

Teach us to pray

1. It would be difficult, I think impossible, to prove that our Lord ever commanded His disciples to pray. He always assumes that they pray; teaches them plainly that unless they pray they cannot do what they must do. He moved His disciples to pray, not by telling them to do so, but by exciting in them desires which compelled them to supplication. You cannot pray by direct force of resolution. You must put yourself under conditions which will inspire desire for communion with God.

(1) Because for most men it is hard to pray, and easy to pretend, we are warned against that easily besetting sin. The hypocrites wanted of the king only to be seen in his company. They stood at his door that they might be mistaken for his friends. The same temptation assails us at all times, and is acutely dangerous now. It is insidious as malaria.

(2) Most of us say grace before our meals. If we realize who feeds us, we cannot help doing so, unless we are brutes. Most of us have family worship. If we are alert to spiritual facts, it will be more natural to omit our meals than our devotions. But what are the motives we often hear unblushingly advanced for continuing these spiritual exercises? The children will be surprised if they do not hear grace at table I For the sake of the example upon them, daily prayers must be inexorably maintained! But is it permitted to pray that we may be seen of children, and forbidden to pray that we may be seen of men? The closet is the cure for hypocrisy in prayer.

2. When we pray, we are forbidden to use vain repetitions as the heathen do. There are men, good men, men meaning to be honest, who think their prayers must be right if couched in Scriptural phrases. Many say prayers every night and morning, who never pray except when they are scared. Repeating Davids or Isaiahs petitions, or even our Lords Prayer, is not necessarily praying because we do it on our knees. Saying over even the Lords Prayer is for us a vain repetition until we so understand its meaning and so sympathize with its spirit that the words express our real desires. For vain repetitions are simply empty phrases, sayings which do not express what we really mean. The cure for this habit of making vain repetition lies in creating right desires. We must learn to know what we need, and to desire that. Therefore we are told--

3. When we pray, to pray after this manner. The prayer tells us what we need, but rarely crave. If we were sure that one wish, and one only, would be granted us this day for the asking, would that wish be the petition which stands first in the Lords Prayer?

(1) We shall not pray effectively until we pray according to the mind of God.

(2) Few of us do greatly desire the things God desires for us.

(3) We need such a change of heart as shall make us crave what God declares we need. And this is only another way of saying--

(a) That we cannot pray effectually until we can sincerely pray in the manner of our Lords Prayer,

(b) That few of us can yet do that.

(c) That we need to learn to do so. (W B. Wright.)

Barrenness in prayer

There are, no doubt, many who have experienced at times an intense dissatisfaction with their prayers. They seem so lame, so cold, so profitless, till you are inclined to exclaim, What a weariness, what a mockery it is! You are constantly disappointed with yourselves. The heart that seemed so full has run empty ere you reached your knees. You have nothing to say; all your thoughts have fled from you; and the intense longing comes across your heart that some one would teach you how to pray. I do not pretend to supply the want here indicated; but I wish to touch upon some of the causes of this trying sense of barrenness in prayer.

I. SELF-CONCEIT. We are very slow to learn the lesson of our own inability. We feel at some time, perhaps, that our hearts are prompted by an earnest desire to pray. We grow keenly alive for the moment to our own wants; but when we attempt to pray, we find the edge of that sense of need is gone. The heart appeared full, but when we knelt we found it empty. Vexed and disappointed, we murmur at our privation, but are too blind to see its cause. We cannot see that our own self-conceit lies at the root of our failure. We thought we could do it of ourselves--we anticipated rich heart communion; but we were miserably mistaken, because we did not realize that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that our whole sufficiency is of God. We need, then, to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the very dawn of spiritual light, the very threshold of prayer.

II. SELF-IGNORANCE. They tell God that they have sinned, that they have grievously broken His commandments; they ask God to give them true repentance, and to forgive them for Jesus Christs sake. Such a prayer might be from a certain heart a true and noble expression of spiritual longing; but with the persons alluded to this prayer is the stereotyped plate from which all their prayers for themselves, morning and evening, are struck off. With very little variation, and in the most conventional way--though, perhaps, with very real desire--they confess that they are sinners, unworthy and polluted, but there is not the confession of a single definite sin, or if there is, it is perhaps the result of some very rare circumstance which has impressed some special transgression more vividly upon their minds. To realize our sinfulness, we must adopt a more particular mode of dealing with our own hearts, taking them to task; recalling each special sin, and confessing it before God.

III. SELFISHNESS IN PRAYER. By this I mean that spirit in prayer which confines all our supplications to our own individual needs. Often God visits us with barrenness because we fail to grow in heart-sympathy and Christian longing for the welfare of others. It is the very law of Christ that His love should spread, as it is the law of hydrostatics that pressure should circulate in all directions through a volume of water; and when we in a niggardly forgetfulness of others violate that law, we are met with the punishment of a straitening in ourselves. (Bishop Boyd Carpenter.)

Acceptable prayer, the gift of Christ

I. I shall begin by mentioning TWO QUALIFICATIONS THAT ARE INDISPENSABLY NECESSARY, AS PREPARATORY TO ACCEPTABLE PRAYER.

1. The first of them is a due sense of our wants. Christ alone by His Spirit, teacheth this first preparatory lesson. Lord, teach us to pray, by revealing to us our guilt and misery, our vileness and our helplessness.

2. The second qualification which is indispensable, as preparatory to acceptable prayer, is an acquaintance with the true way of access to God. Alas! the tendency of our corrupt hearts is, to resist this Divine appointment. O, then, what need is there to ask of the Lord a right understanding, a cordial approbation, of that way which He hath appointed.

II. Supposing you, then, to have made some proficiency in these two preparatory lessons, I proceed, in the second place, to mention SOME PARTICULARS, WITH RESPECT TO WHICH EVEN THE WELL-INSTRUCTED CHRISTIAN WILL HAVE PERPETUAL OCCASION TO USE THE LANGUAGE OF MY TEXT, Lord, teach me to pray

1. The power of devout attention while praying is one of those gifts which we must obtain by prayer.

2. Spirituality in our devotional exercises is another gift, for which we must often pray.

3. Furthermore, the Christian has need to pray for simplicity and godly sincerity in his prayers.

4. We must request of the Saviour that a patient confidence in God may accompany all our prayers. (J. Jowett, M. A.)

The rule of direction in prayer

I. WE NEED DIRECTION IN PRAYER. This is evident from--

1. Gods greatness.

2. Our own guiltiness.

3. The importance of the subject.

4. Our weakness and aptness to go wrong.

5. The danger of mistaking and miscarrying in prayer.

II. WHAT RULE GOD HAS GIVEN for our direction in prayer.

1. A general rule in the whole of the Bible, where His will is revealed.

(1) It furnishes us abundantly with matter of prayer, in all the parts of it--petition, confession, &c. (Psa_51:4-5; Php_4:6). And whoso has the Word of God dwelling richly in him, will not want matter for prayer, for himself or for others. There is a storehouse of it there, of great variety; and we are welcome to the use of it, agreeable to our own case.

(2) It fully directs us as to the manner of prayer: as, for instance, that we must pray with sincerity (Heb_10:22); with humility (Psa_10:17); in faith (Jam_1:6); and with fervency (Jam_5:16). And there is no qualification necessary in prayer, but what we may learn from the Holy Word.

(3) It furnishes us with the most fit words to be used in prayer. Do ye want words to express your desires before the Lord? He has given us His own

words in the Bible, that we may use them according to our needs Hos_14:2).

2. There is a special rule given us by Jesus Christ for that end, namely, that form of words which Christ taught His disciples, commonly called the Lords Prayer.

(1) The Lords Prayer is given us as a directory for prayer, a pattern and an example, by which we are to regulate our petitions, and make other prayers.

(2) It may also be used as a prayer, so that it be done with understanding, faith, reverence, and other praying graces.

Inferences:

1. How gracious and ready to hear prayer is our God, who has been pleased Himself to direct us how to pray to Him!

2. Let us acquaint ourselves with the blessed Word, that contains such a full rule of practice as well as faith; and study the Holy Scriptures, that we may be the better instructed to pray.

3. See the absolute necessity for prayer in a Christian life. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Prayer

What is prayer?

I. IT IS AN OFFERING UP OF OUR DESIRES TO GOD. These are, as it were, the soul of prayer, without which the most elegant and warm expressions that can possibly be invented and used would not be acceptable to God.

II. Our request must be FOR SUCH THINGS AS ARE AGREEABLE TO THE WILL OF GOD. Things which are not so it is not fit we should receive; and for that reason we should not be rash and hasty to utter anything before God.

III. Our prayers are to be offered up to God IN THE NAME OF CHRIST; for His sake; in dependence upon the merit and intercession of the beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased.

IV. CONFESSION OF SIN IS A BRANCH OF THAT WORSHIP WE CALL PRAYER.

V. A THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GODS MERCIES justly claims a place in this part of Divine worship. (John Whitty.)

Prayer

I. WHAT IS PRAYER? The presenting of our requests to God, and breathing out our desires before Him. In prayer--

1. The heart must be the agent.

2. God is the object.

3. Jesus Christ the medium.

4. Prayer must be our constant exercise.

II. WHY SHOULD WE DESIRE TO BE TAUGHT HOW TO PRAY?

1. Because of the importance of prayer.

2. Because of our natural ignorance of this duty.

3. Because God desires us to be proficient in this duty.

III. WHY SHOULD WE DESIRE THE LORD TO TEACH US HOW TO PRAY?

1. Because He was distinguished for this holy exercise.

2. Because He is our Master, and in all things we are to hear Him.

3. Because with Him is the spirit of prayer.

4. Because He is our great High Priest.

Application:

1. Let us cultivate the gift of prayer.

2. Covet the true spirit of prayer (1Co_7:5).

3. Commence and conduct all our affairs in connection with prayer Php_4:6.)

4. Continue instant in prayer (Luk_18:1).

5. In the exercise of faith look for the returns of prayer. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Forms of private prayer

In the case of public prayer the need of forms is evident; but it is not at first sight so obvious that in private prayer also we need use written forms, instead of praying extempore (as it is called); so I proceed to show the use of them.

1. Let us bear in mind the precept of the wise man, Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. Prayers framed at the moment are likely to become irreverent. What need have we of humble, sober, and subdued thoughts I as becomes creatures, sustained hourly by His bounty; as becomes lost sinners who have no right to speak at all; and still more, as grateful servants of Him who bought us from ruin at the price of His own blood. Therefore, to avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words and rude half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray from book or memory, and not at random.

2. In the next place, forms of prayer are necessary to guard us against the irreverence of wandering thoughts. A chief use of them is that of fixing the attention.

3. Next, they are useful in securing us from the irreverence of excited thoughts. They are accused of impeding the current of devotion, when, in fact, that (so called) current is in itself faulty, and ought to be checked. To be excited is not the ordinary state of the mind, but the extraordinary, the now-and then state. Nay, more than this, it ought not to be the common state of the mind; and if we are encouraging within us this excitement, this unceasing rush and alternation of feelings, and think that this, and this only, is being in earnest in religion, we are harming our minds, and (in one sense) I may even say grieving the peaceful Spirit of God, who would silently and tranquilly work His Divine work in our hearts.

4. Further, forms are useful to help our memory, and to set before us at once, completely, and in order, what we have to pray for. It does not follow that when the heart is really full of the thought of God, and alive to the reality of things unseen, then it is easiest to pray. Rather the deeper insight we have into His majesty and our innumerable wants, the less we shall be able to draw out our thoughts into words.

5. And further, the use of a form as a help to the memory is still more obvious, when we take into account the engagements of this world with which most men are surrounded. The cares and businesses of life press upon us with a reality which we cannot overlook. Shall we trust the matters of the next world to the chance thoughts of our Own minds, which come this moment, and go the next, and may not be at hand when the time of employing them arrives, like unreal visions, having no substance and no permanence?

6. And this use of forms in prayer becomes great, beyond power of estimating, in the case of those multitudes of men, who, after going on well for a while, fall into sin. Chance words and phrases of the Churchs services adhere to their memories, rising up in moments of temptation or of trouble, to check or to recover them. And hence it happens, that in the most irreligious companies a distinction is said to be observable between those who have had the opportunity of using our public forms in their youth, and those whose religious impressions have not been thus happily fortified; so that, amid their most reckless mirth, and most daring pretence of profligacy, a sort of secret reverence has attended the wanderers, restraining them from that impiety and profaneness in which the others have tried to conceal from themselves the guilt and peril of their doings.

7. Such is the force of association in undoing the evil of past years, and recalling us to the innocence of children. Nor is this all we may gain from the prayers we use, nor are penitent sinners the only persons who can profit by it. Let us recollect for how long a period our prayers have been the standard forms of devotion in the Church of Christ, and we shall gain a fresh reason for loving them, and a fresh source of comfort in using them. I know different persons will feel differently here, according to their different turn of mind; yet surely there are few of us, if we dwelt on the thought, but would feel it a privilege to use, as we do (for instance, in the Lords Prayer), the very petitions which Christ spoke. He gave the prayer and used it. His apostles used it; all the saints ever since have used it. When we use it we seem to join company with them. Who does not think himself brought nearer to any celebrated man in history, by seeing his house, or his furniture, or his handwriting, or the very books that were his? Thus does the Lords Prayer bring us near to Christ, and to His disciples in every age. No wonder, then, that in past times good men thought this form of prayer so sacred, that it seemed to them impossible to say it too often, as if some especial grace went with the use of it. Nor can we use it too often; it con-rains in itself a sort of plea for Christs listening to us; we cannot, so that we keep our thoughts fixed on its petitions, and use our minds as well as our lips when we repeat it. And what is true of the Lords Prayer, is in its measure true of most of those prayers which our Church teaches us to use. It is true of the Psalms also, and of the Creeds; all of which have become sacred, from the memory of saints departed who have used them, and whom we hope one day to meet in heaven. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)

Forms of prayer

Common sense tells us, that when people unite together in public worship, if their thoughts are to run in the same channel, they must agree beforehand what is to be the subject of their petitions, and the very words in which they are to be offered, if there is to be any certainty, satisfaction, and regularity in devotion. To sing out of a book is the same in principle as praying out of a book, and if the one is spiritual and right, so is the other also. Public worship should embrace confession, penitence, implorations, ascription, and thanksgiving. The prayer offered to God in His holy place should be sober, solemn, reverential, filial, scriptural, offered in faith, through the merits of the Divine Redeemer. Such, most emphatically, are the devotions of the Prayer Book. A Presbyterian minister, no less distinguished for his abilities than for his Christian charity, has lately given this little sketch from his pastoral experience. In looking up scholars for a mission-school, he was led to visit a poor woman, on her sick-bed, in the upper room of a crowded, comfortless tenement-house. The room was entirely dark, the only inlet of illumination being the swinging, twopaned ventilator overhead. Waiting until his eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he discovered that the apartment was merely a small closet, about six feet square. A shapeless mass of humanity was buried under a heap of coarse, tumbled coverlets, the victim of rheumatism; having occupied the same comfortless room for fourteen years. Although a member of the Church, no minister of the city knew of her existence, she having come from another place, and bringing no certificate of membership to commend her to pastoral care and oversight. When asked by the visitor whether she had ever given up her faith and hope, her pale, shrivelled face lighted up, as she answered, very decidedly, Never! She declined his kind offers of pecuniary aid, but thankfully accepted his proposal to pray with her. He was struck with the fact that, in his repeated visits, she avoided speaking much of herself, and seemed to prefer to spend all the time in talking of Gods love, and the Saviours abundant grace. Remembering the strong attachment of Churchmen for the Prayer Book, the Presbyterian minister learned several of the beautiful collects by heart, and one day, while praying, suffered his voice quietly to run into the form. The sick woman recognized the first sentence of the dear old words with a start of surprise; then she began to repeat the petitions aloud with him; and when he finished she sobbed aloud, with humble, grateful tears. It was a repetition of good George Herberts dying expression of childlike affection for his spiritual mother: Give me the prayers of my mother the Church, no other prayers are equal to them! (J. N. Norton, D. D.)

How to pray

Would you pray to God in a proper way--

1. React a few verses of the Bible before you pray. Much of the language of Scripture is in the form of prayer, and by using it we find help in our approches to God.

2. Always go to God with faith in Jesus Christ. In His name you may ask for every blessing; and through His merits, and for His sake, you may find all that can make you happy in this world, with a pardon of your sins, and a good hope of heaven.

3. Seek for the aid of the Holy Spirit, for He will show us what we need, help our weakness, put right desires into our hearts, and teach us how to pray aright.

4. Have something to say to God. Do not say words in an unmeaning way. Spend a few minutes in thought before you begin to pray, that you may not mock God with a solemn sound.

5. Leave the answer to the love and wisdom of God. He will give to us those things which it is best for us to receive.

The praying Christ

We owe our knowledge of the prayers of Jesus principally to the Evangelist Luke. This fact tallies with the many other characteristics of the third Gospel which mark it as eminently the story of the Son of Man. Consider, then--

I. How PRECIOUS THE PRAYERS OF JESUS ARE, AS BRINGING HIM VERY NEAR TO US IN HIS TRUE MANHOOD.

II. THE HIGHEST, HOLIEST LIFE NEEDS SPECIFIC ACTS AND TIMES OF PRAYER.

III. CHRISTS OWN PRAYERS DO, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, TEACH US TO PRAY.

1. The praying Christ teaches us to pray as a rest after service.

2. The praying Christ teaches us to pray as a preparation for important Luk_6:12, &c.).

3. The praying Christ teaches us to pray as the condition of receiving the Spirit and the brightness of God. There were two occasions in the life of Christ when visible signs showed His full possession of the Divine Spirit and the lustre of His glorious nature--Baptism, and Transfiguration. Now on both these occasions, our Gospel, and our Gospel alone, tells us that it was whilst Christ was in the act of prayer that the sign was given (see Luk_3:21-22; Luk_9:29).

4. The praying Christ teaches us to pray as the preparation for sorrow. Gethsemane. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Desire and prayer

Prayer is an attestance of desire, and desire is so natural to man that no man who lives is quite without it. Our human life is created in great part by desire. When men, who have been created to desire, turn themselves towards a Being who is supposed to have power over their destinies, desire naturally renders itself into prayer. The Son of God imparting to His disciples the true knowledge of the Father, did not fail to teach them concerning prayer. In His own practice He sets an example of earnest and sustained prayer. He deliberately taught His disciples to pray; He bade them pray out of the fulness of their hearts, and not only so, but He gave His sanction to the use of forms by prescribing to them a form of words which would show them the desires they ought to entertain, and be a perpetual encouragement to such desires. We may derive a double benefit from our Lords lofty teaching; we may be delivered from the covetous, self-regarding prayers which dishonour Him to whom they are offered, and have no healing or exalting influence on the worshipper who offers them; and at the same time the true spirit of prayer, which is effectual with God, and on the wings of which we may rise upwards towards Him, may through His teaching be breathed into our hearts. The most Christian kind of prayer will be the utterance of a desire in our souls which is in harmony with Gods purposes, and which we may believe to be breathed into us by Gods Spirit. And though the essence of prayer is inward and spiritual, we rightly put it into words, and even use fixed words of prayer, because it belongs to our nature to translate our thoughts into words, and because forms are necessary modes of our life, and especially indispensable for whatever we are to do jointly or in common. (D. Davies, D. D.)

Jesus the Teacher of prayer

I. WHY JESUS IS TO BE REGARDED AS THE TEACHER OF PRAYER. It should be taken for granted that knowing how to pray is the first of all essentials. If we want information we may have it. There was once a man in Palestine who said that He was the Son of God, and what He did proved that what He said was true. When we would know how to pray, we, like the first disciples, think that if any one can tell us He can. He is the Teacher of prayer. That is His business. Now He is ascended, His disciples are always learning to pray, and He is always teaching. In all our approaches to the Infinite Unseen, we have first to do with Jesus; every prayer must reach His ear before we have the answer to it.

II. How HE TEACHES.

1. Sometimes by means of an overheard prayer. It was so in the chapter of events to which the text belongs.

2. Jesus teaches us to pray by our troubles. Nature in an agony is no atheist.

3. Jesus teaches prayer by revealing Himself as the one medium of prayer.

4. Jesus teaches us to pray by making His own Spirit the spirit of our lives.

5. Jesus teaches to pray by quickening the sense of difficulty.

(1) One difficulty is realizing God.

(2) Another is the frequent coldness of desire Godward.

(3) Another, the effect on our souls of the atmosphere in which we have to live.

(4) Another, vain thoughts. If, said Philip Henry, our prayers were written down and our vain thoughts interlined, what nonsense there would be!

(5) A kindred difficulty is the restlessness we often feel in the act of prayer.

Every one of us can understand the entry made by homely William Smith of Coalville, in the diary of his soul: While at prayer my mind was rather shifting. I had to bring it back and ask it to sit down. We are baffled and weighted by ignorance, by infirmity, and by countless things, which together make such a total that we feel inclined to think with Coleridge that the act of praying, in its most perfect form, is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable. The difficulty does not begin when we begin to pray under the teaching of Christ, but the sense of it does; and this He uses for carrying on His purpose. When you have made acquaintance with a thing through difficulties you are more sure of your ground. By quickening the sense of difficulty the Angel wrestles us into strength, and teaches the suppliant to say, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me. (Dr. Stanford.)

It is remarkable that Jesus only teaches prayer, never the philosophy of prayer. The sentiment of not a few appears to be, that this philosophy is the very thing that we have first to learn. The first questions, even of Christians, are too often simply speculative; and in almost every one of the many treatises on prayer they have given to the world in recent years, a large space is taken up with the discussion of such questions. More than they are aware, they are influenced in this direction by the spirit of the times. Each young believer is now likely to be brought more or less in contact with some theorist who owns no higher teacher of religion than science, who smiles down upon him, assures him that the discoveries of science prove the alleged power of prayer to be impossible; and says, It is useless for you to expect that the laws of nature will be set aside because you pray! Who wants the laws of nature to be set aside? might be the reply. Assuredly I do not. I know very little about the laws of nature, and even you know very little more. For aught your science can show, it may be quite possible for God to answer prayers, without in the least degree touching the settled constitution of the universe. Our conviction is that we find wrought into our very nature, as one of its primary principles, the instinct that prompts to prayer. (Dr. Stanford.)

A prayer about prayer

In this verse there are certain arguments for and encouragements to prayer, worthy of careful attention.

I. PRAYER IS INSTINCTIVE. Four classes of persons here mentioned. In some respects very different from each other. One thing, however, they had in common, namely, prayer. Christ prayed. His disciples prayed. John prayed. His followers were like him. The world here in miniature. Man a praying being.

II. PRAYER IS CHRISTLIKE. Prayer was His habit. I give myself unto prayer, was the experience of both David and Davids greater Son. To some this is perplexing. They cannot understand why our Lord should pray. There would, however, have been far more mystery had He never prayed at all. The holier we become, the more frequent and fervent is our communion with our Heavenly Father.

III. PRAYER IS CONTAGIOUS. The word is used for want of a better. What led His disciples to say, Teach us to pray? Had the Master been speaking of prayer? Not a word. It was on quite another occasion that He said, Men ought always to pray. How was it, then, that the desire for increased power in devotion was awakened? It was through hearing and seeing our Lord pray. Prayer begets prayer. One live coal kindles another. There is an Eastern proverb, as true as it is poetic, I am not the rose; but I have been with the rose, and therefore I am sweet.

IV. PRAYER IS EFFECTUAL. Teach us to pray. That petition was granted. And real prayer is always answered. It cannot fail. As Bishop Hall says: I am sure that I shall receive either what I ask, or what I should ask.

V. THE EXPRESSION, AS JOHN ALSO TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES, HAS MORE IN IT THAN AT FIRST SIGHT APPEARS. It is not the cry of false conservatism. We shall err if we suppose that he who uttered it simply wanted our Lord to follow in the track of another. Surely there was an argument, and a fine one, in the words. What did it mean? Something like this: John was Thy servant, and he helped the devotion of his followers; wilt Thou, great Master, do less? John was only a herald and a forerunner, but he watched over his disciples; wilt not Thou, the promised and predicted One, do the same to us? It was good reasoning. Better logic cannot be imagined. Let us take the benefit of it. Inspired by the faith which it teaches, be our prayers both frequent and fervent. (T. R. Stevenson.)

Influence

We have here a simple illustration of the silent involuntary influence of our Lord. One of His disciples had observed Him praying, and struck with the grandeur and sweetness of the act, he asks to be taught how to pray. Without a commandment but by the power of His example, He influenced His disciple.

I. IT IS A REAL INFLUENCE THAT OF EXAMPLE. He who is most a child of God in faith, hope, and love, is most of a king for God over himself and over others, wielding an irresistible power, and gaining widest triumphs.

II. EXAMPLE OF THE INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE. You see it in Christ in this incident. Teach me to pray, said the disciple; but he had more than half learned the lesson when he had looked on Christ praying. The evangelists never pause to extol the life of the Master. To tell the life was best to praise it. On the way to the cross, Jesus does not recommend patience--He is patience. On the cross, He does not speak of love--He is love as He never was before.

III. THE APPLICATION OF THIS TRUTH.

1. TO those who need encouragement. Some feel much the uselessness of their lives--no money, little knowledge, or eloquence. But you are not useless if you are true to what is pure and gentle and brave--true to Christ. Influence is not the less powerful because it is silent.

2. This truth speaks to those who need warning. Remember that no one lives to himself. The influence of selfish aims, unregulated tempers, illiberal gifts, goes forth where you little think, and does evil you would dread to acknowledge. What a minister for evil the very presence of an unrevered man is wherever he goes. But if you come to Jesus, though with souls most feeble and most sinful, you may become through Him most magnetic and mighty for the highest issues and the widest influences. (Dr. W. Graham.)

Prayer necessary to maintain the spiritual life

The first true sign of spiritual life, prayer, is also the means of maintaining it. Man can as well live physically without breathing, as spiritually without praying. There is a class of animals--the cetaceous, neither fish nor sea-fowl, that inhabit the deep. It is their home; they never leave it for the shore; yet, though swimming beneath its waves, and sounding its darkest depths, they have ever and anon to rise to the surface that they may breathe the air. Without that these monarchs of the deep could not exist in the dense element in which they live, and move, and have their being. And something like what is imposed on them by physical necessity, the Christian has to do by a spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending up to God, by rising through prayer into a loftier, purer region for supplies of Divine grace, that he maintains his spiritual life. Prevent these animals from rising to the surface, and they die for want of breath; prevent him from rising to God, and he dies for want of prayer. Give me children, cried Rachel, or else I die. Let me breathe, says a man, gasping, or else I die. Let me pray, says the Christian, or else I die. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The difficulty of true prayer

I have no difficulty, said he (Coleridge), in forgiveness; indeed, I know not how to say with sincerity the clause in the Lords Prayer which asks forgiveness as we forgive. I feel nothing answering to it in my heart. Neither do I find, or reckon, the most solemn faith in God as a real object, the most arduous act of the reason and will. Oh no, my dear, it is to pray, to pray as God would have us; this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing He pleaseth thereupon--this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christians warfare upon earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord! And then he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray for him. (Ed. Coleridges Table Talk.)

Thought in prayer

A prayer must have thought in it. The thought may overburden it so that its wings of devotion are fastened down to its sides, and cannot ascend. Then it is no prayer, only a meditation or a contemplation. But to take the thought out of a prayer does not insure its going up to God. It may be too light as well as too heavy to ascend. I saw once, in a shop window in London, a placard which simply announced, Limp Prayers. It described, I believe, a kind of a prayer-book in a certain sort of binding, which was for sale within; but it brought to mind many a prayer to which one had listened, in which he could not join, out of which had been left the whole backbone of thought, and to which he could attach none of his own hearts desire. (P. Brookes.)

Forms of prayer

I. And, first, on the use of prepared forms of prayer for public worship, or liturgies as we call them. That these were of Divine appointment under the Jewish dispensation there can be no question. The songs of Moses and Miriam, and the titles prefixed to a large number in the Book of Psalms, bear evidence of being composed for congregational use. Besides, through the writings of Josephus and other Hebrew historians, no inconsiderable part of the ancient Jewish liturgies have been preserved to us, and a remarkable coincidence has been discovered between the order and method of these early compositions with our own Book of Common Prayer. The forms of which we know the most are two--one for the service of the Temple, and the other for that of the Synagogue. In the synagogue form the order of public worship was prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and preaching. Their prayers, though not always the same, were always pre-composed, the most commonly used being eighteen, said to have been composed by Ezra at the time of the Captivity, all containing many sentences out of his Book. These forms were in use among the Jews in our Lords time, and both Jesus and His apostles joined in them. Unsafe, therefore, as it might be, as a rule, to base an argument on the silence of Scripture, yet we can hardly suppose, that if our Lord had intended that in such an important particular the Christian worship was to differ from the Jewish, He would not have told His disciples so plainly, rather than first join in such pre-composed devotions Himself, and then institute a form, which from being expressed throughout in the plural number, must have been supposed to have been intended for public and social use. Here, then, is good reason to believe that the only recited congregational prayer preserved in the New Testament--I mean that contained in the 4th chapter of the Acts--was a form commonly used by the early Christians as suited to a time of persecution, for the whole assembly recited it together--Then lifted up they their voice to God with one accord. The scriptural evidence, therefore, as far as it goes, is clearly in favour of set and prepared forms of public prayer. If we join to this the testimony of ecclesiastical history, there is no more doubt about the apostolic usage as a question of fact, than there is as a question of fact about the persecution of Domitian or the siege of Jerusalem. Even Plinys letter to Trajan, at the beginning of the second century, alludes (contemptuously, of course) to these Christians meeting for daily worship, and reciting, as he says, a composed form; whilst the liturgies attributed to St. Mark, St. Peter, and St. James, respectively, from which a good deal of our own liturgy is taken, whether really composed by those apostles or not, can be traced to a period sufficiently early to make the alleged authorship by no means impossible. Other testimonies might be cited, more convincing, because merely incidental, all assuming the usage itself to be one of common notoriety.

II. Let me advert to a point which we shall all feel to be of great importance, namely, the use of prepared forms in our private devotions. Let me proceed, then, to point out some objections to prepared forms of private prayer, however spiritual and excellent they may be, if they be used exclusively. Thus it is obvious we are thereby confined in regard to the matter of our prayers, we restrict our conversation with heaven to a fixed routine of subjects, and preclude the mention of those hourly spiritual experiences, which though unseen, and unknown to the world, make up the great incidents of the souls life, and may give, day by day, a new complexion to its prayers. We live in a world of change, and in the countless vicissitudes to which mind, body, and estate are alike exposed; the soul is subject to infinite varieties of emotion, for which no prepared form can provide corresponding expression. Again, there is a danger lest the exclusive use of forms should have a tendency to deaden the spirit of prayer. Let me conclude with a few practical directions which, whether with or without forms, cannot be neglected by those who would be taught how to pray.

1. As first, when you enter your closet, be composed, and reverent, and thoughtful.

2. Again, be honest and faithful with yourselves; let there be a great searching both of heart and life.

3. I say, aim to be comprehensive and yet specific.

4. Lastly, we must be earnest and persevering. The confession is humiliating, but it must be made. (D. Moore, M. A.)

The instructions of the Bible as to the matter and manner of prayer

The best of men need direction in prayer. Who may not adopt the language, Teach us what we shall say unto Him: for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness? The Bible is a sufficient rule of conduct in all things pertaining to life and godliness. The subject-matter for prayer is to be found in the Word of God. There is not one of its doctrines, in all their richness and variety, that does not contain truths which the lips of prayer may make use of, and turn to good account at the throne of grace. The point is too plain to require either illustration or proof, that the mind must be furnished with the truth of God in order to be furnished with matter for prayer. The precepts of the Bible also teach us how to pray. They describe the spirit of prayer; while they teach us what graces to ask for, and for what duties we need strength. The promises of the Bible are revealed for our instruction and encouragement in prayer. They teach us what blessings God is willing to bestow, and how willing He is to bestow them. The threatenings of the Bible teach us what we have reason to fear and deprecate; while the very sins that are there recorded teach what we should pray against and deplore. God has also recorded a multitude of facts in His Word, that are comments upon its truths, its promises, and its threatenings, of which He condescends to permit His people to remind Him, and which furnish them with powerful considerations in pleading at His mercy-seat. There are instances of prayer, too, there recorded, which show us its spirit, its comprehensiveness, its appropriateness to times, and places, and circumstances, and men, as well as its fruit and power; and which show us for what it is to be offered, and Gods readiness to hear and answer. More than this; the Bible teaches us where to go for assistance in prayer. For through Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. In every act of true devotion, there is a concurrence of the Spirits influence. Let your mind be richly furnished with all Gods truth, and let your bosom be filled with devotional emotions, and then freely utter your requests before God. There is thought in prayer; strong thought, and often close, compact, and connected thought. There is emotion, too, heavenly emotion. There is memory, too, in prayer; and there is conscience and even imagination. This formula, commonly called the Lords Prayer, contains the substance of prayer for His disciples. A question arises here, if we may not use this form in our supplications at the throne of grace? The Christian ought not to be so much the enemy of forms, as to depreciate this most beautiful form of prayer; nor so much of a formalist, as not to pray without it. Jesus Christ has nowhere authorized a restriction to any set form of prayer. The prayers of Abraham were not written prayers. Nor was the prayer of Eleazar at Haran; nor the prayer of Jacob at Peniel; nor the prayers of Moses and Aaron for Egypt and Israel. The prayer of Joshua at the defeat of Ai, the prayer of Manoah, of Samson, of Hannah, of Samuel at Mizpeh, of Elijah at Mount Carmel, of Hezekiah against Sennacherib, of Jabez, of Ezra, of Nehemiah, of Job, of Daniel, of Jonah, and of Habakkuk, were none of them dictated by the pen. Nor was the prayer of Zacharias, nor that of the publican, nor that of the disciples in any one exigence of their history. In the next place, forms of prayer invert the order of prayer; they make the words lead the heart, and not the heart the words. True prayer flows from the heart; the heart is the seat of supplication. Another objection to forms is, that they check the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Still another objection to forms of prayer is, that no set of prayers is, or ever can be, adequate to the necessities of the Church. It has been said that the example of the Primitive Christians is in favour of forms. Much has been written to prove the antiquity of liturgies, and Bishop Bull has strongly urged the probability of their being of Apostolic origin. The posture of the primitive Christians in prayer was such as to render it impossible to read prayers. They stood with their arms crossed on their breasts, their heads back, and their eyes often closed. It is confidently asserted by those who have made close search, that there is not such an expression as reading prayers, to be found in the history of the first four centuries. In favour of forms, it is also said, that it is important to have matter to ponder upon, to pray with intelligence. We have only to reply, most certainly it is so; but then there is more matter in the Bible than in a Book of Common Prayer. It is further urged, and we confess the objection has some weight that in extempore prayers, too much latitude is given to the speaker, that, on the one hand, his prayers may often be barren and dry; and on the other, they may be redundant, and sometimes filled even with wild and extravagant notions. This is true; it is an evil to be guarded against: and we have only to say, that we expect too much, when we expect perfect prayers from imperfect men. Once more, it is objected to prayers that are not thus formed, that the people cannot join in them. (G. Spring, D. D.)

The abridgment of the whole Gospel

Such plentiful rivers stream from this seven-headed fountain. So that as the seven arms of Nilus watered and made fertile all Egypt; so doth this prayer, springing from seven petitions, which are deprecative or optative, water the whole Christian world, preventing and deprecating all mishaps, and supplying our wants. So that in this short prayer, as in a little orb, the Sun of Righteousness moves; from hence doth every star, every faithful servant and counsellor of Christ (for they are incarnate stars) borrow a ray of light to illuminate and sanctify the body of his meditations. The Church in her liturgy and the preacher both enjoined to use it. A small quantity of this leaven seasons a great lump of devotion, and a few spirits give taste and quickness to much liquor. This prayer is a quintessence extracted by the greatest chemist that ever was, from Him that brought nature out of chaos, separated light from darkness, and extracted the four elements out of nothing. All parts of it are spirits. Quae enim spiritualior oratio? And the mixture of a few grains thereof with our prayers proves the strongest and best Christian antidote. (Archdeacon King.)

Giving God His own in prayer

It is a familiar and friendly tribute to present God with His own; a petition clothed in Christs words, will find the ready way to heaven, and a speedy access into the ears of God. (Archdeacon King.)

The parts of the Lords Prayer

So consider this prayer as it now lies all together, the plates and joints and several matters make but one Christian buckler to ward and avert all necessities that may befall us; yet resolved into parcels, every limb and member, and gradation, is a perfect buckler to bear off our particular wants. It is like that famous target of Ajax that was Clypeus Septemplex, consisted of seven folds; this is Oratio Septemplex, a prayer consisting of seven requests. That buckler was dart-proof, impenetrable, and this prayer an impenetrable shield to resist the fiery darts of Satan. If I would insist upon the allusion to the number of these petitions, I might compare this whole prayer to the constellation of the Pleiades, or seven stars in heaven; or to the seven stars in the right hand of the Son of Man, being fit lights and tapers for the seven golden candlesticks there mentioned, to be set up in those seven Churches, and not in them alone, but in all the Churches of the world, where Christs name is known and adored. Or I may liken the parts of this prayer to the seven planets, eminent above all other stars of the firmament. For as some of those planets move nearer to the earth, others higher and farther off, so is the motion of these seven petitions; some of them move and solicit God for earthly things, as the four last of them; others for heavenly and eternal, as the three first, Hallowed be Thy name, and Thy kingdom come, &c. Saint Augustine hath taken their just height and motion, Tres petitiones superiores aternac sunt, quatuor sequentes ad hanc vitam pertinent. (Archdeacon King.)

Praying from a copy

I do not deny him a good artizan that works by the strength of his own phantasy: yet all will grant he works truest that works from a copy. And though a voluntary expressed upon an instrument show the sufficiency of the musician, yet I should think that musician who undervalues all set lessons in comparison of his voluntaries hath more of arrogance than skill. Just so is it in prayer. I prejudice no mans gift, and let me advise no man so much to prejudice this excellent gift of Christs Prayer as to exalt his own meditations above it. (Archdeacon King.)

The Lords Prayer perfect

The matter is every way found complete and perfect. Every word in it hath its weight. There is not a superfluous word in it that could be spared. Nor is it any way defective. Whatsoever is lawful, needful, and meet to be asked in prayer is therein contained: yea, whatsoever is to be believed or practised by a Christian is therein implied. (William Gouge.)

The Lords Prayer little, yes great

The sense of it is as large as the body is little. (Archdeacon King.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:1-4. As he was praying in a certain place — Our Lord’s whole time was occupied, either in instructing his numerous followers, or in confirming his doctrine by miracles of mercy, wrought for the relief of the afflicted, or in the exercises of devotion. This evangelist has mentioned Christ’s praying much more frequently than any of the other evangelists. He tells us, Luk 3:21, when he was baptized he was praying; Luk 5:16, that he withdrew into the wilderness and prayed; Luk 6:12, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer; Luk 9:18, that he was alone, praying; and soon after, that he went up into a mountain, and as he prayed was transfigured, Luk 9:28-29; and here, that he was praying in a certain place. Whether he was now praying alone, and the disciples only knew that he was so, or whether he prayed with them, is uncertain; it is most probable they were joining with him. One of his disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray — Inform us what we ought especially to desire and pray for, and in what words we ought to express our desires and petitions. It seems this disciple had not been present when our Lord, in the beginning of his ministry, gave his hearers directions concerning their devotions; or, if he was present, he had forgotten what had then been said. As John also taught his disciples — The Jewish masters used to give their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. This, it is probable, John the Baptist had done. And in this sense it seems to be, that the disciples now asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Accordingly he here repeats that form which he had before given them in his sermon on the Mount, and likewise enlarges on the same head, though still speaking the same things in substance. And this prayer, uttered from the heart, and in its true and full meaning, is indeed the badge of a real Christian: for is not he such whose first and most ardent desire is the glory of God, and the happiness of man, by the coming of his kingdom? who asks for no more of this world than his daily bread, longing meantime for the bread that cometh down from heaven? and whose only desires for himself are forgiveness of sins (as he heartily forgives others) and sanctification? When ye pray, say — And what he said to them is undoubtedly said to us also. We are therefore here directed not only to imitate this in all our prayers, but frequently, at least, to use this very form of prayer. For an explanation of this prayer, see the notes on Mat 6:9-13. There are some differences between the form in Matthew and this recorded here; by which it appears it was not the design of Christ that we should be always confined to the very words of either form; for then there would have been no difference between them. One difference, indeed, which the reader will probably notice, is in the translation only, which ought not to have been, where there is none in the original; and that is in the third petition, as in heaven, so in earth; whereas the words are the very same, and in the same order, as in Matthew; but there is a difference in the fourth petition: in Matthew we pray, Give us daily bread this day; here, give it us [καθ’ ημεραν] day by day: that is, Give us each day the bread which our bodies require, as they call for it; not, Give us this day bread for many days to come; but, as the Israelites had manna, let us have bread, to-day for to-day, and to-morrow for to- morrow; that thus we may be kept in a state of continual dependance upon God, as children upon their parents, and may have our mercies fresh from his hand daily; and may find ourselves under fresh obligations to do the work of every day in the day, according as the duty of the day requires, because we have from God the supplies of every day in the day, according as the necessity of the day requires. Here is, likewise, some difference in the fifth petition. In Matthew it is, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive; here it is, Forgive us our sins, (which proves that our sins are our debts,)

for we forgive; not that our forgiving those that have offended us can merit pardon from God, or be an inducement to him to forgive us; he forgives for his own name’s sake, and his Son’s sake: but this is a very necessary qualification for forgiveness: and if God have wrought it in us, we may plead the work of his grace, for the enforcing of our petitions for the pardon of our sins; Lord, forgive us, for thou hast thyself inclined us to forgive others. There is another addition here; we plead not only in general, we forgive our debtors, but in particular we profess to forgive every one that is indebted to us, without exception. We so forgive our debtors, as not to bear malice or ill-will to any, but true love to all, without any exception whatsoever. Here also the doxology in the close is wholly omitted, and the Amen; for Christ would leave his disciples at liberty to use that, or any other doxology, fetched out of David’s Psalms; or rather, he left a space here to be filled up by a doxology more peculiar to the Christian institutes, ascribing glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 87.—THE DISCIPLES TAUGHT HOW TO PRAY, Luk_11:1-13.

1. Came pass… in a certain place—Probably a few days after the last narrative, and within the vicinity, east of Jerusalem. See Harmony, p. 101.

He was praying—Praying, perhaps, such a powerful prayer as to arouse the feeling that they knew not how to pray, and needed to be taught.

Teach us to pray—Teach us the body of blessings we may hope to receive, and therefore what object is right, and not presumptuous to ask; teach us, even by an outline pattern if thou wilt, a skeleton prayer, of which all other prayers are but the amplification.

John also taught his disciples—Each new dispensation may not only have its new unfolding of truths; but its new revelations may open new modes of access, and new topics of prayer, and motives and tempers of worship. A different prayer was offered in the Mosaic ritual from the patriarchal form. John opened up a new scope of prayer; and this new dispensation requires of Jesus to set the range of prayer in accordance with the new range of truth, and the new position of men with God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_11:1. The time and place when this incident occurred are indefinite, but there can be no doubt that we have not here part of the Sermon on the Mount, put out of its place. The form of prayer here given differs very considerably (by omission) from that in Mat_6:9-13; as given in the best authorities it runs as follows: “Father, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation.” It is almost certain that both the longer and shorter forms of the prayer were given on separate occasions, with the exception of the doxology, found in St. Matthew, which dates from the time when the prayer came into liturgical use.

In a certain place.—If this incident took place shortly after that last recorded—the visit of Jesus to Bethany—this place may be the Mount of Olives or Gethsemane. As John.—This fact is not elsewhere recorded.

Luk_11:2. Hallowed be Thy name.—“God’s name is not merely His appellation, which we speak with the mouth, but also and principally the idea which we attach to it—His Being, as far as it is confessed, revealed, or known” (De Wette). Hallowed.—“Kept holy,” “sanctified in our hearts.” Thy kingdom come.—The spread of Christ’s kingdom on earth and His triumphant reign hereafter (His second coming).

Luk_11:3. Daily bread.—No better English word than “daily” can be got to render the peculiar Greek word found only here and in Mat_6:11, but considerable diversity of opinion has existed as to the precise signification of the term employed. Some have rendered it “sufficient,” “proper for our sustenance”; others, “for the coming day”; others, “spiritual bread” (Vulg. supersubstantialem). But all these meanings are to some extent implied in our phrase “daily bread”—suitable for our necessities, and provision for the immediate future; and though the primary reference is to literal food, reference to spiritual nourishment is not excluded.

Luk_11:4. Forgive.—Two words are used—“sins” and “debts” (“every one that is indebted to us”); we cannot forgive sins, but can release others from their obligations to us. As.—I e., “in the same manner as,” not “to the same extent as,” nor “because.” Lead us not into temptation.—God does not tempt to evil, but He may place us in circumstances in which we may feel our weakness and be in danger of yielding to temptation This is virtually a prayer for some way of escape to be opened up to us.

Luk_11:5. At midnight.—In the East people often travel by night, to avoid the heat.

Luk_11:7. My children, etc.—I.e., “my children, as well as I, are in bed.”

Luk_11:8. Importunity.—Lit., “shamelessness,” “impudence”—i.e., continued knocking and asking. For importunity in prayer see Isa_62:3-12; Gen_18:6-7; Mat_15:27-28.

Luk_11:9. And I say unto you.—The parable is not a conclusive argument. We know that a man can be harassed into giving, but how can we know that importunate prayer can prevail upon God? We know it upon Christ’s authority: He here pledges His word that it is so.

Luk_11:11. Bread.—There is a certain resemblance between the things asked for and those which might be substituted for them—a stone like bread, a fish like a serpent, an egg like a scorpion. No father with ordinary human feeling would mock his child by giving him useless or hurtful things in place of food.

Luk_11:13. Holy Spirit.—The best of all gifts. St. Matthew says “good things” (Luk_7:11).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_11:1-13

Christ Teaching how to Pray.—St. Luke seems to preserve the original setting of the Lord’s prayer, and St. Matthew the full liturgical form of the prayer.

I. Note the mould for the disciples’ prayers.—It is properly not the “Lord’s prayer,” but the servants’ prayer. It is not a formula, but a pattern. All the essentials are preserved in this shorter version.

1. Invocation. There is first the child’s cry to the Father. All Christian prayer begins with that, and Christ makes it possible so to begin, by giving to those who believe on His name power to become sons of God. Consciousness of sonship, confidence in the Father’s love, the child’s yearning towards Him, and the assurance that He hears, are all expressed in that one word, and without these our prayers are of small account.

2. Petitions. Those bearing on God’s glory must be first, and those bearing on ourselves second. God’s “name” is His revealed character. It is “hallowed” when worthy thoughts of Him and corresponding emotions dwell in men. God’s kingdom comes where His name is hallowed. It is that order or constitution of things in which He rules, not over ignorant tools or reluctant slaves, but over willing, because loving, sons. Its seat is within; its manifestation is outward. All social and individual good is comprehended in that prayer, for the hallowing of the name of the Father is the sole foundation of glad obedience to His sway, which is love, joy, and peace, for men and nations. The second class of desires—those for the supply of the suppliants’ wants—begin at the bottom and climb up. Mark that we are not to say “my” but “our.” Brotherhood follows sonship. Bread, not dainties; bread sufficient, not superfluous: bread for to-day, not for to-morrow;—how many would be content with that? The prayer for God’s glory comes first, because that is greatest; but that for bread comes first in its series, because it is least. The need for pardon is as universal and more crying than that for bread. It is the beginning of the spiritual life, but in this connection is meant for all stages thereof, and implies some previous experience, inasmuch as it makes our forgiving the reason for our being forgiven. While it is true that we cannot receive pardon into an unmerciful heart, a prior truth is that we must have experienced that pardon before becoming truly and habitually merciful. An unforgiving Christian is a monster, and will turn out unforgiven; but a heart that forgives, and has never sought and found God’s pardon, is as much of a contradiction.

II. A parable of prayer.—The central point of it is the power of persistent importunity, which is illustrated by a seemingly most incongruous narrative. The man in bed with his children, who gets up at last for as selfish reasons as had kept him lying, is a repulsive picture of selfish indolence, both when he refuses and when he gives. But the very contrast between that temper and the love of the Father, to which prayer appeals, is the point of the story. “If” such a miserable creature, “being evil,” is conquered by persistence, “how much more shall your heavenly Father give?” is the lesson here too. The contrast is complete. Selfishness and perfect love, slothful indifference to need and unwearied, all-embracing, never-resting beneficence, a yielding at last to save annoyance and get rid of an unwelcome presence and a yielding which has been delayed for our good, and gives joyfully as soon as we are capable of receiving. But is not the story so violently unlike God as to lose its power for the intended purpose? Not if we keep in mind the “How much more.” Persistent asking can melt even such a rock as that. What can it not do when it appeals to an infinite pity and a Divine desire to give?

III. The confidence of prayer.—Our Lord adds to the parable His assurance of the power of persistent prayer, and confirms it by an analogy which sets the parable in its right light. “Ask” “seek” and “knock,” perhaps, express a gradation. Desires breathed to God are not in vain, but they must be accompanied with seeking which is effort. Knocking implies repetition as well as earnestness. Here, then, is another lesson to the disciples, teaching them how to pray. Prayer is to be accompanied with appropriate effort, and to be persevering. But in what region of experience are these unconditional promises fulfilled? Surely not in this world of bitter disappointments, and baffled desires, and frustrated quests! It would be a questionable blessing if all our desires in regard to outward benefits were granted, and the Father in heaven would be less wise than many an earthly father, who knows that an indulged child is a “spoiled” child. The abounding promise is true absolutely in the spiritual realm, where fuller knowledge of God, a more Christ-like character, and more blessed communion with Him, wait for all who desire them and seek them in God’s way. The closing analogy lifts the child’s prayer to its true place. Mark the parallel between the “which of you” in the parable, and the “of which of you” in Luk_11:11 (R.V.). By the former our experience as petitioners is brought to illustrate the truth taught; by the latter, our experience as givers. Fatherly love is taken for granted; the thing enforced is confidence in fatherly wisdom. Jesus charges “evil” on all men, and emphatically exempts Himself. And then He bids us not to think that the grudging giver of the parable represents God, but to take the purest, most unselfish love which we know, and purify it yet more by taking away all taint, and to think of that as a dim shadow of the infinite love and wisdom which in the heavens hears and answers our poor cries.—Maclaren.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_11:1-13

Luk_11:1. Before the Lord’s Prayer. “As He was praying.”—This prayer preceded the giving of His own prayer for the perpetual use of His Church and people below. It is impossible for us to exaggerate the importance of the occasion. Was not the occasion worthy of a special prayer of Christ to consecrate it? We must not presume to speak confidently where God has not spoken. But not on that account should we shrink from a serious pondering of mysteries too high and too deep for us: may it be but with reverence that we turn aside to see this great sight, the Saviour rising from His own prayer to give inspiration for ever to the prayer of others. Might not He be praying, in that prayer of preface and prelude, that the spirit of the prayer He was about to prescribe might be indeed the spirit in all future ages of His disciples and of His Church? That the filial heart might be the religion of His people—the filial and the brotherly? That sinners might be enabled to view aright their own standing—as sinners, yet sons; sons still, however sinful; not waiting to be made sons, but emboldened to claim and to exercise a sonship, which is theirs by birth, in right of a Divine creation, a Divine redemption, and a Divine evangelisation? That in this sonship, of right theirs, yet all of grace, they might see and feel to be included all mankind, however widely severed and dissociated by birth and place, by thought and phrase, by habit and custom in things secular or in things sacred? That His Church might ever be interested in the work of God, His cause and His glory, and might ever give the first place in its prayer to that which concerned these? That the great message of the forgiveness of sins might be so written upon the hearts of His people that they might be able to use it with quietness and confidence for their daily comfort and strengthening, forgetting the things behind and reaching forth always to the things before? That thus His Gospel might approve itself to the conscience and heart of mankind, as indeed the power of God unto salvation, a religion of light, life, and love, spreading blessing everywhere around it, and, like the crucified Lord whose living witness it is, lifted above earth while planted upon it, drawing all men unto it, and so unto Him?—Vaughan.

Luk_11:1-13. Lessons on Prayer.

I. The need of help in prayer.

II. The pattern prayer.—It is full of simple trust; it is unselfish; it is simple; it is reverent; it is spiritual.

III. Importunate prayer.

IV. Promises for prayer.—Taylor.

Luk_11:1. “When He Ceased.”—While continuing His journey, the Lord remained faithful to His habits of personal devotion. He did not content Himself with that constant direction of the soul towards God, which has so often been supposed to be the meaning of the precept, “Pray without ceasing.” There were in His life special times, positive acts of prayer. This is indicated in the words that follow: “when He ceased.”—Godet.

Prayer the Distinguishing Mark of God’s Children.—Speech distinguishes men from animals; speech rising into prayer distinguishes the children of God from the children of this world.

A Desire to be Like Christ.—They observed in their Master, while He prayed, a strange separation from the world, a conscious nearness to God, a delight in the Father’s presence, and a familiarity in communion with the Father, which seemed to them like heaven upon earth. Fondly desiring to partake of these blessed privileges, they besought their Master to show them the way.—Arnot.

“Teach us to pray.”—We forget that we are to learn to pray; and that prayer is to be learned, as all other things, by frequency, constancy, and perseverance.—Law.

Social Prayers of Jesus.—The request and its occasion, taken together, convey to us incidentally two pieces of information. From the latter we learn that Jesus, besides praying much alone, also prayed in company with His disciples, practising family prayer, as the head of a household, as well as secret prayer in personal fellowship with God His Father. From the former we learn that the social prayers of Jesus were most impressive. Disciples hearing them were made painfully conscious of their own incapacity, and, after the Amen, were ready instinctively to proffer the request, “Lord, teach us to pray,” as if ashamed any more to attempt the exercise in their own feeble, vague, stammering words.—Bruce.

The Disciples’ Request.—The request was brought before the Lord Jesus on a remarkable occasion, or at least at a moment of great solemnity. The Lord was praying in a certain place.

I. Perhaps it was a fixed place, an understood place, which He had chosen for the purpose.

II. It appears, too, that He was occupied in this way for some time. This seems to follow from the expression “when He ceased.”

III. It is evident likewise that while He was so occupied they watched and waited. No one ought, if it can be avoided, to be interrupted during the exercise of prayer.

IV. But there was more than this in the case of Jesus. They were manifestly filled with reverential awe.

V. Yet they longed to learn something of this power of intercourse with our Father in heaven. They remembered, too, how John the Baptist had spoken of this intercourse—how he had given instructions to his disciples concerning prayer—and when the Lord had “ceased” they laid their request before Him: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

VI. It was a request which led to great results. Never was a question which brought an answer more prolific of benefit to mankind.—Howson.

A New Stage in the Life of the Disciples.—The disciples had, doubtless, been accustomed to pray, but it was a new and further stage in their disciple-life when they thus expressly asked some further and fuller teaching in prayer. It was one thing to pray; it was another thing to feel their need and defectiveness in this so much that they directly ask for help, not only to pray better, but, as it now seemed to them, to pray at all. “Lord, teach us to pray” is always a new stage in disciple-life.—Maccoll.

“As John also taught his disciples.”—In this beautiful half sentence we learn something concerning the Baptist which we should never have known otherwise, something which may teach us for our own benefit.

I. We have abundant information in the Gospel narrative respecting the Baptist’s sternness, courage, faithfulness, his summoning all men to repentance, his self-denial, his fearlessness in rebuking sin in high places, his utter devotion to Christ, his deep humility, his consciousness that he was only a messenger preparing the way for One greater than himself. But these for the most part were severe qualities, containing even what we may call an element of harshness. Where in all this do we perceive any traces of that tenderness and patience which are implied in the statement that he “taught his disciples to pray”?

II. Let us look at the matter from another point of view. St. John is named in the New Testament beyond the limits of the Gospel History. His great shadow is, indeed, cast across all the Scriptural narrative of the history of the earliest Church. But all this does not touch in the least what we find in this beautiful half-sentence of our text. Nay, the very grandeur of John the Baptist seems, at first sight, almost in contrast with the other impression. For in teaching how to pray there is personal sympathy, minute attention, consideration, and gentleness. We hardly expected to find this in the Baptist, but we do find it; and is it not a great example?—Howson.

Luk_11:2-4. The Warrant and the Liturgy of Prayer.

I. The Lord’s Prayer is Christ’s warrant for prayer.—It settled, once for all, the great question of praying. “When ye pray”—as, of course, you do pray. Prayer is sometimes called an instinct. It is an instinct of the original nature—the nature made in God’s image, after God’s likeness—would that the fallen being always found it so! Certainly prayer has no exemption from the assaults of a scoffing generation. Thankful ought we to be that we have our Saviour’s express warrant for it. The Lord’s prayer is that first and before all else. His example would have been something. His permission, His encouragement, His command to pray, would have been more. But this form of words is a sort of sacrament of prayer, an outward visible sign presenting to the very senses the assurance of the inward spiritual grace attending and following.

II. The Lord’s Prayer is the one inspired liturgy of the Christian society.—“When ye pray, say,” is a warrant for the lawfulness of forms of worship. As such, it supplies a want. It guarantees uniformity, so far as uniformity is a condition of unity. The Lord has in it instituted a liturgy for the perpetual security of harmony and sympathy in the addresses of His people to the God and Father through Him. Let us make much of this gift of gifts as a substantial bond of union among all Christian people, however widely, in other respects, divided and separated. They have a common prayer, if not a Common Prayer-Book. They who unite in the Lord’s Prayer join in the one liturgy which has come down from heaven.

Beauty and Value of the Lord’s Prayer.—The beauty and value of the lessons in the Lord’s Prayer arise from:

1. The tone of holy confidence. It teaches us to approach God as our Father (Rom_8:15), in love as well as holy fear.

2. Its absolute unselfishness. It is offered in the plural—not for ourselves only, but for all the brotherhood of man.

3. Its entire spirituality. Only one petition is for any earthly boon, and that only for the simplest.

4. Its brevity, and absence of all vain repetitions.

5. Its simplicity, which requires, not learning, but only holiness and sincerity, for its universal comprehension.—Farrar.

The Lord’s Prayer.

I. Contents.—

1. Christ teaches us to pray as well for temporal as for spiritual necessities.

2. But still more for spiritual than for temporal. One petition only for daily bread; five are devoted to higher concerns.

3. The glorifying of the name of God must stand yet more in the foreground than the fulfilment of our necessities.

II. Frame of mind.—The Saviour here teaches us to pray:

1. In deep reverence.

2. In child-like confidence.

3. In a spirit of love for others.—Van Oosterzee.

I. The address.—

1. The filial relation to God.

2. The fraternal relation to our fellow-men.

3. Heaven our destination (faith, love, and hope respectively, all combining to bring us into a true frame of mind).

II. The petitions.—

1. Those which concern the glory of God.

2. Those which express the wants of men.

Devotion to God and Acceptance of His Gifts.—Devotion to God and acceptance of His gifts are contrasted in the Lord’s Prayer.

I. Devotion to His name, to His kingdom, and to His will.

II. Acceptance of His gifts in reference to the present, the past, and the future.—Lange.

The Petitions.—Having risen to what forms the highest and holiest object of believers, the soul is engrossed with its character (first petition), its grand purpose (second petition), and its moral condition (third petition); in the fourth petition the children of God humble themselves under the consciousness of their dependence upon Divine mercy even in temporal matters, but much more in spiritual things, since that which, according to the first portion of this prayer, constituted the burden of desire, can only be realised by forgiveness (fifth petition), by gracious guidance (sixth petition), and deliverance from the power of the devil (seventh petition).—Meyer.

God and Man.—The prayer sets forth

(1) God’s relation to man, and

(2) man’s relation to God.

I. Petitions which have to do exclusively with God.

1. Thy name be hallowed.

2. Thy kingdom come.

3. Thy will be done. These occur in a descending scale—from Himself down to the manifestation of Himself in His kingdom; and from His kingdom to the entire subjection of its subjects, or the complete doing of His will.

II. Petitions which have to do with ourselves.—

1. “Give us our bread.”

2. “Forgive us our debts.”

3. “Lead us not into temptation.”

4. “Deliver us from evil.” These occur in an ascending scale—from the bodily wants of every day up to our final deliverance from all evil.—Brown.

Luk_11:2. “When ye pray, say.”—That briefest, tersest, fullest of all forms of prayer, the only exhaustive one, the only perfect and sufficient, because all-embracing and all-comprehending, one. How can we put into words all that the Lord’s Prayer had in it for the Church and for the Christian? I do not believe that childhood or youth, or even middle life, or anything short of old age, can at all fully appreciate the Lord’s Prayer. It is condensed, it is deep, it is difficult. No commentary and no catechism can elucidate without diluting, or improve without spoiling it. Not until that age comes which demands above all things the real and the strong and the substantial, the thing that can be leaned upon and rested upon and (when the time comes) died upon, can any man know in himself all that the great Lord did for us when He answered that request, “Teach us to pray,” and answered it in the particular form to which eighteen centuries have appropriated the grand title “The Lord’s Prayer.” Let us earnestly ask ourselves whether we have been faithful to the precept, “When ye pray, say”? Do we make full use of ourselves of the prayer? Do we, in our use of it, think into it, and think out of it, some of its hidden treasures of grace? Do we take literally enough its companion words in St. Matthew, “When ye pray, use not vain repetitions … your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him.… After this manner therefore pray ye”? Is not the old weary round too often trodden in our praying, as if indeed the Lord’s Prayer were not?—Vaughan.

Our Intercessor.—Just as we have our Saviour as our Intercessor in heaven, so we, in our prayers on earth, take the words of our Intercessor to help us.—Cyprian.

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”—This implies

(1) that we have access to God, and

(2) that we may rely on Him with full and unshaken confidence.

“Our Father.”—Not “My Father.” The plural reminds us

(1) of our brotherhood in Christ, and

(2) of the duty of common prayer. God is our Father

(1) because He is our Creator and Sustainer, and

(2) because we are His adopted children by faith in Jesus (Gal_3:26).

A Personal God.—This phrase is a denial of Atheism, Pantheism, and Deism, for it recognises a God, a Personal God, who is our Father through Christ.

“Hallowed be Thy name.”—Cf. Mal_1:6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master; if, then, I be a father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear?

General Character of the Prayer.—The prayer is that the existence of God may be believed, His attributes and perfections adored and imitated, His supremacy acknowledged, and His providence owned and trusted in.—Bloomfield.

Fulfilment of this Petition.—We can fulfil this prayer

(1) by joining with our brethren in the public worship of God;

(2) by reverence of demeanour in the house of God;

(3) by refraining from sinful and profane talk; and

(4) by reverencing everything belonging to God—His word, His day, His sacraments, His ministers, and His people.

“Thy kingdom come.”—

1. God’s spiritual rule over the souls of men.

2. The extension of His Church, as of His visible kingdom.

3. His heavenly kingdom, which is to come after the resurrection, and to endure for ever.

“Thy will be done.”

I. Because it is the will of the author of our being and the fountain of all existence.

II. God’s will should be done by us because it is supported by the whole constitution of things.

III. God’s will is to be done by us because it is a perfect will, a righteous and loving will, the will of a father.

IV. God’s will is to be done because it rests on perfect knowledge and the widest survey of things.—Leckie.

Submission of Our Wills to God’s Will.—Our wills are to be sacrificed to the will of God; we are

(1) to obey His commandments, and

(2) to suffer what He may lay upon us with faith and submission and contentment.

“As in heaven.”—“Bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word” (Psa_103:20).

The Trinity.—The first three petitions are inseparably triune: the name to be hallowed, of the Father just invoked, of the Son whose kingdom is to come, of the Spirit through whose inworking the children of God are disciplined and enabled to do His will.—Stier.

Luk_11:3. “Give us day by day our daily bread.”—This teaches us

(1) that everything we enjoy is the gift of God;

(2) that as God is willing and able to give, we should not be overwhelmed by earthly anxieties and cares;

(3) that our desires should be modest and reasonable; and

(4) that we should ever be thankful for having received from God so much more than daily bread.

“Give us.”—The prayer

(1) acknowledges that we are indebted to God for our simplest boons;

(2) asks for them all;

(3) asks them only day by day;

(4) and asks for no more (cf. Pro_30:8).—Farrar.

The Present, the Past, and the Future.—As the prayer for daily bread raises us above care for to-day, and the prayer for the forgiveness of sins is meant to quiet us concerning the past, so is the prayer against temptation a weapon for the uncertain future.—Van Oosterzee.

Luk_11:4. “Forgive,” etc.—The last three petitions have regard to

(1) the beginning,

(2) the progress, and

(3) the end of spiritual life in the world; the worshipper confesses his guilt, deprecates danger, and asks for deliverance from the evils to which he is exposed.

“For we also forgive.”—As the first invocation put away all idolatry and image-worship, so is all murder, and anger, adultery, stealing, slandering, and whatever other evil to our neighbour there may be, put away from the heart and will of him who prays the fifth petition and abides in it.—Stier.

“Indebted to us.”—We cannot forgive sins, as such—that belongs to God; but only as obligations from man to man, represented by the commercial phrase “indebted.”

“Lead us not.”—The memory of past faults suggests the idea of present weakness, and excites a fear of falling into sin in time to come.

Opportunity and Desire.—Our prayer is, Let not the tempting opportunity meet the too-susceptible disposition. If the temptation comes, quench the desire; if the desire, spare us the temptation.—Farrar.

“Deliver us from evil.”—The expression is a military term, which describes the deliverance of a prisoner who has fallen, or who is on the point of falling, into the power of the enemy. The enemy is the Evil One, who lays snares in the path of the faithful. They, conscious of the danger which they run, and of their own weakness, ask God not to permit them to be taken in the snares which may have been set for them by the adversary.—Godet.

“Temptation … evil.”

1. Concealed pitfalls.

2. Open dangers. The petition teaches us

(1) humility—we are to ask for help against all temptations, even the smallest, and not to be led near them; and

(2) caution—for if our prayer is to be effectual, we must shun evil and the appearance of evil.

Luk_11:5-13. The Efficacy of Prayer.—This is proved by—

I. An example of how importunity avails, even in the case of a disobliging neighbour.

II. Daily experience (Luk_11:9-10).

III. The fatherly character of God (Luk_11:11-13).

Luk_11:5-10. Indifference overcome by Prayer.—After Jesus had taught His disciples how to pray, He went on to speak to them in a parable that seems to cast a new light on some of those relations of man to God which are to be affected by this mysterious agency. For instead of representing the Divine nature as open and tremulous to our cry, it is represented to us here as if wrapped in a slumber heavy as midnight, and only to be awakened by our persistent and most urgent endeavour. The same view of matters is presented in the parable of the Importunate Widow and the Unjust Judge. The first feeling we have about the matter is either that there has been some mistake in the way these parables are reported or that it is hopeless for try to understand them. We say, “This householder asleep at midnight! What can this mean?” I think the meaning is that Jesus would teach us in this way what we aro learning in many other ways—that the best things in the Divine life, as in the natural, will not come to us merely for the asking; that true prayer is the whole strength of the man going out after his needs, and the real secret of getting what you want in heaven, as on earth, lies in the fact that you give your whole heart for it, or you cannot adequately value it when you get it. So, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” means, “Put out all your energies, as if you had to waken heaven out of a midnight slumber, or an indifference like that of the unjust judge.” The parable teaches something in our life we seldom adequately consider—viz., what might be called the indifference of God to anything less than the best there is in man—the determination of Heaven not to hear what we are not determined that heaven shall hear.—Collyer.

Luk_11:5-8. Duty of Hospitality and Neighbourliness.—We are here taught incidentally:

1. The duty of hospitality, and that not grudgingly, or of necessity, but cheerfully shown.

2. The duty of friendly and neighbourly accommodation.

Luk_11:5-7. A Contrast.—All the circumstantial features form a contrast to the Friend in heaven, who never gives such an answer (though it may at first seem so to unbelief). God does not sleep, He never shuts His door against us; He has no favourite children who divert His attention from us; He does not think it a trouble to hear, and to grant. And though man sometimes is really not able to help, yet God is always both willing and able.—Stier.

A Parable on Importunate Prayer.—Jesus was well aware how God often shows Himself so little like a father that those who trust in Him are tempted to think Him rather like a man of selfish spirit, who cares only for his own comfort. Such precisely is the representation of God as He appears in the parable of the Selfish Neighbour.

I. The relevancy of the parable requires that His character should be regarded as representing God—not as He is, indeed, but as He seems to tried faith.—It is thus tacitly admitted by Jesus that, far from giving His children what they need before they ask, God often delays for a lengthened period answers to prayer, so as to present to suppliants an aspect of indifference and heartlessness. The didactic drift of the parable is: You will have to wait on God, but it is worth your while to wait. Man can be compelled to hear by importunity and excessive knocking. God is not a man to be compelled, yet it may be said that the apparent reluctance of Providence can be overcome by persistent prayer which refuses to be gainsaid or frustrated, continuing to knock at the door with an importunity that knows no shame. In other words, with full consciousness how much there is in the world which seems to prove the contrary, Jesus asserted the reality of a Paternal Providence continually working for the good of those who make the kingdom of God their chief end.

II. It must be observed that, while giving this assurance to His disciples that God would attend to their spiritual welfare, Jesus did not lead them to expect that in this sphere there would be no occasion for exercising the virtue of patience.—On the contrary, it is clearly implied in the parable that the delays which make God assume so untoward an aspect take place in connection with all the objects referred to in the Lord’s Prayer: the advancement of the kingdom, daily bread, the personal spiritual necessities of disciples. Hence we learn that even the Holy Spirit may not be given at once in satisfying measure to those who earnestly desire it, though sure to be so given eventually. The Holy Spirit is given in ample measure to all earnest souls, but not even to the most earnest without such delays as are most trying to faith and patience.—Bruce.

I. This ever-mindful God, our loving Father, has a way of His own, and we must meet Him in His own way.—He is very willing to give good gifts—more so than our earthly fathers. But He must be entreated to give them.

II. Ye shall receive, but not with out asking. And then, too, not always at once.—This is the lesson of the parable. Because of His importunity, the man got what he wanted. He would not be put off. He asked till he got.

III. How much more will our Heavenly Father give good gifts.—especially that best gift, His own Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christian peace, and joy, and love, and holiness—if we ask, and ask again, and will not let Him go until He blesses us!—James Hastings.

How God Appears to the Timid Mind.—The parable is intended to set forth, not the actual way in which God ought to be regarded, but how He may be represented to a man, by his ignorance and fear, by one who is in need, and has ventured at some midnight hour to knock at God’s door. Now that He has begun to ask, why should he leave off? Let him continue to ask. Importunity and a little delay will do him good in this first venture. He will come back more confidently next time, for God will seem more a friend than He was before.—Maccoll.

Utter Selfishness Depicted.—The utter selfishness of the man to whom the appeal is made is vividly depicted.

1. Though addressed as “friend,” he omits any such appellation in his reply.

2. His first words are rude, surly, and abrupt.

3. He details the obstacles that stand in the way of granting the request—the trouble involved in opening the door, and the risk of awakening the children.

Luk_11:5. “At midnight.”—He designed us to understand that if a man, unwillingly roused from his sleep by some petitioner, is compelled to give, with how much greater kindliness we may expect bounty at the hands of Him who “never slumbereth” and who is the very person who rouses us to call us upon Him.—Augustine.

“Three loaves.”—I.e., cakes of bread. There is no mystical significance in the number—it is simply an appropriate detail in the parable: one loaf for the guest, one for the host who sits down at table with him, and a third in reserve.

Importunate Faith.—When the heart, which has been away on a journey, returns suddenly at midnight (in the time of greatest darkness and distress) home to us—that is, comes to itself and feels hunger—and we have nothing wherewith to satisfy it, God requires of us bold, importunate faith.—Meyer.

Luk_11:7. “Trouble me not.”—The reluctance is real: but God’s reluctance is apparent only, and even this appearance arises from reasons which work for our best good.

Luk_11:8. “Importunity.”—I.e., shamelessness. How expressive the word, and how instructive! It teaches us the nature of true prevailing prayer. The prayer which gains its end is prayer which knocks till the door is opened, regardless of so-called decencies and proprieties, which it seeks till it obtains, at the risk of being reckoned impudent, which simply cannot understand and will not take a refusal, and asks till it receives.—Bruce.

Importunity in Prayer Reasonable, and Incumbent upon us.

I. Because of the majesty and holiness of Him whom we address, and our own weakness and sinfulness. Indifference and lukewarmness are out of place.

II. Because of the great value of the spiritual deliverances and blessings we implore.

Encouragements to Importunity in Prayer.

I. It tends to quicken our desires.

II. Such prayer has the promise of being answered.

III. The record in Scripture of successful importunate prayers.—Jacob, Elijah, the Syro-phenician woman, St. Paul, and Christ Himself.

Luk_11:9. “I say unto you.”—A marked distinction is to be drawn between the use of this phrase in the preceding verse and that made of it here. The former is unemphatic—any one would admit that such “shamelessness” would be likely to prevail in the circumstances described; any one could say, “He would be sure to rise and give whatever was asked.” But in this verse Christ emphatically assures us on His own testimony that like importunity does avail in prayer to God. Our warrant for believing in the efficacy of importunate prayer rests, not upon analogies or arguments, but upon the testimony of Christ Himself.

1. Asking, Seeking, Knocking.—We ask for what we wish.

2. We seek for what we miss.

3. We knock for that from which we feel ourselves shut out.—Brown.

“It shall be opened.”

“Fervent love,

And lively hope with violence assail

The kingdom of the heavens, and overcome

The will of the Most High; not in such sort

As man prevails o’er man; but conquers it,

Because ’tis willing to be conquered, still,

Though conquered, by its mercy conquering.”

Dante (Parad. xx.).

Luk_11:10. Receiveth … findeth … it shall be opened.”—Two of the verbs are in the present, the third is in the future; and this last is because the opening of the door is not the action of the person who knocks, but of another within.

Asking Apparently in Vain.—If any complain that they have “asked,” “sought,” “knocked in vain,” let them be reminded—

I. That prayer is not always answered immediately.—The reason why God sometimes delays His gifts may be because that which is long looked for is sweeter when obtained, but that is held cheap which comes at once.

II. That is often an act of the truest love to withhold a favour, however earnestly prayed for.

III. That prayer, though sometimes actually refused, for merciful reasons, at the time, is sometimes, perhaps always, eventually answered in a different and far higher sense than was expected or desired.—Burgon.

The Most Wonderful of the Parables.—In some respects this parable and that of the Unjust Judge, are the more wonderful and precious of all the parables. The rest present such views of Divine grace as may be shadowed forth by the ordinary manifestations of human character and action—such as a shepherd bringing back his sheep, or a sower casting his seed into the ground; but these two go sheer down through all that lies on the surface of human history—down through all the upper and ordinary grades of human experience—and penetrate into the lower, darker, meaner things at the bottom, in order to find a longer line wherewith to measure out greater lengths and breadths of God’s compassion.—Arnot.

Luk_11:11-12. Bread, Fish, Eggs.—The three articles of food are not taken at haphazard. Bread, hard-boiled eggs, and fried fish, are the ordinary articles used for food by a traveller in the East.

The outward resemblance between the wholesome articles of food and the useless or hurtful substitute, renders the form in which the lesson is cast all the more picturesque and happy.

Luk_11:11. God’s Giving.—God gives us

(1) more than we ask,

(2) what we cannot ask;

(3) against our asking.

Luk_11:13. “Being evil.”—Original sin is here very distinctly implied.

No Flattery of the World in Scripture.—Scripture does not commend itself to the world by speaking well of it; more wonder is it that Scripture has been received by men as God’s Word.—Wordsworth.

Christ Implies His own Sinlessness.—Not “we being evil”: an indirect but unmistakeable testimony to His own sinlessness.

“How much more.”—He has both

(1) will to give, and

(2) wisdom to give good things only. He will give us as largely as we can receive of His own Holy Spirit.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. Lord, Teach us to Pray (Luk_11:1-13)

(In part parallel to Mat_6:9-13; Mat_7:7-11.)

1And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.2And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our [om., Our1] Father which art in heaven [om., which art in heaven], Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth [omit this sentence2]. 3Give us day by day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins; for we [ourselves, αὐτοὶ] also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil 5[omit this clause3].—And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6For a friend of mine in his journey [from a journey, transf. after is come] is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.4 8I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity [lit., shamelessness, ἀναίδειαν] he will rise and give him as many [loaves] as he needeth. 9And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall begiven you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give5 the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_11:1. In a certain place.—The place is not more particularly designated by Luke, but if we may allow play to conjecture, the school of prayer was opened in the neighborhood of the same place in which the school of faith had lately been opened, namely, Bethany; for Luke attaches this account immediately to the domestic scene in the house of Mary and Martha, and since from other passages it is known that the Saviour was especially accustomed to pray on the summits of mountains, we are almost spontaneously brought to think here of the Mount of Olives, the subsequent theatre of His conflict and of His coronation (comp. Luk_21:37). That the historical trait, Luk_11:1, has been invented by the Evangelists merely in order to find a suitable occasion for the communication of the Lord’s Prayer (Strauss), is an unsupported conjecture. Do we not know from other passages that our Saviour was often accustomed to seclude Himself for solitary prayer, that John had actually taught his disciples to pray (Luk_5:33), and that some of these disciples had passed over to Jesus, and might yet very well remember this fact ?

Luk_11:2. Father.—First of all the question is whether the Saviour gave the precept of the most perfect prayer twice or only once. From internal grounds, the latter appears to us more probable, and we therefore believe that not Matthew but Luke has communicated the same in its original historical connection. If the Saviour had already communicated the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount to His auditors as a model of prayer, He would then have hardly omitted, at the question, “Teach us to pray,” to have referred them to His former instruction. At the same time it appears to us less congruous that the Saviour should for the first time have uttered this precept as a portion of a longer discourse before thousands of hearers; far more probable is it that it was first imparted to a smaller circle of disciples on a different occasion, and from this centre was more generally diffused. The view (Stier, Tholuck) that what was uttered in the Sermon on the Mount was not till afterwards given as a fixed precept, is a way, of relieving the difficulty that testifies of perplexity. The words in Matthew, οὕτως οὖν προσεύχ. ὑμεῖς, certainly do not properly convey any other sense than the commencement here in Luke, ὅταν προσεύχ. λέγετε, κ.τ.λ. Matthew does not give the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount because it was there for the first time uttered, but because the preceding instruction of our Lord respecting prayer in secret offered him a fitting occasion for it.

Thy name … Thy kingdom.—See Lange on Mat_6:9.

Luk_11:3. Our daily bread.—Ἐπιούσιος is that which we need for our οὐσία, our existence, and therefore not daily bread, for this is already implied in the σήμερον of Matthew, as also in the καθ̓ ἠμέραν of Luke; and tautologies in such a prayer ought certainly not to be presupposed; but it signifies, sufficient bread for the sustenance of our life, panis sufficiens. The most one-sided spiritualism alone can take offence that here at least one prayer ascends for temporal necessities. Jesus designed His precept not for angels but for men, and were the view of Stier and others true, that here we are to understand spiritual bread also, it might then be doubted whether in this case a limiting σή μερον would stand with it. The Jews, at least, had scarcely heard of heavenly bread when they immediately pray: “Lord, evermore give us this bread”, Joh_6:34.—The precept, Mat_6:34, is alone applicable to temporal but not to eternal affairs, and this whole petition contains, even when it is exclusively used of earthly necessities, a striking reminder of the saying, Mat_6:33. Other views see given in Lange, ad loc.

The words which according to Gregory of Nyssa (Luk_11:2) must have been read instead of the ἐλθέτω ἡβασ. σου, namely, ἐκθέτω τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμά σου ἐφ̓ἡμᾶς καὶ καθαρισάτω ἡμᾶς, appear to be nothing more than an old gloss arising from Luk_11:13. The external authority of this reading is at least too insignificant to allow it to be regarded with Volkman, Hilgenfeld, Zeller, as the original.

Luk_11:4. For we ourselves also forgive.—In Matthew ὡς. By no means is the willingness of the suppliant a ground upon which God can bestow on him forgiveness, but rather a subjective condition without which he has no boldness to entreat the forgiveness of his own sins. Comp. 1Jn_4:18-19.

Lead us not into temptation.—As the prayer for daily bread raises us above care for to-day, and the prayer for the forgiveness of sins is meant to quiet us concerning the past, so is the prayer against temptation a weapon for the uncertain future. The sense of the difficult expression can only be determined ex opposite in Matthew: ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι, κ.τ.λ. We pray, therefore, that God would not lead us into such temptation as would certainly occasion us to fall under the might of evil, as it is that from which we wish to be redeemed. God leads us into such temptation when He gives us over to the evil desires of our heart. (See e.g. 2Sa_24:1.) “The temptation is here the more critical probation occasioned by the previously-named guilt, and the ‘Lead us not into it’ the consequence of the ‘Forgive us. Let us not experience the consequences of our guilt in intenser probationary trials.” Lange.

As respects, moreover, this precept in general, nothing hinders us from complementing the imperfect account of Luke from that of Matthew; and if we do this we obtain six—or according to the more apparently correct enumeration, seven—petitions, in which all is expressed which the disciple of the Saviour has to pray for, as well for the glory of God as also for the advancement of his own temporal and spiritual well-being. “All the tones of the human breast which go from earth to heaven sound here in their key-notes.” Stier. Although it cannot be that the Saviour meant to establish here a formula that was to be repeated every time ad literam, He however answers here the question of His disciples, Luk_11:1, in so far as He plainly shows them what and how they must pray. With the exception of one petition—the fifth—the Lord’s Prayer expresses all that the Saviour in the days of His flesh could beg from the Father, and also all which according to His will His own should entreat for themselves in His name. As respects, 1. the contents of the prayer, He teaches them a. to pray as well for temporal as also for spiritual necessities, but, b. still more for spiritual than for temporal: one petition is only for daily bread; five, on the other hand, are devoted to higher concerns; c. that the glorifying of the name of God must stand yet more in the foreground than the fulfilment of our necessities: we first hear a threefold Thy before we hear a threefold us. And as respects 2. our frame of mind in this prayer, the Saviour here teaches us to pray, a. in deep reverence, b. in child-like confidence, c. in a spirit of love for others.

As respects the value of this precept, the singular fancy of Herder in his explications of the New Testament, that the Pater Noster could be derived from an oriental source, from the Zend Avesta, has been weighed by later science and found wanting, and even so does the assurance of Wetstein: “tota hœc oratio ex formulis Hebraicis concinnata est,” at all events affirm too much. For the fourth and fifth petitions there are no parallels whatever extant; for the third and sixth only imperfect ones. For the first two there are the most, yet by no means literal ones; and here also, with reference to the Saviour, we are not to overlook the truth: “Even when the popular culture offered Him what was noble and true, it worked ever only as a stimulus for His own inner development, and even that which He has received He reproduces renovated from His creative power of life.” Olshausen. In no case can this partial agreement with others take from this model anything of its high worth. Not so much in particular expressions, as rather in the tenor and spirit, in the arrangement and climax of the whole, lies its peculiar worth, and those who can assert of the Pater Noster that it is only a joining together of Rabbinic expressions, might assure us with the same right that from a suitable number of single arms, legs, and members, one could compose an animated human body. We honor much more the wisdom of the Saviour in this, that He would teach His disciples no chords which would have been entirely strange to their unpractised lips, and in vain do we seek here for the traces of a limited Judaistic spirit. So brief is it, that it does not even weary the simplest spirit, and yet so perfect that nothing is therein wholly forgotten: so simple in words that even a child comprehends it, and yet so rich in matter that the principal truths and promises and duties are here presupposed, confirmed, or impressed, and that Tertullian with right named it a breviarium totius evangelii. How often soever it may have been misused, especially where it has been turned into a spiritless formula of prayer, while men have forgotten that it only expresses the lofty fundamental ideas which must prevail in the exercise of prayer, it remains yet continually a goldmine for Christian faith, a standard for Christian prayer, a prop for Christian hope. Respecting the history and use of this prayer, comp. Tholuck, Berg predigt. Respecting its value, Stier, Reden Jesu, vol. i. pp. 194–224; Lange, L. J. ii. pp. 609–618, Lange on Matthew, ad loc.

Luk_11:5. Which of you.—A parabolic representation which is only found in Luke, and is attached so loosely to the preceding instruction, that possibly the Master delivered it at another time, and it is given here only on account of the connection of thought. The purpose is, as also in the parable of the Unrighteous Judge (Luk_18:1-8), to encourage, to perseverance in prayer. The example is taken entirely from daily life, and shows anew with what sharp penetration our Lord observed the common occurrences and experiences of the same.—Three loaves.—“Unum pro hospite, unum pro me, unum supernumerarium, honoris causa. Mire popularis h. l. est sermo.” Bengel. It is striking how much more friendly the request is than the first answer, which does not begin with φίλε, and very plainly betrays ill-humor.

Luk_11:8. Because of his importunity, ἁναίδεια here in direct reference to prayer as unweariedness, perseverance in its highest energy. God wishes a faith which is not ashamed of endurance, and which therewith entertains the highest expectations.

Luk_11:9. Ask, and it shall he given you.—A definite assurance of a special hearing of prayer, from which it results that prayer has not only a subjective influence for our tranquillizing, our comfort, etc., but also an objective, procuring us from God what He without the prayer would certainly not have bestowed upon us. Here also, as so often throughout the Old Testament, we have a God who permits Himself to be entreated, and in the conflict with praying faith to be voluntarily overcome. “The inexorableness of a stone and the exorableness of a free being are things which can be proved or refuted by experience alone, which can make an end of all philosophical contradiction even in spite of or rather for the bettering of our Sophia, yet certainly always to the contentment of our Philosophia.” Pfenninger. Respecting the climax in this saying of our Saviour, see Lange on the parallel passage.

Luk_11:10. For every one that asketh.—As the Saviour has just urged perseverance in prayer, He now speaks of the certainty of being heard, and gives His disciples to understand that prayer is in no case in vain, and that an uttered wish is surely fulfilled, that is, if it belongs to those good gifts which are now represented under the image of bread, fish, and egg. But if any one should in his foolishness beg a scorpion or a snake, the father would be no father if he could fulfil such a wish.

Luk_11:12. Or if he shall ask an egg.—This third example is found only in Luke, the two others also in Matthew, Luk_7:9-10. From that which the friend will do, the discourse of the Saviour rises even to that which one could expect of a father; from that which an imperfect earthly father does, even to that which the perfect Father in heaven bestows.

Luk_11:13. If ye then, being evil.—Not a comparison of the morally corrupt man with God (Meyer), but rather a contrast. How should it be possible that a holy God should not do that which even sinful man does!

The Holy Spirit=ἀγαθά in Matthew. A remarkable interpretamentum, which teaches us with the best right to consider the Holy Spirit as the essence of all good gifts which the Father in Heaven can bestow on His praying child. Ὁ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δώσει, abbreviated form for ὁ πατὴρ ἐν οὐρανῷ δώσει ἐξ οὐρανοῦ.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. When we meet the Saviour in this period of His life praying in a solitary place, we behold at the same time in what a holy frame of soul He has traversed the last steps on the way to the Feast of Tabernacles, the theatre of His thickening conflict. Before His praying eye, the earth with its wickedness has for a short time sunk away. Heaven listens to His words, the disciples hold their peace while they regard Him at a reverent distance. What is more natural than that the view of their praying Master should awaken the desire of the disciples also to pray, and that they go to Him with this wish, who was as much more than John as the Son stands above the servant?

2. The instruction as to prayer which the Saviour gives on this occasion, answers all main questions which are to be solved with reference to secret converse with God. As to the question what and how we have to pray, the Lord’s Prayer gives a satisfactory answer. As to the not less natural question, as to the ground on which we can expect to be heard, the Saviour restricts Himself to an appeal to the parental feeling of even sinful men. In reality, the difficult question as to the possibility and conceivableness of special hearing of prayer is best decided before this forum. With a fatalistic and strictly deterministic conception of God, the hearing of prayer becomes an impossibility, and nothing more than merely the psychological effect of prayer conceivable. But whoever believes in a living, freely-working God, who projects and executes His counsel not without but with reference to the praying man, will cleave fast to prayer, even if, in relation to the connection of the prayer with the receiving, questions were to be asked which He could not fully answer.

3. The Lord’s Prayer is a short compendium of the principal truths of the Christian faith, of the highest demands of the Christian life. Theology finds here the idea of a personal, living, freely-working God, distinct from the creature and yet standing to the same in direct relation (Immanence). For Anthropology we gain here the conception of man as a dependent, sinful, easily misleadable being; of sin as being debt towards God; of the destiny of man, that it consists in this, to be united in a Kingdom of God. Pneumatology may appeal for a doctrine of angels as well as of the personal evil spirit to the Lord’s Prayer; and the highest benefits which Soteriology gives us to hope for, Forgiveness and Sanctification, they stand here by right in the foreground. That the special Christological element is not here so sharply emphasized as might be expected, must be conceded; but, on the other hand, it is self-evident that this prayer is intended exclusively for disciples of the Saviour, who know that it is through the Son that they go to the Father, and can expect to be heard only when they thus pray in His name, Joh_16:24. The chief requirements of the Christian life, as well in and of itself as in relation to the Father, and even to the brethren on earth, can with equal ease be derived from this model.

4. The perseverance in prayer which the Saviour commands on this occasion must be well distinguished from the praying without ceasing of which Paul speaks, 1Th_5:17. The latter is a continual prayerfulness and living of the soul in connection with God, even when it has nothing definite to entreat. The former, on the other hand, is persevering prayer for something which one does not immediately receive, but as to which, nevertheless, we may expect that God will give it to us in His own time and way, Luk_18:1-8.

5. Although the Saviour in the well-known saying, Ye who are evil, opposes His hearers not to Himself but to the pure and holy Father, it is, however, none the less true that He here, inasmuch as He speaks of ὑμεῖς, not of ἡμεῖς πονηροί, renders an indirect but unequivocal testimony to His own ἀναμαρτησία. No teacher would, excluding himself, be able to speak of his hearers as evil, without bringing on himself the appearance of presumption, unless he were himself without sin.

6. Inasmuch as the Saviour at the end of this instruction comprehends all which God gives to prayer in the single πνεῦμα ἅγιον, He gives us at the same time to know to what prayers we may expect unconditional, to what, on the other hand, only conditional, answers. Prayer for spiritual gifts is always heard; the desire after special temporal blessings only when one has really prayed for bread, not for stone, a fish, or a snake. [The author has here omitted to mention, what without doubt he would readily admit, that a selfish prayer for particular spiritual gifts is no more secure of being heard than a selfish prayer for temporal gifts. By spiritual gifts he here means, probably, those graces which serve for the more perfectly doing God’s will, and which are desired for that end. The prayer for such, of course, cannot remain unheard.—C. C. S.]

7. “Where a Christian is, there is really the Holy Spirit, who does nothing there than continually pray; for although He does not continually move the mouth or make words, yet the heart goes and beats, even as the pulses of the veins and the heart in the body, without cessation or ceasing; so that one can find no Christian without prayer, as little as a living man without the pulse, which stands never still, but stirs and beats ever on, although the man sleeps or does other things, so that he does not become aware of it.” Luther.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The solitary prayer of the Saviour, “Lord, teach us to pray:” 1. The disciple of the Saviour must pray; 2. must learn to pray; 3. must learn to pray of Jesus; 4. must go to Jesus with the entreaty, “Lord, teach us to pray.”—How the Saviour teaches His disciples to pray: 1. By His word; 2. by His example; 3. by His Spirit; 4. by His ways and dealings with them.—The wish to learn to pray most pleasing to the Lord. It is: 1. The joyful token of life; 2. a means to farther development of life.—God, our Father who is in heaven: 1. Father; 2. heavenly Father; 3. our heavenly Father. These three words a doctrine for faith, love, and hope.—Hallowed be Thy name: 1. The first prayer; 2. the dearest prayer; 3. the last prayer of the disciple of the Saviour. It is yet continued in heaven and even when the kingdom is already come, sin forgiven, &c.—Thy kingdom come: 1. Whither? into heart, house, church, world; 2. why? then only is the Father’s name glorified, the purpose of the Son attained, the fellowship of the Spirit complete; 3. how are we to pray for this? With thankfulness, with zeal, with steadfast hope.—Give us to-day our daily bread. Every word a doctrine: 1. Give, the doctrine of dependence; 2. bread, the doctrine of contentment; 3. our bread, the doctrine of industriousness; 4. to-day, the doctrine of freedom from care; 5. daily bread, panis sufficient, the doctrine of trust; 6. give it to us, the doctrine of love.—The noticeable relation in which this part of the Lord’s Prayer stands to the great whole: 1. The Saviour teaches us, it is true, to pray also for daily bread, but, 2. over against one prayer for earthly things stand six for heavenly, Mat_6:33; Matthew 3. this one prayer is preceded by three for the glory of God, and, 4. is followed immediately by three others which respect something infinitely higher than its own object. All is most pregnant with instruction and significance.—Forgive us our debts: 1. Even the disciple of the Saviour sins continually; 2. these sins also are debts before God; 3. for these debts also is daily forgiveness ready; 4. this forgiveness becomes our portion only when we for our part are disposed to forgiveness towards others.—For also we forgive: 1. No ground of our hope; 2. no means of compelling an answer to prayer; 3. no intimation of the measure according to which we expect forgiveness, but a sign: 1. Of humility, which is conscious of its own debt; 2. of love, to which the “Forgive us” is more than an idle sound; 3. of uprightness before God, which cannot possibly have a controversy with our brother, since the Father has remitted so infinitely more, Mat_18:23-35.—Lead us not into temptation: 1. Thy way is often so dark; 2. the temptation is so great; 3. our heart is so weak; 4. the consequences of an eternally repeated fall are so lamentable.—The Lord’s Prayer: 1. A prayer for the closet; 2. a prayer for the church.—The circle of the Saviour’s disciples an association of prayer.—Prayer the pulse-beat of the Christian life.—The Heavenly Father bestows more upon prayer than does the best friend here on earth.—The importunity of faith: 1. How hard it Isaiah 2. how richly it rewards.—True perseverance in prayer.—The certainty of the hearing of prayer: 1. Its limits: the prayer must be befitting, the prayer must be believing, the will must be united with God’s will; 2. its grounds: God’s attributes, God’s promises, God’s deeds manifest from history and experience.—The question, Is there an actual hearing of prayer? answered successively with: 1. The No of doubt; 2. the Yea of faith; 3. the Hallelujah of thankfulness.—How often we in our shortsightedness beg stones instead of bread, snakes instead of fishes and the like.—The “I say to you” of the Saviour maintains its prerogative against all rebuffs and doubts of the darkened understanding.—The commendation of prayer for the Holy Spirit: 1. The Holy Spirit the Christian’s first necessity; 2. the Holy Spirit the Father’s holy gift; 3. the Holy Spirit in the heart the fruit of believing prayer.

Starke:—Teaching in the ministry has its time, but praying also. One coal kindles the other.—Brentius: To pray a believing Pater Noster is a weighty and grave matter; there is a child-like spirit required thereto, Rom_8:16.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—God is much kinder towards His friends than men towards theirs.—If God instantaneously heard our sighing, it would be a harm to us, for faith, love, and hope would have no room for exercise.—Osiander:—If God holds still at thy prayer, continue thou on valiantly, vigorously, and joyfully: He will indeed soon answer: Thy faith hath saved thee.—Canstein:—Parents are under obligation to provide for their children in bodily respects also, and to give them, according to ability, what they need.

To the Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer mentioned by Lange on Matthew, p. 130, add: 1. Claus Harms’ eleven Sermons, Kiel, 1838; John Zimmerman and others, Tholuck, four Sermons in the second volume of his Sermons.—The same:—How one in such times as the present should use the Lord’s Prayer, in his Sermons for the Times, 1848.—2. On the Parable, Lisco:—Concerning the persevering entreaty of oppressed citizens of the kingdom: 1. Ground; 2. occasion; 3. power of the same.—The Christian boldness in prayer.—Arndt:—Of the converse of the Christian with his God: 1. That we should pray; 2. what we have to entreat; 3. how our prayer must be fashioned.—The Lord’s Prayer the model prayer of all Christians.—W. Hofacker:—Concerning prayer as the inner pulse of the spiritual life.

Footnotes:

[1]Luk_11:2.—Rec.: [Πἀτερ ἡμῶν ὀ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.] Ἠμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς omitted by Tischendorf, Meyer, Bleek, Tregelles, Alford, as formerly by Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, &c.; supported by B., Cod. Sin. (and L. after ἡμῶν), several sursives, the Vulgate, some MSS. of the Itala, and Origen once.—C. C. S.]

[2][Luk_11:2.—The same critics approve this omission, supported by B., L. (Cod. Sin. inserts the sentence), 2 cursives, all the manuscripts of Luke compared by Origen, the Vulgate, the Armenian version, the Corbeian Itala, and Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine. Lachmann, who otherwise has the Received Text, brackets the words ἐς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γὴς.—C. C. S.]

[3]Luk_11:4.—Rec.: ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. All three additions are, as it appears, taken from the perfect redaction of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, while there are no arguments of sufficient weight to establish their genuineness in Luke. Respecting the state of the question, see Tischendorf ad locum. [The same critics support this omission who approve the two former ones. It has also the authority of B., L., 10 cursives, Vulgate, Coptic, and Armenian versions, Tertullian or Marcion, Jerome, Augustine. It is easy to sec how, if these clauses were originally wanting in Luke, they might have been supplied afterwards from Matthew, to reduce to uniformity the two forms of the Lord’s Prayer, but if they had been original with Luke, no motive could be assigned for their omission. According to the overwhelming weight of critical opinion, therefore, the Lord’s Prayer, as given in Luke, should read thus: Father, Hallowed be Thy name: The kingdom come: Give us day by day our daily bread: And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us: And lead us not into temptation.—C. C. S.]

[4]Luk_11:7.—Van Oosterzee renders this verse as a question: “Would he then !” &c., in which, however, he is not supported by critical authority. The sentence, as Meyer remarks, begins as if to end thus: Would he not be answered: Trouble me not! &c. Nevertheless, I say, &c., but the length of the intervening sentence interrupts the construction.—C. C. S.]

[5][Luk_11:13. [Ὁ Πατὴρ ὁ ἐξ οὑρανοῦ σώσει. The language of this passage is very closely moulded on that of Matthew, and, as Bleek remarks, ὁ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δώσει is to be regarded as a contraction of ὁ ἐν οὐρανῷ δώσει ἐξ ούρανοῦ.—C. C. S.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

HOW TO PRAY

THE PRAYING CHRIST

Luk 11:1.

It is noteworthy that we owe our knowledge of the prayers of Jesus principally to the Evangelist Luke. There is, indeed, one solemn hour of supplication under the quivering shadows of the olive-trees in Gethsemane which is recorded by Matthew and Mark as well; and though the fourth Gospel passes over that agony of prayer, it gives us, in accordance with its ruling purpose, the great chapter that records His priestly intercession. But in addition to these instances the first Gospel furnishes but one, and the second but two, references to the subject. All the others are found in Luke.

I need not stay to point out how this fact tallies with the many other characteristics of the third Gospel, which mark it as eminently the story of the Son of Man. The record which traces our Lord’s descent to Adam rather than to Abraham; which tells the story of His birth, and gives us all we know of the ‘child Jesus’; which records His growth in wisdom and stature, and has preserved a multitude of minute points bearing on His true manhood, as well as on the tenderness of His sympathy and the universality of His work, most naturally emphasises that most precious indication of His humanity-His habitual prayerfulness. The Gospel of the King, which is the first Gospel, or of the Servant, which is the second, or of the Son of God, which is the fourth, had less occasion to dwell on this. Royalty, practical Obedience, Divinity, are their respective themes. Manhood is Luke’s, and he is ever pointing us to the kneeling Christ.

Consider, then, for a moment, how precious the prayers of Jesus are, as bringing Him very near to us in His true manhood. There are deep and mysterious truths involved with which we do not meddle now. But there are also plain and surface truths which are very helpful and blessed. We thank God for the story of His weariness when He sat on the well, and of His slumber when, worn out with a hard day’s work, He slept on the hard wooden pillow in the stern of the fishing-boat among the nets and the litter. It brings Him near to us when we read that He thirsted, and nearer still when the immortal words fall on our wondering ears, ‘Jesus wept.’ But even more precious than these indications of His true participation in physical needs and human emotion, is the great evidence of His prayers, that He too lived a life of dependence, of communion, and of submission; that in our religious life, as in all our life, He is our pattern and forerunner. As the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it, He shows that He is not ashamed to call us brethren by this, that He too avows that He lives by faith; and by His life-and surely pre-eminently by His prayers-declares, I will put my trust in Him.’ We cannot think of Christ too often or too absolutely as the object of faith; and as the hearer of our cries; but we may, and some of us do, think of Him too seldom as the pattern of faith, and as the example for our devotion. We should feel Him a great deal nearer us; and the fact of His manhood would not only be grasped more clearly by orthodox believers, but would be felt in more of its true tenderness, if we gave more prominence in our thoughts to that picture of the praying Christ.

Another point that may be suggested is, that the highest, holiest life needs specific acts and times of prayer. A certain fantastical and overstrained spirituality is not rare, which professes to have got beyond the need of such beggarly elements. Some tinge of this colours the habits of many people who are scarcely conscious of its presence, and makes them somewhat careless as to forms and times of public or of that of private worship. I do not think that I am wrong in saying that there is a growing laxity in that matter among people who are really trying to live Christian lives. We may well take the lesson which Christ’s prayers teach us, for we all need it, that no life is so high, so holy, so full of habitual communion with God, that it can afford to do without the hour of prayer, the secret place, the uttered word. If we are to ‘pray without ceasing,’ by the constant attitude of communion and the constant conversion of work into worship, we must certainly have, and we shall undoubtedly desire, special moments when the daily sacrifice of doing good passes into the sacrifice of our lips. The devotion which is to be diffused through our lives must be first concentrated and evolved in our prayers. These are the gathering-grounds which feed the river. The life that was all one long prayer needed the mountain-top and the nightly converse with God. He who could say, ‘The Father hath not left Me alone, for I do always the things that please Him,’ felt that He must also have the special communion of spoken prayer. What Christ needed we cannot afford to neglect.

Thus Christ’s own prayers do, in a very real sense, ‘teach us to pray.’ But it strikes me that, if we will take the instances in which we find Him praying, and try to classify them in a rough way, we may gain some hints worth laying to heart. Let me attempt this briefly now.

First, then, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as a rest after service.

The Evangelist Mark gives us, in his brief, vivid way, a wonderful picture in his first chapter of Christ’s first Sabbath-day of ministry in Capernaum. It was crowded with work. The narrative goes hurrying on through the busy hours, marking the press of rapidly succeeding calls by its constant reiteration-’straightway,’ ‘immediately,’ ‘forthwith,’ ‘anon,’ ‘immediately.’ He teaches in the synagogue; without breath or pause He heals a man with an unclean spirit; then at once passes to Simon’s house, and as soon as He enters has to listen to the story of how the wife’s mother lay sick of a fever. They might have let Him rest for a moment, but they are too eager, and He is too pitying, for delay. As soon as He hears, He helps. As soon as He bids it, the fever departs. As soon as she is healed, the woman is serving them. There can have been but a short snatch of such rest as such a house could afford. Then when the shadows of the western hills began to fall upon the blue waters of the lake, and the sunset ended the restrictions of the Sabbath, He is besieged by a crowd full of sorrow and sickness, and all about the door they lie, waiting for its opening. He could not keep it shut any more than His heart or His hand, and so all through the short twilight, and deep into the night, He toils amongst the dim, prostrate forms. What a day it had been of hard toil, as well as of exhausting sympathy! And what was His refreshment? An hour or two of slumber; and then, ‘in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed’ {Mar 1:35}.

In the same way we find Him seeking the same repose after another period of much exertion and strain on body and mind. He had withdrawn Himself and His disciples from the bustle which Mark describes so graphically. ‘There were many coming and going, and they had no leisure, so much as to eat.’ So, seeking quiet, He takes them across the lake into the solitudes on the other side. But the crowds from all the villages near its head catch sight of the boat in crossing, and hurry round; and there they all are at the landing-place, eager and exacting as ever. He throws aside the purpose of rest, and all day long, wearied as He was, ‘taught them many things.’ The closing day brings no respite. He thinks of their hunger, before His own fatigue, and will not send them away fasting. So He ends that day of labour by the miracle of feeding the five thousand. The crowds gone to their homes, He can at last think of Himself; and what is His rest? He loses not a moment in ‘constraining’ His disciples to go away to the other side, as if in haste to remove the last hindrance to something that He had been longing to get to. ‘And when He had sent them away, He departed into a mountain to pray’ {Mar 6:46; Mat 14:23}.

That was Christ’s refreshment after His toil. So He blended contemplation and service, the life of inward communion and the life of practical obedience. How much more do we need to interpose the soothing and invigorating influences of quiet communion between the acts of external work, since our work may harm us, as His never did Him. It may disturb and dissipate our communion with God; it may weaken the very motive from which it should arise; it may withdraw our gaze from God and fix it upon ourselves. It may puff us up with the conceit of our own powers; it may fret us with the annoyances of resistance; it may depress us with the consciousness of failure; and in a hundred other ways may waste and wear away our personal religion. The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much work. These two-work and prayer, action and contemplation-are twin-sisters. Each pines without the other. We are ever tempted to cultivate one or the other disproportionately. Let us imitate Him who sought the mountain-top as His refreshment after toil, but never left duties undone or sufferers unrelieved in pain. Let us imitate Him who turned from the joys of contemplation to the joys of service without a murmur, when His disciples broke in on His solitude with, ‘all men seek Thee,’ but never suffered the outward work to blunt His desire for, nor to encroach on the hour of, still communion with His Father. Lord, teach us to work; Lord, teach us to pray.

The praying Christ teaches us to pray as a preparation for important steps.

Whilst more than one Gospel tells us of the calling of the Apostolic Twelve, the Gospel of the manhood alone narrates {Luk 6:12} that on the eve of that great epoch in the development of Christ’s kingdom, ‘He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.’ Then, ‘when it was day,’ He calls to Him His disciples, and chooses the Twelve.

A similar instance occurs, at a later period, before another great epoch in His course. The great confession made by Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ was drawn forth by our Lord to serve as basis for His bestowment on the Apostles of large spiritual powers, and for the teaching, with much increased detail and clearness, of His approaching sufferings. In both aspects it distinctly marks a new stage. Concerning it, too, we read, and again in Luke alone {Luk 9:18}, that it was preceded by solitary prayer.

Thus He teaches us where and how we may get the clear insight into circumstances and men that may guide us aright. Bring your plans, your purposes to God’s throne. Test them by praying about them. Do nothing large or new-nothing small or old either, for that matter-till you have asked there, in the silence of the secret place, ‘Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do?’ There is nothing bitterer to parents than when children begin to take their own way without consulting them. Do you take counsel of your Father, and have no secrets from Him. It will save you from many a blunder and many a heartache; it will make your judgment clear, and your step assured, even in new and difficult ways, if you will learn from the praying Christ to pray before you plan, and take counsel of God before you act.

Again, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as the condition of receiving the Spirit and the brightness of God.

There were two occasions in the life of Christ when visible signs showed His full possession of the Divine Spirit, and the lustre of His glorious nature. There are large and perplexing questions connected with both, on which I have no need to enter. At His baptism the Spirit of God descended visibly and abode on Jesus. At His transfiguration His face shone as the light, and His garments were radiant as sunlit snow. Now on both these occasions our Gospel, and our Gospel alone, tells us that it was whilst Christ was in the act of prayer that the sign was given: ‘Jesus being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended’ {Luk 3:21 - Luk 3:22}. ‘As He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening’ {Luk 9:29}.

Whatever difficulty may surround the first of these narratives especially, one thing is clear, that in both of them there was a true communication from the Father to the man Jesus. And another thing is, I think, clear too, that our Evangelist meant to lay stress on the preceding act as the human condition of such communication. So if we would have the heavens opened over our heads, and the dove of God descending to fold its white wings, and brood over the chaos of our hearts till order and light come there, we must do what the Son of Man did-pray. And if we would have the fashion of our countenances altered, the wrinkles of care wiped out, the traces of tears dried up, the blotches of unclean living healed, and all the brands of worldliness and evil exchanged for the name of God written on our foreheads, and the reflected glory irradiating our faces, we must do as Christ did-pray. So, and only so, will God’s Spirit fill our hearts, God’s brightness flash in our faces, and the vesture of heaven clothe our nakedness.

Again, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as the preparation for sorrow. Here all the three Evangelists tell us the same sweet and solemn story. It is not for us to penetrate further than they carry us into the sanctities of Gethsemane. Jesus, though hungering for companionship in that awful hour, would take no man with Him there; and He still says, ‘Tarry ye here, while I go and pray yonder.’ But as we stand afar off, we catch the voice of pleading rising through the stillness of the night, and the solemn words tell us of a Son’s confidence, of a man’s shrinking, of a Saviour’s submission. The very spirit of all prayer is in these broken words. That was truly ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ which He poured out beneath the olives in the moonlight. It was heard when strength came from heaven, which He used in ‘praying more earnestly.’ It was heard when, the agony past and all the conflict ended in victory, He came forth, with that strange calm and dignity, to give Himself first to His captors and then to His executioners, the ransom for the many.

As we look upon that agony and these tearful prayers, let us not only look with thankfulness, but let that kneeling Saviour teach us that in prayer alone can we be forearmed against our lesser sorrows; that strength to bear flows into the heart that is opened in supplication; and that a sorrow which we are made able to endure is more truly conquered than a sorrow which we avoid. We have all a cross to carry and a wreath of thorns to wear. If we want to be fit for our Calvary-may we use that solemn name?-we must go to our Gethsemane first.

So the Christ who prayed on earth teaches us to pray; and the Christ who intercedes in heaven helps us to pray, and presents our poor cries, acceptable through His sacrifice, and fragrant with the incense from His own golden censer.

‘O Thou by whom we come to God,

The Life, the Truth, the Way;

The path of prayer Thyself hast trod;

Lord! teach us how to pray.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 11

1. The Prayer Given to the Disciples (Luk 11:1-4.)

2. The Friend at Midnight. (Luk 11:5-10)

3. Encouragement to Pray. (Luk 11:11-13)

4. A Demon Cast Out and the Blasphemous Accusation. (Luk 11:14-23)

5. The Return of the Unclean Spirit. (Luk 11:23-26)

6. The Blessedness of Hearing the Word. (Luk 11:27-28)

7. The Sign of Jonas. (Luk 11:29-32)

8. The Single Eye. (Luk 11:33-36)

9. The Pharisees Exposed and Denounced. (Luk 11:37-44)

10. The Lawyers Exposed and Denounced. (Luk 11:45-54.)

Luk 11:1-13

Prayer is here more fully dealt with. We have learned how the perfect Man, the Son of God, who had taken the creature’s place, made use of prayer. Again we see Him praying and when His disciples request Him to teach them to pray, He gives them the form of prayer, commonly known as “the Lord’s prayer.” But the better name is “the Disciples’ Prayer,” for the Lord Jesus had no need to pray, “forgive us our sins.” Many teach that this form of prayer was given twice, once in the Sermon on the Mount and the second time here. This is of course not impossible, but far from probable. If the prayer had been previously given, why should the request be made again? The ending which appears in Matthew, “For thine is the kingdom, etc.,” is omitted here as it ought to be in the Gospel of Matthew, for it was undoubtedly added by someone else. The parable which follows is peculiar to Luke. The parable was spoken to encourage perseverance in prayer, to pray without ceasing, continue in prayer, to always pray and not faint, which are all exhortations to His people. The promise contained in the thirteenth verse was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost. To plead this promise now is unscriptural. The Holy Spirit has been given; He has come and dwells in the believer.

The story of His rejection is followed much in the same way as in Matthew. Luk 11:24-26 are in Matthew’s Gospel applied to the nation. The unclean spirit of idolatry had left them and is to return with seven others. But here the words of the Lord have a wider application, for He speaks of the state of a man. Outward reformation without true conversion and the reception of the nature from above, but brings Satan back with seven other spirits. Self-reformation cannot save.

The chapter closes with the judgments pronounced upon the Pharisees and Lawyers. Luk 11:37-54. He had entered the lawyer’s house as his guest. When the Pharisee marvelled, that He had not washed His hands in the ceremonial way, as commanded by the traditional law, the Lord uttered these solemn woes. They remind us of Mat 23:1-39, but a closer study reveals the fact that the words of judgment Luke reports here were uttered at another occasion entirely. The words in Matthew were uttered in Jerusalem, while the words in Luke were spoken when He was journeying towards Jerusalem.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:1

I. Our Lord seems to have undertaken no great work without earnest prayer for God’s guidance. If we undertook everything in this spirit we should have more success, and more happiness in our success than we have. And it was not merely when He had some special boon to ask that our Saviour prayed; to pray was with Him something more than merely asking for favours—it was to worship and adore the Father, to rise in spirit from the world, and above all bodily cares and wants, and join in spirit that glorious company of angels and Cherubim and Seraphim, who ever live in the light of God’s countenance, and cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God.

II. Consider some general features which ought to belong to prayer, according to our Lord. (1) Christ warned His disciples against the Pharisees; whomsoever they imitated, it must not be those hollow professors with their high pretence and rotten hearts: it must not be those who sought the praise of men, and thought little of the praise of Him who seeth in secret. Any man follows the example of these hypocrites who comes to the house of prayer with any hollow purpose. (2) For the matter of prayer, I will only allude to that advice of our Saviour’s, where He says "Use not vain repetitions." It is chiefly to guard against this danger that the Church has ever used fixed forms of prayer, that no prayers may be offered which are unworthy of God. (3) Again, our Lord taught us that though we are to pray reverently, yet we are to pray earnestly, as those who will take no denial. He spoke the parable of the widow applying to the unjust judge, and who obtained her suit by her constancy, to show us how we ought to pray; and He promises that those things which we ask in faith we certainly shall have. Wherefore it appears that the Spirit which God approves is that of earnestness and perseverance; He does not love coldness and lukewarmness; He loves genuine heartfelt zeal which is ever praying to Him for increased blessings, and ever pressing on, and never satisfied with what has been given, but desiring more abundant supplies.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 1.

Forms of Prayer.

I. That liturgies were of Divine appointment under the Jewish dispensation there can be no question. The songs of Moses and Miriam, and the titles prefixed to a large number in the Book of Psalms, bear evidence of being composed for congregational use. Besides, through the writings of Josephus and other Hebrew historians, no inconsiderable part of the ancient Jewish liturgies have been preserved to us, and a remarkable coincidence has been discovered between the order and method of these early compositions with our own Book of Common Prayer. Unsafe as it might be, as a rule, to base an argument on the silence of Scripture, yet we can hardly suppose that if our Lord had intended that in such an important particular the Christian worship was to differ from the Jewish, He would not have told His disciples so plainly, rather than just join in such pre-composed devotions Himself, and then institute a form, which from being expressed throughout in the plural number, must have been intended for public and social use.

II. Note some objections to prepared forms of private prayer, however spiritual and excellent they may be, if they be used exclusively. (1) It is obvious we are thereby confined in regard to the matter of our prayers; we restrict our conversation with Heaven to a fixed routine of subjects, and preclude the mention of those hourly spiritual experiences which, though unseen, and unknown to the world, make up the great incidents of the soul’s life, and may give, day by day, a new complexion to its prayers. (2) Again, there is a danger lest the exclusive use of forms should have a tendency to deaden the spirit of prayer. It is a question to be entertained calmly, whether the heart be not kept closer to its work when it has to search out of its own experiences and its own feelings the materials of its sacrifice, than when in the prepared human composition the fire and the wood are laid ready to its hand. Words, we know, are but outward things. Words are but the priest’s censer which, whether it be made of gold or of clay, affects not the fragrance of the incense, nor the height to which the cloud ascends. In the estimates of Heaven the tongue of the eloquent, and the lips of the stammering, have a common value, and both are only so far regarded by God as they proceed from an honest heart—as they discover a lowly spirit, as they evidence a strength of faith, as they bespeak an earnest longing for the approval and regards of Heaven.

D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,199.

Forms of Private Prayer—the Uses of them.

I. Let us bear in mind the precept of the wise man: "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God." Prayers framed at the moment are likely to be irreverent. To avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words and rude, half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray from book or memory, and not at random.

II. Forms of prayer are necessary to guard us against the irreverence of wandering thoughts. If we pray without set words (read or remembered), our minds will stray from the subject; other thoughts will cross us, and we shall pursue them; we shall lose sight of His Presence whom we are addressing. This wandering of mind is in good measure prevented, under God’s blessing, by forms of prayer.

III. Next, they are useful as securing us from the irreverence of excited thoughts. If we are encouraging with us an excitement, an unceasing rush and alternation of feelings, and think that this, and this only, is being in earnest in religion, we are harming our minds, and even grieving the peaceful Spirit of God, who would silently and tranquilly work His Divine work in our hearts. This, then, is an especial use of forms of prayer. When we are in earnest, as we ought always to be: viz., to keep us from self-willed earnestness, to still emotion, to calm us, to remind us what and where we are, to lead us to a purer and serener temper, and to that deep unruffled love of God and man, in which is really the fulfilling of the law, and the perfection of human nature.

IV. Forms are necessary to help our memory, and to set before us at once, completely, and in order, what we have to pray for.

V. How short are the seasons which most men have to give to prayer. Before they can collect their memories and minds their leisure is almost over, even if they have the power to dismiss the thoughts of this world, which just before engaged them. Now forms of prayer do this for them. They keep the ground occupied, that Satan may not encroach upon the seasons of devotion.

VI. The Forms of the Church have ever served her children, both to restrain them in their career of sin, and to supply them with ready utterance on their repentance.

VII. Let us recollect for how long a period our prayers have been the standard forms of devotion in the Church of Christ, and we shall gain a fresh reason for loving them, and a fresh source of comfort in using them. They have become sacred from the memory of saints departed who have used them, and whom we hope one day to meet in heaven.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 257.

References: Luk 11:1.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 336; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 220; A. Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 1; A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses, p. 19; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 308. Luk 11:1-13.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 51.

Luk 11:2

The Address of the Lord’s Prayer.

I. This name by which we are commanded to call upon God is one of the most remarkable things in the whole prayer. There are the seeds of it, indeed, in the Old Testament, just as there are seeds of the other truths of the Gospel. Yet, even in those passages of the Old Testament, in which God bears that name, it is rather as the Father of the Jewish people. To fix upon that tender name, to choose it out from all God’s other greater titles, and to appoint it as the special name by which Almighty God is to be addressed by all His sinful creatures, this was Christ’s doing; this privilege we owe to Him.

II. Every privilege has its corresponding duty. Every gift is a talent and a trust, for which we are to make God a return. Let us consider, therefore, what duties the privilege, which Christ has bought for us, of calling God our Father brings with it. (1) The first and chief duty is the behaving to Him as children should behave to their father. If we are aware how great a privilege it is to call God Father, let us prove our sense of it by using it diligently. You need not be afraid of using it too often. Pray as often as ever you will; you cannot weary God with your petitions. To the prayer of the dutiful and godly heart His ear is ever open. (2) The knowledge that our Father is in heaven, and can do whatsoever He pleases, should fill us with faith and a courageous trust in Him. Moreover it should raise our thoughts to heaven, and lead us to think of it and to love it as our home. Though we have never seen heaven, yet we know enough of it from Scripture to enable us to think of it, till our hearts kindle at the thought into an active desire of going thither. We know that heaven is our home, the place we ought to be journeying to, the city of our destination, where our happiness is to consist in seeing our Father, and gazing on Him till we become like Him.

A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 396.

I. The form of address, "Our Father," is remarkable, because it was not the ordinary form of address before Christ came. The idea of a Father is not put forward in the Old Testament as the great all-comprehending idea of God, as it is in the New Testament. For I consider that this is emphatically the character under which God is revealed to us through Christ, namely, that of a Father. Consider (1) what is the meaning and extent of the privilege. We poof sinners, fallen from our first estate, can have no right to call God our Father. Yet our Saviour, when He taught us to pray, bade us say, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Therefore we may come as children, for Christ has given us leave; and I conclude from this permission that the chasm between God and us has been bridged over, that the wound of sin has been healed, that forgiveness of sin is possible, even from a just and jealous God. (2) The way in which we become possessed of this privilege. It was through the sufferings and death of Christ. When, therefore, you use the words of the Lord’s Prayer, and say "Our Father," bear in mind how it has come about that you have been permitted to use these words; by using them you claim the benefits of Christ’s Passion, you address God by a name which Christ, who taught you to use it, purchased with His own blood.

II. "Which art in heaven." The intention of these words is: (1) To impress upon our minds the exceeding majesty of God, and our own smallness as compared with Him; (2) to remind us of God’s power, that we are praying to Him who is able to grant our requests, because He is the great God who governs all things, who by His words created the heavens, and who, by His power, sustains all things which He has made.

III. The address of the Lord’s Prayer is to our Father. Thus the prayer is to the Father, not of me or you only, but of all Christian people; and so the Lord’s Prayer is a witness to the communion which ought to exist between the members of the Christian Church. Thus the Lord’s Prayer brings before us our position as members of a body: it is the voice of a member of the Church, of one bound to his fellows by infinite mysterious ties, of one praying not for himself alone, but bearing upon his heart before God all those who are members of the same mystical body with himself.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 19.

Luk 11:2

He is the best man, the most holy man, the most Christian man, who can use, with the greatest earnestness, these words. For he who would forsake sin and follow holiness, and who would avoid hell and obtain heaven, must have something higher before his eyes than merely his own advantage. The great all-sufficient motive with the full-grown Christian is the glory of God. It is the highest wisdom, as it is the most Christian act, to pray, first of all, that the Name of God may be honoured as it ought to be honoured, and hallowed in the hearts and lives of all men.

I. Think first of the Name of God. The Name of God is spoken of in the Old Testament in a manner calculated to excite the very deepest awe, and the most intense fear of polluting it. As in the case of the Israelites so in all others, the honour of His own most holy Name is the end of all the works of God. And as the glory of God is the guide of His own acts, so that same glory ought to be the end of all that His creatures do; whether they be angels or men, all who have gift of an intelligent soul are bound to make the glory of God the end of all they do.

II. Consider how a person ought to act who wishes to live up to His prayer, that God’s Name may be hallowed. (1) A man does not hallow the Name of God who does not speak of Him most reverently. (2) The man who could hallow the Name of God should be very diligent in publicly worshipping Him; he who is diligent in attending on the public worship of God thereby honours God Himself. (3) Every man who would hallow the Name of God should so manage his whole walk in life, so conduct himself in business, in his work, in whatever he has to do, that it may be clear to all men that the honour of God is the rule of His actions. Christ our Lord said that His disciples ought so to act that men should see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 37.

Luk 11:2

I. What is this kingdom of which, in the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that it may come? The kingdom which John the Baptist spoke of as being at hand implied a great change in God’s government of the world, somewhat in accordance with those words of St. Paul, when he says, speaking of heathen times, "The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." I should conceive, therefore, that, in one sense, the kingdom of God came upon earth with the coming of Christ, because with His coming a new order of things, in some measure, began. God began to show His power, and to influence the world by His Spirit more than He had before.

II. The kingdom of God may also mean the progress of the Church in the world. There is sufficient reason why we should still pray as of old, "Thy kingdom come;" there are, indeed, vast portions of the earth which are not even professedly members of the kingdom. And there are other gods who have part in Christ’s kingdom in this Christian land, and who have a strong hold on these subjects, the flesh, the devil, covetousness, pride, sloth, intemperance. We have yet need to pray that amongst us the Kingdom of God may come.

III. A man who prays that the kingdom of God may come, prays—and if he prays he ought to have it in his heart to wish—that all men and all things may be governed by the laws of Christ, that everything contrary to the spirit of the Gospel may be banished from the world, that all bitterness, malice, evil-speaking, lying, slandering, may be utterly abolished, that all loving of pleasure, rather than loving of God, may be a thing unknown, that all worship of mammon—that is, pursuit of gain only for gain’s sake, may cease, that the Cross of Christ may be in reality the standard by which men measure all things else, that all things in this world may be judged of, not by any partial distorted standard of our own, but by rules such as Christ would approve. The coming of Christ’s kingdom implies all this, and a man is not honest who prays for the coming of that kingdom, and is not ready to accept such a result as this, as the answer to his prayers.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 55.

Luk 11:2

I. How is God’s will done in heaven? (1) God’s will is in heaven done willingly or heartily; that is, His servants there obey Him and do His will, not because they are commanded to do this and that, and dare not disobey, but because they do not wish to disobey; it is their happiness to do God’s will, it is because they do it that they are happy, and they would grieve if they might not do it. (2) Again, God’s will is done in heaven completely, perfectly; whatever is done is His will throughout, with no mixture of the will of any other; unlike earth, where the very best of things have generally, perhaps always, some mixture of evil. (3) Once more, the doing of the will of God in heaven is not only willing and complete, but it is universal; there is no division between those who serve God and those who serve Him not, because all serve Him.

II. The prayer, "Thy will be done," implies a complete surrender of self to the will of God, a desire to do the will of God, and that the will of God may be done whatever it may cost ourselves; a desire that the honour of God and not self may be the rule of action of all men, ourselves included; that the idols which now are worshipped and which are all in some way images of the great world idol, Self, may be utterly abolished, and that in place of them one God only may be worshipped, and that all (ourselves among them) may think nothing good and great but what tends to His glory, nothing contemptible and mean but what opposes His will, and is displeasing in His sight.

III. If we really desire to do God’s will He will enable us to do it. There is no situation in life in which we may not do His will; in the ordinary path of life, in that life of labour to which God has appointed us all, there are abundant opportunities of putting in practice this rule, of doing God’s will and not our own, except so far as our own agrees with His, and though it may be difficult to expel all selfish feelings and all rebellious wishes, yet constant efforts will be blessed, and we shall "grow in grace."

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 73.

References: Luk 11:2.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 222; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, pp. 408, 418, 431; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, pp. 246, 276; E. Thring, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 195; H. N. Grimley, The Prayer of Humanity, pp. 12, 22, 31, 40, 50, 61, 74, 88; C. Stanford, The Lord’s Prayer, pp. 1, 29, 53, 85, 112, 130.

Luk 11:3

I. Dependence and not independence is the true condition of man; dependence upon God for all things—things bodily, things spiritual. Men are not very ready in general to allow this, at least are not ready to recognise it in the only way which is of any value; that is, in their practice, in their everyday life. Men are ever ready to make their plans and their schemes as boldly as though they were masters of their own lives, and as though they lived by some inward independent energy of their own, and did not draw their breath and move their limbs, and eat and drink, and lie down and rise up again, by the power of God. The spirit of the text is that of entire dependence upon God. They acknowledge the Source from which all things come to us, for if even our daily bread is a gift of God, much more must all other blessings which are not so common as daily bread, and they acknowledge this also, that our dependence is from day to day—that is, constantly; that the gifts of today are no guarantee for the gifts of tomorrow, but that we must be daily askers if we would daily have. You will see, therefore, that there is something in the petition of the text much more than a mere petition for food; it acknowledges a principle, it asks in spirit not for bread only, but for all bodily necessaries, all that we can want from day to day for the support and health of our bodies.

II. What lessons, then, do we learn from the prayer of the text? (1) We learn a lesson of reliance on God’s providence. (2) A lesson on Christian simplicity; we pray for bread, and bread only according to our wants. (3) A lesson on the gratitude which is due to God for all His manifold favours to us. For if we pray for daily bread for the time to come, doubtless we must in our hearts give thanks for that which we have already received; and, indeed, thankfulness is a great mark of true earnest religion. (4) As we pray, labour, and are thankful for our daily bread, ten thousand times more ought we to pray, labour for, and be thankful for the bread of eternal life.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 90.

References: Luk 11:3.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 97; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 442; C. Stanford, The Lord’s Prayer, p. 156; H. N. Grimley, The Prayer of Humanity, p. 103.

Luk 11:4

I. The mischief of sin is its universality; it is everywhere, different parts of the world have different products, and men have different characters in different quarters of the world, and different manners and customs, and different colours, but in this one thing they all agree, that sin has tainted them all. And it does not confine itself to any particular age; as soon as a child can walk and speak it is made quite clear that the root of sin is in it, that it only requires favourable circumstances and it will spring up and flourish.

II. And here is the key to the fallen state of our nature; it is this sinfulness which runs through all our acts, except those which are done by the help of God’s Holy Spirit, which renders our condition so deplorable. Sin hath separated us from God; betwixt Him and us there is a great gulf; our wills are not the same; we do not naturally love what He loves, and hate what He hates; we have lost by Adam’s transgression our union with God, we have lost our life in Him; but we have not lost our wills, we have still free wills given us by Almighty God, and have still the heart aspiring to God, though a body of flesh inclining us to sin; we have still the power of shaking the fetters which sin has riveted upon us, and wishing ourselves free, and exulting in the hope of liberty.

III. Sin is a thing which must be punished; it may seem a mysterious thing that God cannot forgive sins, but He cannot—that is, He cannot except through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are to get rid of our sins we must consider what is to be done on God’s part and what on our own. (1) In the first place, we must repent of our sins; repentance must go before forgiveness. (2) And then there must be determination to amend and to forsake sin; it will not do for us to repent of our sins, and then go and do the like again. (3) Our Lord will not allow us to pray for pardon except under certain conditions; namely, that we give pardon ourselves. A man who does not forgive others cannot be forgiven himself, and therefore is not permitted to pray for forgiveness. We need not deceive ourselves by fancying we can obtain pardon of God, so long as there remains an injury unforgiven by us, or any injury that we have done and have not made amends for; we shall only receive the portion of the hypocrites if we approach Almighty God with a prayer for pardon on our lips, and have unforgiveness towards any in our hearts.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 1st series, p. 108.

Luk 11:4

I. Some may say that if temptation is the lot of all men we ought not to pray as in the text: "Lead us not into temptation." This does not follow; sickness is the lot of our race, and yet we pray to God for health, and God will send it to us so far as He sees it to be good for us; indeed we may pray for all things if we use the proviso which our Saviour added to His prayer: "Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done;" and thus we may pray against temptation because it is a dangerous thing and a thing painful to endure, even though we should come off victorious in the end. But, after all, I conceive the spirit of the prayer against temptation is to pray quite as much for grace to withstand temptation as for freedom from it, quite as much for strength when temptation comes as for the happiness of its not coming at all.

II. There is one practical piece of advice which belongs to this subject, which I may give here. When you use the Lord’s Prayer, you pray that you may not be led into temptation, and inasmuch as the flesh is weak, however willing the spirit may be, you do rightly so to pray; but you must remember that you must act consistently with this prayer; that is, if you pray that you may not be led into temptation, you must take care that you do not go into it of your own accord: it is impossible that your prayers can be answered if you do not do what you can towards obtaining an answer to them.

III. This life of ours is a warfare and not a time of rest; rest belongs to the next world, where the evil one may not enter, but to this belongs continual battle and alarm, and it behoves us to be clad in the whole armour of God. He is a Christian of the true stamp who not only prays "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," but who bears this prayer about with him as the motto of his life, and who feels that as it has pleased God to place him in a world where he is liable to temptation, so it is his duty to be continually on his guard to resist temptation; and that as there is in this world an evil one, whose constant aim it is to become his master, and usurp that place which of right belongs to Christ, so it is to be the business of his life ever to fight against this enemy of his soul, and to see that his heart is a pure and undefiled temple, worthy in some degree, at least, of the presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 1st series, p. 143.

References: Luk 11:4.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 40; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, pp. 456, 471; C. Stanford, The Lord’s Prayer, pp. 179, 203, 229; H. N. Grimley, The Prayer of Humanity, pp. 113, 138, 156, 169, 178. Luk 11:5-8.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 341; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 349; R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 330; H. Calderwood, The Parables, p. 133; A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 144. Luk 11:5-10.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. viii., p. 318.

Luk 11:6-13

The Friend at Midnight.

I. The success of prayer is conditioned by the character of the suppliant. Not every kind of asking is acceptable prayer. That which men desire simply for the gratification of malice, or the pampering of appetite, or the satisfying of ambition, or the aggrandising of selfishness, God has nowhere promised to bestow; and unless there be in us the spirit to subordinate everything to the honour of Jehovah, we have no warrant to expect an answer.

II. That which we ask must be in accordance with God’s will. Beneath every genuine supplication there is the spirit of resignation breathed by Jesus Himself in His Gethsemane anguish, "not as I will, but as Thou wilt." God is no mere blind indulgent Father, who gives His children everything they ask. He is wise and kind, and has, withal, the discrimination of omniscience; so He gives only that which will be best; and if we were to view the matter rightly, we should see as much reason to be thankful to Him for a refusal as for an answer to the letter of our prayers.

III. But this condition, connecting itself with the nature of the thing asked, is nearly akin to the third class of conditions which spring out of the purpose and prerogative of God Himself. This is a view of the case which has not been sufficiently attended to by Christians. The Hearer of prayer is not the only relation in which God stands to His people. He is their Father as well; and He is, besides, the moral Governor of the intelligent universe. Therefore He uses His prerogative in answering prayer for moral purposes; and the action which He takes on the petitions of His children is a portion of that discipline to which He subjects them, and by which He trains them into strength and holiness of character.

W. M. Taylor, The Parables of Our Saviour, p. 243.

References: Luk 11:9.—Outlines Sermons to Children, p. 159; E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 61. Luk 11:9, Luk 11:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1091; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 364. Luk 11:10.—R. Case, Short Practical Sermons, p. 32. Luk 11:11-13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 959.

Luk 11:13

I. Whilst prayer is described in the Bible as a positive duty, man’s inability to pray acceptably of himself is stated in the strongest and most unequivocal terms. But if such be the nature of prayer he alone who has the Spirit can really pray. It would seem to follow that the gift of the Holy Spirit must precede all effectual asking for that gift, and that consequently there may be but little worth in such promises as that of our text. It is amongst the most frequent of pulpit addresses, that the unconverted must seek the aid of God’s Spirit by prayer, and that moved by fear of the wrath on which the preacher has poured all the energy of his descriptions, they shall go straightway to their closets and entreat forgiveness of the Almighty. But what becomes of all this if the unconverted have no power of praying—if they are not in a condition to ask for God’s Spirit, inasmuch as the asking presupposes them to have it already? There is a difficulty here, but one which may be readily overcome; for long before the Spirit is possessed, as a renewing agent, He may be dwelling in man’s breast as a striving agent. He does so probably in every man, certainly in every man who has been baptized into Christ. If the Spirit strive, as He often does, by exciting a desire after conversion, and by urging the duty of praying for conversion; and if the man on whom the agency works, cherish the desire and fall down on his knees; shall we not have the offering of acceptable petition, and that by an unrenewed man, and nevertheless through the operations of the Holy Ghost?

II There seems nothing wanting in this argument but a fuller demonstration that the Holy Ghost does indeed strive with unconverted men. We will fetch this fuller demonstration from the power and the agency of conscience. There is something in every man which tells him of the rightness of virtue and of the wrongness of vice, which spreads over the whole soul a feeling of satisfaction when he does what it directs, and a feeling of remorse and uneasiness whenever there is the hardihood to thwart its decisions. If you took away conscience and introduced the striving agency of God’s Spirit, there would practically be the same circumstances in human condition; so that the man who has a conscience, a conscience which warns him back when he would overstep the boundary line of virtue, is situated as another would be, who, without a conscience, was striven with by the Spirit. It is, therefore, in perfect consistency with all those doctrines of Scripture, which represent man as himself incapable of supplication that we press on the unconverted the duty of praying for conversion, and encourage them by the declaration of the text.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,018.

References: Luk 11:13.—A. Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 48; Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 210; Ibid., vol. xxi., p. 362; Ibid., vol. xii., pp. 94, 193; Homilist, vol. i., p. 370; new series, vol. iv., p. 120.

Luk 11:14

I. "Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb." What is the message to us? Look at the Greek word here translated "dumb." That Greek word means, in its first use, blunt, obtuse; and so a blunted or lamed man in tongue. Mark here, then, the first lesson enshrined in this little word. The power of speech was in that tongue, but that power was not presently available. The machinery of articulation was perfect, had once been used, but an intruding hand had grasped the driving-wheel, and the machinery was still. We are shown beyond all question that the man was under the possession of an intrusive force, how the once invited guest had at length become the domineering tormentor, how the once permitted suggestion had in course of time changed into the tyrant habit of a captive life. It is always so with permitted sin. The incarnation of the blessed God has greatly weakened the force of evil. And yet, is there not here an accurate picture of what is going on around us? Allowed sin always masters a man in time. The man may loathe his master, yet he obeys him; he may fear his master, yet still he does his hateful bidding.

II. The change wrought by the tempter is threefold; a blunted tongue, a defective hearing, a dulled mind. All these are implied in that one Greek word. The silencing process employed by Satan is a gradual process—a slight impeding of the freedom of action—a little poison of sin which gently impedes the circulation of the spiritual life. So surely as the unused muscle or the long-bandaged limb loses strength, so does the impeded soul lose its power of communing with God, a neglected faculty becomes a withering faculty. A religion that becomes mechanical stops of itself. And of such, what, then, is the cure? The old heathen philosophy honestly confessed that it could find no cure. "Plato," said Socrates, "perhaps the gods can forgive deliberate sin, but I do not see how." In the life and death of Christ the Saviour the mystery is solved, and the cure is made plain. We can look up to Christ even when our spirits are most dull, even when our prayers are most heavy, even when the whole soul seems weighed down, oppressed, silenced by the sin in our nature. We can look up to Him when we begin to struggle for the mastery with the bad habit of a lifetime, with the coldness of years, with the carelessness of a long duration. We can bring ourselves before Him, relying on His words of faithful promise, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

B. Wilberforce, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 209.

References: Luk 11:14.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 223; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 60. Luk 11:14-16.—G. G. Bradley, Christian world Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 193. Luk 11:14-28.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 58; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 144. Luk 11:14-54.—W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 190. Luk 11:20.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 125; Ibid., vol. v., p. 80. Luk 11:21.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 112; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 213. Luk 11:21, Luk 11:22.—Ibid., vol. iv., p. 89. Luk 11:21-26.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 613. W. L. Alexander, Good Words, vol. ii., pp. 243-7; Ibid., vol. vi., p. 660.

Luk 11:23

(with Luk 9:49-50)

The Antagonism of Indifference.

I. When we place these two sayings side by side, it seems clear enough from the very fact of its solemn utterance as a maxim universal to all, and even from the critical circumstances which called it forth, that the first of my texts is to be taken as the leading and the governing principle. It was spoken at a time when our Lord’s mission, now far advanced, was forcing itself upon its enemies as a terrible reality, and when His miracles were startling into adoration the wondering people. Then the Pharisees spoke out a cavil which, St. Matthew tells us, had been uttered before: "He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." The words of the text hardly seem to be addressed to these bitter and determined enemies. It was on the people that the stern incisive words of the text broke in like the sound of a trumpet, warning them that they must not idly accept a suspension of belief—that they must make up their mind, and take their side. The other occasion was a very different one. Our Lord accepted what He knew to be a real but an imperfect homage—a homage of a true belief, although that belief had not led, as it ought to have led, to the great sacrifice of following the Lord. He would give it at least some crumbs from the table of His blessing; He would cast over it, at least, the skirts of a negative protection. "No man," said He, "who can work a miracle in My Name will lightly speak evil of Me. He that is not against us is on our side."

II. In these divided days, the call to do is louder than ever. We can recognise the true service of God, even if it be not in what we think the most excellent way. Let us hold our own line—the more distinctly, the more fervently, the more resolutely, the better; and yet, unless it absolutely cross the path of our duty, we need not forbid, and we need not thwart, it. In that threefold battle for truth, for right, for godliness, there is room enough and there is work enough for all.

Bishop Barry, Penny Pulpit, No. 800.

References: Luk 11:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 158; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 213. Luk 11:24-26.—E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 96. Luk 11:26.—J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 134. Luk 11:27.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 233. Luk 11:27, Luk 11:28.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1920; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 176; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College, p. 206; T. C. Finlayson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 24. Luk 11:28.—T. Islip, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 110. Luk 11:29.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 898. Luk 11:30-32.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 115. Luk 11:31.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1600; F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons, p. 199. Luk 11:33.—S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 252; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 354.

Luk 11:35

I. Through the avenues of conscience, which is to the soul what the eye is to the body, communications from God are always pouring in. In nature, in providence, but still more by His Word, and by His own inward grace, He acts upon the man. The understanding is formed, the reason is directed, the affections are moved, the will is urged, holy influences stream in upon the inner being. And this process, up to a certain point at least in every man’s life, is continually going on. To what a height this inward light is capable of being raised by culture it is impossible for us to estimate, seeing no man has ever cherished it as much as he might. But did we pray, and study, and listen, and obey the still small voice as we ought, there would be no limit to the degree in which the judgment would be directed, the heart softened, the will conformed, the thoughts made sunny, the future assured, the love of God dominant, and heaven foretasted. For if the eye be single, the whole body is full of light.

II. But it is a truth too certain, that all this light, with which God beams upon us, is capable, not only of being hindered and resisted and destroyed, but, worse than that, of being actually converted into a deeper darkness—becoming a medium of spiritual blindness, or casting the soul into a more utter night. For there is no death so locked as that which once lived the most—there is no blackness so black as the shrouded day— there is no soul so dark as the soul that was once illumined. The grieved light goes away from some men, and no marvel now what step they take in the dark, when the Holy Ghost is gone. It is like a traveller, overtaken by the night in a dark wood. What was clear is now misty and shrouded. The precious jewel looks like a stone—or the stones may look like the most precious jewels. Shadows pass in the wood for substances, and substances for shadows. Their outline is undefined—there is no faculty to separate between the real and the false—between the vile and the good. But do not say of any one you love, do not say of yourself, that there is a night set in, which must last for ever. If there be still one latent consciousness of this light, and if there be in your heart the slightest wish for that light again, I do not fear to say that the morn is breaking, and I see the horizon tipped with light for you. For that Spirit lives in your soul, and is the same, who once moved upon just such a chaos, and just such a darkness as is going on in your mind, and He said to it, "Let there be light": and there was light.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1868, p. 28.

References: Luk 11:35.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. x., p. 150. Luk 11:36.—Philpott, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 78. Luk 11:37-47.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 15; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., pp. 314, 316; E. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 194. Luk 11:40.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 219. Luk 11:41.—J. E. Tonge, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. v., p. 318. Luk 11:44.—D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 191. Luke 11—F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 172.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11:1 praying: See study note on 3:21.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 11:1. Ὡς ἐπαύσατο, when He ceased) Inasmuch as it was their duty not to interrupt Him before He had ceased.—τῶν μαθητῶν, of His disciples) Who either had heard the words of the Lord whilst praying, or at least had seen His most sweet and impressive gestures.—δίδαξον, teach) By this very fact they already pray, whilst in the act of begging that they should be taught how to pray. Most gratifying it was to the Master to be solicited that He should teach them, as also this very act of teaching. John had taught his disciples to pray; but not in such a way as that they should call God Father (although in other respects the formula of John was not widely different from the formula of Christ): it was a privilege reserved peculiarly to the Son of God to give this power to His disciples. Already He had given them it, in Mat 6:9-10, but had suffered somewhat of an interval to elapse [during which it lay in abeyance], exhorting the disciples in common to pray, and leaving them to the ordinary custom of praying according to the common Isrealitish formula (for otherwise the disciples would not have quoted the example of John teaching his disciples to pray), until they had made sufficient progress in the knowledge of the Father and of the Son: when once this was accomplished, He then at last threw open to them the richest fulness of access to pray to the Father in the name of Himself, the Son; see Joh 16:23.—ἡμᾶς, us) The cause of the disciples was joint and common to them all: he who was making the request was making it even for others, as well as on his own behalf.—καὶ Ἰωάννης, John also) A good teacher ought even most especially to teach his own followers to pray aright. See Bernard’s “Scala Claustralium.” He cannot teach, who is himself ignorant [how to pray]. Moreover, there are degrees in prayer. John had taught how to pray; Christ also had taught it: now, when requested, He still further teaches those already far advanced.—[τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ, his disciples) Andrew, for instance, had been one of them (one of John’s disciples), John 1—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_11:1-4. See on Mat_6:9 ff. In Luke it is only apparent that the Lords Prayer is placed too late,[141] to the extent of his having passed it over in the Sermon on the Mount, and from another source related a later occasion for it (which, according to Baur, indeed, he only created from his own reflection). Hence its position in Luke is not to be described as historically more correct (Calvin, Schleiermacher, Olshausen, Neander, Ewald, Bleek, Weizsäcker, Schenkel, and others), but both the positions are to be regarded as correct.[142] Comp. on Mat_6:9. So far as concerns the prayer itself, we have the full flow of its primitive fulness and excellence in Matthew. The peculiar and shorter form in Luke (see the critical remarks) is one of the proofs that the apostolic church did not use the Lords Prayer as a formula.

The matter of fact referred to in καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης κ.τ.λ. is altogether unknown. Probably, however, Johns disciples had a definitely formulated prayer given them by their teacher.

The τὶς τῶν μαθητῶν is to be regarded as belonging to the wider circle of disciples. After so long and confidential an intercourse of prayer with the Lord Himself, one of the Twelve would hardly have now made the request, or had need to do so. Probably it was a later disciple, perhaps formerly one of Johns disciples, who, at the time of the Sermon on the Mount, was not yet in the company of Jesus. The sight, possibly also the hearing of the Lord praying, had now deeply stirred in him the need which he expresses, and in answer he receives the same prayer in substance which was given at an earlier stage to the first disciples.

αὐτοῖς, Luk_11:2 : to the disciples who were present, one of whom had made the request, Luk_11:1. ἐπιούσιον] crastinum, see on Mat_6:11.[143]

ΤῸ ΚΑΘʼ ἩΜΈΡΑΝ] needed day by day, daily. See Bernhardy, p. 329.

καὶ γὰρ αὐτοί] The special consideration placed before God for the exercise of His forgiveness, founded in the divine order of grace (Mat_6:14; Mar_11:25), is here more directly and more strongly expressed than in Matthew.

ἈΦΊΟΜΕΝ] (see the critical remarks) from the form ἈΦΊΩ., Ecc_2:18; Mar_1:34; Mar_11:16. See generally, Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 174.

παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν] to every one, when he is indebted to us (in an ethical sense). Comp. Winer, p. 101 [E. T. 138]. The article before ὈΦΕΊΛΟΝΤΙ is too weakly attested, and is a grammatical addition.

[141] Schenkel, p. 391, transposes the circumstance of the giving of the prayer to the disciples even to the period after the arrival in Judaea, since, indeed, the scene at Bethany, Luk_10:38 f., was already related. But Luke did not think of Bethany at all as the locality of this scene.

[142] Without, however, by means of harmonistic violence, doing away with the historical difference of the two situations, as does Ebrard, p. 356 f. In Luke, time, place, and occasion are different from what they are in Matthew, comp. Luk_6:17 ff.

[143] The attempt of Hitzig (in the Theol. Jahrb. p. 1854, 131) to explain the enigmatical word, to wit, by ἐπὶ ἴσου, according to which it is made to mean, the nourishment equivalent to the hunger, is without any real etymological analogy, and probably was only a passing fancy. Weizsäcker, p. 407, is mistaken in finding as a parallel the word ὑπεξούσιος in respect of the idea panem necessarium. This, indeed, does not come from οὐσία, but from ἐξουσία, and this latter from ἔξεστι. Moreover, the מחר of the Gospel to the Hebrews cannot betray that the first understanding of the word had become lost at an early date, but, considering the high antiquity of this Gospel, it can only appear as a preservation of the first mode of understanding it, especially as the Logia was written in Hebrew. In order to express the idea: necessary (thus ἀναγκαῖος, ἐπιτήδειος), there assuredly was no need of any free and, for that purpose, faulty word-making.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 11:1-13 contain a lesson on prayer, consisting of two parts: first , a form of prayer suggesting the chief objects of desire (Luk 11:1-4 ); second , an argument enforcing perseverance in prayer (Luk 11:5-13 ). Whether the whole was spoken at one time or not cannot be ascertained; all one can say is that the instructions are thoroughly coherent and congruous, and might very well have formed a single lesson.

Luk 11:1-4 . The Lord’s Prayer with a historical introduction (Mat 6:7-15 ). ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ : neither the place nor the time of this incident is indicated with even approximate exactness. It is simply stated that it happened when Jesus was at a certain place, and when He was praying ( προσευχόμενον ). Why the narrative comes in here does not clearly appear. I have suggested elsewhere ( The Parabolic Teaching of Christ , Preface to the Third Edition) that the parable of the Good Samaritan , the story of Martha and Mary and the Lesson on Prayer form together a group having for their common heading: “at school with Jesus,” exhibiting under three types the scholar’s burden, the Teacher’s meekness, and the rest-bringing lesson, so giving us Lk.’s equivalent for Mt.’s gracious invitation (chap. Luk 11:28-30 ). I am now inclined to think that Schola Christi might be the heading not merely for these three sections but for the whole division from Luk 9:51 to Luk 18:14 , the contents being largely didactic. τις τ . μαθ .: a later disciple, Meyer thinks, who had not heard the Teaching on the Hill, and who got for answer to his request a repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, given by Mt. as part of the Sermon on the Mount. This conjecture must go for what it is worth. καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης : the fact here stated is not otherwise known: no trace of a Johannine liturgy; but the statement in itself is very credible: prayer like fasting reduced to system in the Baptist’s circle.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPS. Luk 9:51 to Luk 18:31

This section forms a great episode in St Luke, which may be called the departure for the final conflict, and is identical with the journey (probably to the Feast of the Dedication, Joh 10:22) which is partially touched upon in Mat 18:1 to Mat 20:16 and Mar 10:1-31. It contains many incidents recorded by this Evangelist alone, and though the recorded identifications of time and place are vague, yet they all point (Luk 9:51, Luk 13:22, Luk 17:11, Luk 10:38) to a slow, solemn, and public progress from Galilee to Jerusalem, of which the events themselves are often grouped by subjective considerations. So little certain is the order of the separate incidents, that one writer (Rev. W. Stewart) has made an ingenious attempt to shew that it is determined by the alphabetic arrangement of the leading Greek verbs (ἀγαπᾶν, Luk 10:25-42; αἰτεῖν, Luk 11:1-5; Luk 11:8-13, &c.). Canon Westcott arranges the order thus: The Rejection of the Jews foreshewn; Preparation, Luk 9:43 to Luk 11:13; Lessons of Warning, Luk 11:14 to Luk 13:9; Lessons of Progress, Luk 13:10 to Luk 14:24; Lessons of Discipleship, Luk 14:25 to Luk 17:10; the Coming End, Luk 17:10 to Luk 18:30.

The order of events after ‘the Galilaean spring’ of our Lord’s ministry on the plain of Gennesareth seems to have been this: After the period of flight among the heathen or in countries which were only semi-Jewish, of which almost the sole recorded incident is the healing of the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mat 15:21-28) He returned to Peraea and fed the four thousand. He then sailed back to Gennesareth, but left it in deep sorrow on being met by the Pharisees with insolent demands for a sign from heaven. Turning His back once more on Galilee, He again travelled northwards; healed a blind man at Bethsaida Julias; received St Peter’s great confession on the way to Caesarea Philippi; was transfigured; healed the demoniac boy; rebuked the ambition of the disciples by the example of the little child; returned for a brief rest in Capernaum, during which occurred the incident of the Temple Tax; then journeyed to the Feast of Tabernacles, in the course of which journey occurred the incidents so fully narrated by St John (Joh 7:1 to Joh 10:21). The events and teachings in this great section of St Luke seem to belong mainly, if not entirely, to the two months between the hasty return of Jesus to Galilee and His arrival in Jerusalem, two months afterwards, at the Feast of Dedication;—a period respecting which St Luke must have had access to special sources of information.

For fuller discussion of the question I must refer to my Life of Christ, II. 89–150.

Luk 11:1-13. THE LORD’S PRAYER. PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER

1. καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον. The better order is ‘as he was in a certain place, praying.’ The extreme vagueness of these expressions shews that St Luke did not possess a more definite note of place or of time; but if we carefully compare the parallel passages of Mat 12:22-50; Mat 15:1-20; Mar 3:22-35, it becomes probable that this and the next chapter are entirely occupied with the incidents and teachings of one great day of open and decisive rupture with the Pharisees shortly before our Lord ceased to work in Galilee, and that they do not belong to the period of the journey through Peraea. This great day of conflict was marked (1) by the prayer of Jesus and His teaching the disciples what and how to pray; (2) by the healing of the dumb demoniac; (3) by the invitation to the Pharisee’s house, the deadly dispute which the Pharisees there originated, and the terrible denunciation consequently evoked; (4) by the sudden gathering of a multitude, and the discourses and incidents of chapter 12. For further details and elucidations I must refer to the Life of Christ.

προσευχόμενον. Probably at early dawn, and in the standing attitude adopted by Orientals.

καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης ἐδίδαξεν τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ. The form of prayer taught by St John has perished. Terrena caelestibus cedunt, Tert.: Joh 3:30. It was common for Jewish Rabbis to deliver such forms to their disciples, and a comparison of them (e.g. of “the 18 Benedictions”) with the Lord’s Prayer is deeply instructive.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

11:1-13.] Jesus teaches the disciples to pray. The locality and time of the following incident are alike indefinite. The only limits are those of the great journey which is the subject of this section. There is no reason for supposing this to be the only occasion on which the Lord delivered this prayer to His disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount, it stands in close connexion with what goes before;—and here also. In so weighty a summary of His teaching as that was, He was not likely, when speaking of prayer, to omit it;—when asked by His disciples to teach them to pray, He was not likely to depart from the form once given them. Such are ordinary probabilities, antecedent to every question affecting the two Gospels: and those critics who throw aside all such, are far more prejudiced in reality, than those who allow them full weight. “The peculiar and abridged form in Luke,” says Meyer, “is a proof that the apostolic Church did not use the Lord’s prayer as a form.” Rather, we may say, a proof of the fidelity with which our Evangelist reproduced his original reports, not correcting them as others after him did (see var. readd.) to suit the forms most probably in use. If the apostolic Church did not use the Lord’s Prayer as a form,—when did its use begin, which we find in every known Liturgy? (See Bingham, Antiqq xiii. 7.)

1. καθ. κ. Ἰω.…] Of this fact we know nothing beyond the allusion here.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11:1-13. § On Prayer. Lk. shows no knowledge of time or place, and it is possible that the paragraph ought to be placed earlier in the ministry. Mt. places the giving of the Lord’s Prayer much earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount (6:5-15). Both arrangements may be right. Christ may have delivered the Prayer once spontaneously to a large number of disciples, and again at the request of a disciple to a smaller group, who were not present on the first occasion. But if the Prayer was delivered only once, then it is Lk. rather than Mt. who gives the historic occasion (Neander, De Wette, Holtzmann, Weiss, Godet, etc. See Page, Expositor, 3rd series, vii. p. 433), Mt. might insert it to exemplify Christ’s teaching on prayer. Lk. would not invent this special incident.

The section has three divisions, of which the second and third belong to the same occasion: the Lord’s Prayer (1-4); the Friend at Midnight (5-8); Exhortation to Perseverance in Prayer (9-13).

1-4. The Lord’s Prayer. For abundant literature see Herzog, Pro_2 iv. p. 772; Keim, Jes. of Naz. iii. p. 337. For the liturgical use of the Prayer see D. Chr. Ant. 2 p. 1056; Kraus, Real-Enc. d. Chr. Alt. i. p. 562.

Note the mark of Luke’s style: ἐγέετο, ἐν τῷ εἶναι, εἶναι προσευχόμενον, εἶπεν πρός εἶπεν δέ, τὸ καθʼ ὴμέραν, αὐτοί, παντί. The last three, which are in the Prayer itself, point to the conclusion that at least some of the differences in wording between this form and that in Mt. are due to Lk., and that the form in Mt. better represents the original, which would be in Aramaic. The differences cannot be accounted for by independent translation The Greek of the two forms is too similar for that, especially in the use of the perplexing word ἐπιούσιος. Both Evangelists must have had the Prayer in Greek. F. H. Chase supposes that the disciples adapted the Prayer for use on special occasions, either by alterations or additions, and that both forms exhibit the Prayer as changed for liturgical purposes, ἐπιούσιος being one of these later features (Texts & Studies, vol. i. No. 3, Camb. 1891).

1. προσευχόμενον. See Introd. § 6 i. b. That this was at dawn, or at one of the usual hours of prayer, is conjecture. Nothing is known of a form of prayer taught by the Baptist; but Rabbis sometimes drew up such forms for their disciples.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. Prayer: Luk 11:1-13.

Continuing still to advance leisurely, the Lord remained faithful to His habit of prayer. He was not satisfied with that constant direction of soul toward His Father, to which the meaning of the command, Pray without ceasing, is often reduced. There were in His life special times and positive acts of prayer. This is proved by the following words: When he ceased praying. It was after one of those times, which no doubt had always something solemn in them for those who surrounded Him, that one of His disciples, profiting by the circumstance, asked Him to give a more special directory on the subject of prayer. Holtzmann is just enough to protest against this preface, Luk 11:1, being involved in the wholesale rejection which modern criticism visits on those short introductions of Luke. He finds a proof of its authenticity in the detail so precisely stated: “Teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” It is, according to him, one of the cases in which the historical situation was expressly stated in the Logia.

The Lord’s Prayer, as well as the instructions about prayer which follow, are placed by Matthew in the course of the Sermon on the Mount (chap. 6 and 7). Gess thinks that this model of prayer may have been twice given forth. Why might not a disciple, some months after the Sermon on the Mount, have put to Jesus the request which led Him to repeat it? And as to the context in Matthew, Luk 20:47 proves that much speaking belonged as much to the prayers of the Pharisees as to those of the heathen. That is true; but the prolixity to which the Lord’s prayer is opposed in the Sermon on the Mount, and by means of which the worshipper hopes to obtain a hearing, has nothing to do with that ostentation before men which Jesus stigmatizes in Matthew 6 as characterizing the righteousness of the Pharisees. And the repetition of this model of prayer, though not impossible, is far from probable. What we have here, therefore, is one of those numerous elements, historically alien to the context of the Sermon on the Mount, which are found collected in this exposition of the new righteousness. The reflections regarding prayer, Matthew 7, belong to a context so broken, that if the connections alleged by commentators show to a demonstration what association of ideas the compiler has followed in placing them here, they cannot prove that Jesus could ever have taught in such a manner. In Luke, on the contrary, the connection between the different parts of this discourse is as simple as the occasion is natural. Here, again, we find the two evangelists such as we have come to know them: Matthew teaches, Luke relates.

This account embraces: 1 st. The model of Christian prayer (Luk 11:1-4); 2 d. An encouragement to pray thus, founded on the certainty of being heard (Luk 11:5-13).

1 st. Luk 11:1-4. The Model of Prayer.—“And it came to pass, that as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Father, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; 3 Give us day by day our needful bread; 4 And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.” It was the custom among the Jews to pray regularly three times a day. John had kept up the practice, as well as that of fasting (Luk 11:33); and it was doubtless with a view to this daily exercise that he had given a form to his disciples.

In the words, when ye pray, say, the term προσεύχεσθαι, to pray, denotes the state of adoration, and the word say, the prayer formally expressed.

It is evident that this order, when ye pray, say, does not mean that the formula was to be slavishly repeated on every occasion of prayer; it was the type which was to give its impression to every Christian prayer, but in a free, varied, and spontaneous manner. The distinctive characteristio of this formulary is the filial spirit, which appears from the first in the invocation, Father; then in the object and order of the petitions. Of the five petitions which the Lord’s Prayer includes in Luke, two bear directly on the cause of God—they stand at the head; three to the wants of man—they occupy the second place. This absolute priority given to divine interests implies an emptying of ourselves, a heavenly love and zeal which are not natural to man, and which suppose in us the heart of a true child of God, occupied above all things with the interests of his heavenly Father. After having thus forgotten himself, and become lost as it were in God, the Christian comes back to himself; but as it is in God that he finds himself again, he does not find himself alone. He contemplates himself as a member of God’s family, and says thenceforth: we, and not I. The fraternal spirit becomes, in the second part of his prayer, the complement of the filial spirit which dictated the first; intercession is blended with personal supplication. The Lord’s Prayer is thus nothing else than the summary of the law put into practice; and this summary so realized in the secrecy of the heart, will naturally pass thence into the entire life.

It appears certain from the MSS. that in the text of Luke the invocation ought to be reduced to the single word Father. The following words, which art in heaven, are a gloss taken from Matthew, but agreeable, no doubt, to the real tenor of our Lord’s saying. In this title Father there is expressed the double feeling of submission and confidence. The name is found in the Old Testament only in Isa 63:16 (comp. Psa 103:13), and is employed only in reference to the nation as a whole. The pious Israelite felt himself the servant of Jehovah, not His child. The filial relationship which the believer sustains to God rests on the incarnation and revelation of the Son. Luk 10:22: “He to whom the Son will reveal Him....” Comp. Joh 1:12.

The first two petitions relate, not to the believer himself, or the world which surrounds him, but to the honour of God; it is the child of God who is praying. Wetstein has collected a large number of passages similar to those two petitions, derived from Jewish formularies. The Old Testament itself is filled with like texts. But the originality of this first part of the Lord’s Prayer is not in the words; it is in the filial feeling which is here expressed by means of those already well-known terms.

The name of God denotes, not His essence or His revelation, as is often said, but rather the conception of God, whatever it may be, which the worshipper bears in his consciousness

His reflection in the soul of His creatures. Hence the fact that this name dwells completely only in One Being, in Him who is the adequate image of God, and who alone knows Him perfectly; that One of whom God says, Exo 23:21, “My name is in Him.” Hence the fact that this name can become holier than it is — be hallowed, rendered holy. What unworthy conceptions of God and His character still reign among men! The child of God prays Him to assert His holy character effectually in the minds of men, in order that all impure idolatry, gross or refined, as well as all pharisaic formalism, may for ever come to an end, and that every human being may exclaim with the seraphim, in rapt adoration: Holy, holy, holy! (Isaiah 6) The Imper. Aor. indicates a series of acts by which this result shall be brought about.

The holy image of God once shining in glory within the depths of the heart, the kingdom of God can be established there. For God needs only to be well known in order to reign. The term kingdom of God denotes an external and social state of things, but one which results from an inward and individual change. This petition expresses the longing of the child of God for that reconciled and sanctified humanity within the bosom of which the will of the Father will be done without opposition. The aor. ἐλθέτω, come, comprises the whole series of historical facts which will realize this state of things. The imperatives, which follow one another in the Lord’s Prayer with forcible brevity, express the certainty of being heard.

The third petition, “Thy will be...,” which is found in the T. R., following several MSS., is certainly an importation from Matthew. It is impossible to discover any reason why so many MSS. should have rejected it in Luke. In Matthew it expresses the state of things which will result from the establishment of the kingdom of God over humanity so admirably, that there is no reason for doubting that it belongs to the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus uttered it. The position of this petition between the two preceding in a passage of Tertullian, may arise either from the fact that it was variously interpolated in Luke, or from the fact that, in consequence of the eschatological sense which was given to the term kingdom of God, it was thought right to close the first part of the prayer with the petition which related to that object.

Ver. 3. From the cause of God, the worshipper passes to the wants of God’s family. The connection is this: “And that we may be able ourselves to take part in the divine work for whose advancement we pray, Give us, Forgive us,” etc.

In order to serve God, it is first of all necessary that we live. The Fathers in general understood the word bread in a spiritual sense: the bread of life (John 6); but the literal sense seems to us clearly to flow from the very general nature of this prayer, which demands at least one petition relating to the support of our present life. Jesus, who with His apostles lived upon the daily gifts of His Father, understood by experience, better perhaps than many theologians, the need which His disciples would have of such a prayer. No poor man will hesitate about the sense which is to be given to this petition.

The word ἐπιούσιος is unknown either in profane or sacred Greek. It appears, says Origen, to have been invented by the evangelists. It may be taken as derived from ἔπειμι, to be imminent, whence the participle ἡ ἐπιοῦσα (ἡμέρα), the coming day (Pro 27:1; Act 7:26, et al.). We must then translate: “Give us day by day next day’s bread.” This was certainly the meaning given to the petition by the Gospel of the Hebrews, where this was rendered, according to Jerome, by לֶחֶםמָחָר, to-morrow’s bread. Founding on the same grammatical meaning of ἐπιούσιος, Athanasius explains it: “The bread of the world to come.” But those two meanings, and especially the second, are pure refinements. The first is not in keeping with Mat 6:34: “Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” Comp. Exo 16:19 et seq. It is therefore better to regard ἐπιούσιος as a compound of the substantive οὐσία, essence, existence, goods. No doubt ἐπι ordinarily loses its ι when it is compounded with a word beginning with a vowel. But there are numerous exceptions to the rule. Thus ἐπιεικής, ἐπίουρος (Homer), ἐπιορκεῖν, ἐπιετής (Polybius). And in the case before us, there is a reason for the irregularity in the tacit contrast which exists between the word and the analogous compound περιούσιος, superfluous. “Give us day by day bread sufficient for our existence, not what is superfluous.” The expression, thus understood, exactly corresponds to that of Proverbs (Pro 30:8), חקי לחם, food convenient for me, literally, the bread of my allowance, in which the term חֹק, H2976, statutum, is tacitly opposed to the superfluity, περιούσιον, which is secretly desired by the human heart; and it is this biblical expression of which Jesus probably made use in Aramaic, and which should serve to explain that of our passage. It has been inferred, from the remarkable fact that the two evangelists employ one and the same Greek expression, otherwise altogether unknown, that one of the evangelists was dependent on the other, or that both were dependent on a common Greek document. But the very important differences which we observe in Luke and Matthew, between the two editions of the Lord’s Prayer, contain one of the most decisive refutations of the two hypotheses. What writer would have taken the liberty wilfully and arbitrarily to introduce such modifications into the text of a formulary beginning with the words: “When ye pray, say...”? The differences here, still more than anywhere else, must be involuntary. It must therefore be admitted that this Greek term common to both was chosen to translate the Aramaic expression, at the time when the primitive oral tradition was reproduced in Greek for the numerous Jews speaking that language who dwelt in Jerusalem and Palestine (Act 6:1 et seq.). This translation, once fixed in the oral tradition, passed thence into our Gospels.

Instead of day by day, Matthew says σήμερον, this day. Luke’s expression, from its very generality, does not answer so well to the character of real and present supplication. Matthew’s form is therefore to be preferred. Besides, Luke employs the present δίδου, which, in connection with the expression day by day, must designate the permanent act: “Give us constantly each day’s bread.” The aor. δός, in Matthew, in connection with the word this day, designates the one single and momentary act, which is preferable.

What a reduction of human requirements to their minimum, in the two respects of quality (bread) and of quantity (sufficient for each day)!

Ver. 4. The deepest feeling of man, after that of his dependence for his very existence, is that of his guiltiness; and the first condition to enable him to act in the way which is indicated by the first petition, is his being relieved of this burden by pardon. For it is on pardon that the union of the soul with God rests. Instead of the word sins, Matthew in the first clause uses debts. Every neglect of duty to God really constitutes a debt requiring to be discharged by a penalty. — In the second proposition Luke says: For we ourselves also (αὐτοί); Matthew: as we also...The idea of an imprecation on ourselves, in the event of our refusing pardon to him who has offended us, might perhaps be found in the form of Matthew, but not in that of Luke. The latter does not even include the notion of a condition; it simply expresses a motive derived from the manner in which we ourselves act in our humble sphere. This motive must undoubtedly be understood in the same sense as that of Luk 11:13: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children...” “All evil as we are, we yet ourselves use the right of grace which belongs to us, by remitting debts to those who are our debtors; how much more wilt not Thou, Father, who art goodness itself, use Thy right toward us!” And this is probably also the sense in which we should understand the as also of Matthew. The only difference is, that what Luke alleges as a motive (for also), Matthew states as a point of comparison (as also).

Luke’s very absolute expression, We forgive every one that is indebted to us, supposes the believer to be now living in that sphere of charity which Jesus came to create on the earth, and the principle of which was laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. The term used by Jesus might be applied solely to material debts: “Forgive us our sins, for we also in our earthly relations relax our rights toward our indigent debtors.” So we might explain Luke’s use of the word sins in the first clause, and of the term ὀφείλοντι, debtor, in the second. This delicate shade would be lost in Matthew’s form. It is possible, however, that by the words, every one that is indebted to us, in Luke, we are to understand not only debtors strictly so called, but every one who has offended us. The παντί is explained perhaps more easily in this wide sense of ὀφείλοντι.

This petition, which supposes the Christian always penetrated to the last (day by day, Luk 11:3) by the conviction of his sins, has brought down on the Lord’s Prayer the dislike of the Plymouth Brethren, who regard it as a prayer provided rather for a Jewish than a Christian state. But comp. 1Jn 1:9, which certainly applies to believers: “If we confess...”

The absence of all allusion to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the pardon of sins is a very striking proof of the entire authenticity of this formula, both in Luke and Matthew. If Luke in particular had put into it anything of his own, even the least, would not some expression borrowed from the theology of the Epistle to the Romans have inevitably slipped from his pen?

With the feeling of his past trespasses there succeeds in the mind of the Christian that of his weakness, and the fear of offending in the future. He therefore passes naturally from sins to be forgiven to sin to be avoided. For he thoroughly apprehends that sanctification is the superstructure to be raised on the foundation of pardon. The word tempt takes two meanings in Scripture—to put a free being in the position of deciding for himself between good and evil, obedience and rebellion; it is in this sense that God tempts: “God did tempt Abraham” (Gen 22:1); or, to impel inwardly to evil, to make sin appear in a light so seducing, that the frail and deceived being ends by yielding to it; thus it is that Satan tempts, and that, according to Jas 1:13, God cannot tempt. What renders it difficult to understand this last petition is, that neither of the two senses of the word tempt appears suitable here. If we adopt the good sense, how are we to ask God to spare us experiences which may be necessary for the development of our moral being, and for the manifestation of His glorious power in us (Jas 1:3)? If we accept the bad sense, is it not to calumniate God, to ask Him not to do towards us an act decidedly wicked, diabolical in itself? The solution of this problem depends on our settling the question who is the author of the temptations anticipated. Now the second part of the prayer in Matthew, But deliver us from the evil, leaves no doubt on this point. The author of the temptations to which this petition relates is not God, but Satan. The phrase ῥῦσαι ἀπό, rescue from, is a military term, denoting the deliverance of a prisoner who had fallen into the hands of an enemy. The enemy is the evil one, who lays his snares in the way of the faithful. These, conscious of the danger which they run, as well as of their ignorance and weakness, pray God to preserve them from the snares of the adversary. The word εἰσφέρειν has been rendered, to expose to, or, to abandon to; but these translations do not convey the force of the Greek term, to impel into, to deliver over to. God certainly does not impel to evil; but it is enough for Him to withdraw His hand that we may find ourselves given over to the power of the enemy. It is the παραδιδόναι, giving up; of which Paul speaks (Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26-28), and by which is manifested His wrath against the Gentiles. Thus He punishes sin, that of pride in particular, by the most severe of chastisements, even sin itself. All that God needs thereto is not to act, no more to guard us; and man, given over to himself, falls into the power of the enemy (2Sa 24:1, comp. with 1Ch 21:1). Such is the profound conviction of the believer; hence his prayer, “Let me do nothing this day which would force Thee for a single moment to withdraw Thy hand, and to give me over to one of the snares which the evil one will plant in my way. Keep me in the sphere where Thy holy will reigns, and where the evil one has no access.”

The second clause, but deliver us..., is, in Luke, an interpolation derived from Matthew. Without this termination the prayer is not really closed as it ought to be. Here again, therefore, Matthew is more complete than Luke.

The doxology, with which we close the Lord’s Prayer, is not found in any MS. of Luke, and is wanting in the oldest copies of Matthew. It is an appendix due to the liturgical use of this formulary, and which has been added in the text of the first Gospel, the most commonly used in public reading.

The Lord’s Prayer, especially in the form given by Matthew, presents to us a complete whole, composed of two ascending and to some extent parallel series.

We think that we have established—1 st. That it is Luke who has preserved to us most faithfully the situation in which this model prayer was taught, but that it is Matthew who has preserved the terms of it most fully and exactly. There is no contradiction, whatever M. Gess may think, between those two results. 2 d. That the two digests can neither be derived the one from the other, nor both of them from a common document. Bleek himself is forced here to admit a separate source for each evangelist. How, indeed, with such a document, is it possible to imagine the capricious omissions in which Luke must have indulged, or the arbitrary additions which Matthew must have allowed himself? Holtzmann thinks that Matthew amplified the formulary of the Logia reproduced by Luke, with the view of raising the number of petitions to the (sacred) number of seven. But (a) the division into seven petitions is a fiction; it corresponds neither with the evident symmetry of the two parts of the prayer, each composed of three petitions, nor with the true meaning of the last petition, which, contrary to all reason, would require to be divided into two. (b) The parts peculiar to Matthew have perfect internal probability. It has been concluded from those differences that this formulary was not yet in use in the worship of the primitive Church. If this argument were valid, it would apply also to the formula instituting the holy Supper, which is untenable. The formula of the Lord’s Prayer was preserved at first, like all the rest of the Gospel history, by means of oral tradition; it thus remained exposed to secondary modifications, and these passed quite simply into the first written digests, from which our synoptical writers have drawn.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER XI.

Christ teaches his disciples to pray, 1-4.

Shows the necessity of importunity in prayer, 5-13.

Casts out a dumb demon, 14.

The Jews ascribe this to the power of Beelzebub; our Lord

vindicates his conduct, 15-23.

Miserable state of the Jews, 24-26.

Who they are that are truly blessed, 27, 28.

He preaches to the people, 29-36.

A Pharisee invites him to dine with him, who takes offence

because he washed not his hands, 37, 38.

Our Lord exposes their hypocrisy, 39-44.

He denounces woes against the lawyers, 45-52.

The scribes and Pharisees are greatly offended, and strive to

entangle him in his words, 53, 54.

NOTES ON CHAP. XI.

Verse 1. - 5. Teach us to pray] See the nature of prayer, with an ample explanation of the different parts of the Lord's Prayer, treated of in Mt 6:5-16. The prayer related here by Luke is not precisely the same as that mentioned by Matthew; and indeed it is not likely that it was given at the same time. That in Matthew seems to have been given after the second passover; and this in Luke was given probably after the third passover, between the feasts of tabernacles, and the dedication. It is thus that Bishop Newcome places them in his Greek Harmony of the Gospels.

There are many variations in the MSS. in this prayer; but they seem to have proceeded principally from the desire of rendering this similar to that in Matthew. Attempts of this nature have given birth to multitudes of the various readings in the MSS. of the New Testament. It should be remarked, also, that there is no vestige of the doxology found in Matthew, in any copy of St. Luke's Gospel.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XI.

(1) As he was praying in a certain place.—The facts of the case as here narrated, the common practice of the Jews, and the analogy of the prayers in Joh_11:41, Mat_26:39, and, we may add, of the thanksgiving in Luk_10:21, Mat_11:25, all lead to the conclusion that our Lord prayed aloud, and that some, at least, of the disciples heard Him. They listened, unable to follow, or to record what they had heard, and they wished to be able to enter into His spirit and pray as He prayed.

Teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.—It seems, at first sight, to follow from this that the disciple who asked this had not been present when the Sermon on the Mount was spoken. It is conceivable, however, that, knowing the pattern prayer which had then been given, he had thought it adapted for the multitude, and not for the special scholars and disciples—too short and simple as compared, on the one hand, with the devotions which John had prescribed to his disciples, as he prescribed also fasting and alms-giving (Mat_9:14; Luk_3:11), and with the fuller utterances, as of rapt communion with God, of his Master. The prayers of John’s disciples were probably, like those of the Pharisees, offered three times a day, at the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours, and after the pattern of the well-known “Eighteen Prayers,” which made up the Jewish manual of private devotion.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

Ver. 1. When he ceased] Or, rested, ως επαυσατο; for he had been tugging hard with God in prayer, and labouring even to lassitude (waeriness).

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As he was praying - Luke has taken notice of our Saviour’s praying often. Thus, at his baptism Luk 3:21; in the wilderness Luk 5:16; before the appointment of the apostles, he continued all night in prayer Luk 6:12; he was alone praying Luk 9:18; his transfiguration also took place when he went up to pray Luk 9:28-29.

Teach us to pray - Probably they had been struck with the excellency and fervor of his prayers, and, recollecting that “John” had taught his disciples to pray, they asked him also to teach “them.” We learn, therefore:

That the gifts and graces of others should lead us to desire the same. That the true method of praying can be learned only by our being properly taught. Indeed, we cannot pray acceptably at all unless God shall teach us how to pray. That it is proper for us to meditate beforehand what we are to ask of God, and to arrange our thoughts, that we may not come thoughtlessly into his presence.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This seemeth to be a different time from that mentioned by Matthew, where our Saviour directed his disciples to pray; there his direction was part of his sermon on the mount. Besides, the doxology or conclusion is there left out. It is said here,

as he was praying in a certain place. Christ looked upon all places as holy enough for prayer. It also looks as if at this time our Saviour was not at his more secret devotions, but with the twelve, (which were his family), praying with them.

When he ceased: this is very observable against those who pretend impulses of the Spirit, to disturb ministers in the time when they are praying and preaching; it may easily be known from what spirit such impulses are. The disciples of Christ often propounded questions to him after preaching, but never interrupting him in his work, nor before he was retired into a house. They now come to be informed about prayer, but they stay till he had first ceased. We having no account in holy writ of John’s disciples asking him, or his teaching of them to pray, are more at a loss to determine whether our Saviour did intend that his disciples should use these words, as the phrase here seemeth to import, or only pray in this sense,

after this manner, as Matthew saith; indeed nothing can be concluded from either phrase by any judicious person.

For as we read in many places in Scripture, that Christ answered and said, when it is manifest the meaning is, he spake words to that import or sense, (the evangelists reporting the words spoken with variations of expression), so when we pray we may say,

Our Father which art in, heaven, &c., though we do not use the same words and syllables.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Lord's Prayer. The Sign of Jonah

1-4. The Lord's Prayer (Mat_6:9-15). See on Mt. If the Lord's Prayer was given only once, St. Luke is probably right as to the occasion. His version, however (as in the case of the Beatitudes), is manifestly inferior to St. Matthew's. Of the seven petitions he omits two—the third ('Thy will be done,' etc.), and the seventh ('but deliver us from the evil one': see the RV). In place of Mt's beautiful opening, 'Our Father in the heavens,' he has simply, 'Father,' and for the expressive metaphor 'debts' he substitutes 'sins.' He manifestly had not access to the original and authentic 'logia' of the apostle Matthew, of which the first evangelist makes such large and fruitful use.

2. Our Father which art in heaven] The true reading here is simply 'Father.' Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth] Modern editors omit this clause.

4. But deliver us from evil ('the evil one')] Modern editors omit this clause also.

5-8. The friend at midnight (peculiar to Lk). The connexion with what goes before is suitable and natural. Having given the disciples a form of intercessory prayer, Jesus encourages them to persevere in its use, and also in the use of other prayers formed on its model, by a homely parable, the lesson of which is, If a churlish man can be forced by importunity to give against his will, how much more can persevering prayer bring down from the bountiful Father in heaven all good things.

8. Importunity] better, 'shamelessness.'

9-13. Prayer and the answer to prayer (Mat_7:7-11, Sermon on the Mount). See on Mt.

11, 12. In answer to prayer God gives neither what is useless (a stone) nor what is harmful (a serpent, or scorpion). The scorpion (Luk_10:19; Deu_8:15; Eze_2:6; Rev_9:3, Rev_9:5, Rev_9:10) is a small poisonous crab-like animal, which, when at rest, is round like an egg. Luk_11:12 is peculiar to Lk.

14, 15. A dumb devil cast out (Mat_9:32-34). See on Mt.

16. A sign from heaven demanded. See on Mat_12:38; Mat_16:1, and see on Luk_11:29.

17-23. Christ and Beelzebub. See on Mat_12:25-30.

21, 22. Lk is here fuller and more picturesque than Mt and Mk. The imagery seems derived from Isa_49:24-26.

21 A strong man] RV 'the strong man fully armed,' i.e.

Satan. His palace (RV 'own court') is the world, so far as it is under his usurped dominion. His goods are the souls which he holds captive. His armour is his crafty devices for keeping them in captivity and separating them from all good influences. The stronger is Christ, who, by casting out devils and preaching the gospel, rescues souls from Satan's power. The spoils are the rescued souls, which Christ 'divides' by setting them to work at various employments in His own service.

23. In this contest between Christ and Satan no one can be neutral. Gathereth.. scattereth] He who does not help Me to gather and marshal My army, is working for its defeat and rout.

24-26. The peril of the vacant soul (Mat_12:43-45). See on Mt.

27, 28. A woman calls our Lord's mother blessed (peculiar to Lk). Mk and Mt insert at this point the incident of our Lord's mother and brethren wishing to see Him (Mat_12:46; Mar_3:31), which St. Luke has already recorded in a quite different connexion (Luk_8:19).

27. As he spake] What our Lord had just said about the danger of a relapse after a superficial repentance (Luk_11:26) struck the woman as so true to life (probably through some unfortunate experience in her own family), that she was moved to express her appreciation of His teaching openly. Blessed, etc.] Edersheim quotes a good rabbinical parallel: 'Blessed is the hour in which the Messiah was created; blessed the womb whence He issued; blessed the generation that sees Him; blessed the eye that is worthy to behold Him.'

28. Christ does not deny that His mother is blessed, but declares that to hear His words and obey them, and so to be brought into spiritual fellowship with God, is blessing infinitely greater.

29-32. The sign of Jonah (Mat_12:38-42). See on Mt.

33-36. Inward light and darkness. Christ is still rebuking those who refused to believe in Him without a special sign from heaven. In St. Matthew these vv. form part of the Sermon on the Mount.

33. A favourite saying of Christ's occurring in various connexions (Luk_8:16; Mat_5:15; Mar_4:21). Here it means that Christ by His public preaching and miracles has made Himself so conspicuous and public a 'sign' to this generation, that they ought to ask for no other.

34-36. (Mat_6:22-23, q.v.) If they will only regard His work and teaching without prejudice, then their own consciences will testify that He has a real mission from God.

37-54. Christ is entertained by a Pharisee. He denounces Pharisaic formalism and hypocrisy. For the relation of this discourse to Mat_23:1-36, see on Mat_23:1.

38. Washed] lit. 'baptised': see on Mar_7:1-5.

39-41. See on Mat_23:25, Mat_23:26. 'What is the use of you Pharisees cleansing the outward appearance of your conduct (symbolised by the outside of the cup and the platter), if your souls within are full of greed and wickedness? God, who made both the outside and the inside of man, expects both to be made clean. Only give what is within the cup and platter as alms to the poor, and in general practice generosity instead of greed, and all your vessels will become clean to you without ceremonial cleansing.

41. Give alms of such things as ye have] A possible, but unlikely translation. Better, 'Give as alms what is within (the cup and platter).' Others render, 'Give your hearts to almsgiving.' All things] i.e. all your vessels.

42. See on Mat_23:23.

43. See on Mat_23:6.

44. See on Mat_23:27.

46. See on Mat_23:4.

47, 48. See on Mat_23:29-31.

49-51. See on Mat_23:34-36.

49. Therefore also said the wisdom of God] In Mat_23:34 the words are an utterance of Christ Himself. Christ's knowledge of the divine counsels is so complete that His utterances are also utterances of the Wisdom of God.

52. See on Mat_23:13. The key of knowledge] i.e. the key which opens the door to knowledge of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-13. The Lord"s teaching on the subject of prayer. Again the scene is far away from Jerusalem; no special note of time or place enables us to fix the scene or date with any exactness. Somewhere in the course of the last journeyings towards Jerusalem, related especially in this Gospel, did this scene and its teaching take place.

Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. It seems as though some of his disciples we know at this period many were with him besides the twelve heard their Master praying. It appeared to them no doubt, as they caught here and there a word and expression as he prayed, perhaps partly alone, partly to him-self as though a friend was speaking to a friend; they would pray like that: would not the Master teach them his beautiful secret? In reply, Jesus repeats to them, in rather an abbreviated form, what, at an earlier period of his ministry, he had taught to the multitudes and the twelve. It was very likely one of the seventy who made this request, who had not been present on the first occasion, when the Lord gave his prayer of prayers to the people. We have already remarked that at this time the twelve, who had heard it, were probably often absent on mission work. It was a usual practice among the more famous rabbis to give prayer-formulas to their pupils. We have no tradition extant of John the Baptist"s prayer here alluded to.

Vers. 1-13. Christ teaching his disciples to pray.

"He was praying in a certain place." Might not he have dispensed with the special season and act of prayer? Was not his whole life one continuous act of prayer? Did he not always realize that communion with the Father to which praying is the means? Yes; but even he needed the time and the place of prayer. "Made in all things like to his brethren," he, too, required to recruit the energy; he, too, for power with God and men, must lift up his eyes to heaven. Those who say that they can dispense with the particular form and the definite act; that all places are their oratories, and all words and deeds the form of their conference with the Unseen; have realized a spirituality sublimated beyond Christ"s, and, it may safely be said, beyond the truth and limits of our human nature. Is it private or is it social prayer of which the evangelist informs us? It would seem that the disciples heard the "strong crying" of their Master; it may be that he and they were united in prayer he speaking with them and for them, as the Father of the family, as the Head of the household. Be this as it may, one of his followers, impressed with the action, expresses the desire that such instruction should be given them as the Baptist had given to his proselytes. And the request, by whomsoever proffered, occa sions an answer which is full of meaning. Notice its two points what to pray for, and how to pray.

I WHAT TO PRAY FOR. This is set forth in the words which are so familiar to the Christian ear. The same words, slightly modified, are found in the sermon from the mount. There they are presented in opposition to the repetitions and much speaking of the Pharisees" prayers; here they are presented as the brief but comprehensive summary of the desires of a true disciple of Christ. "When ye pray, say," etc. Notice two points.

1. A good deal has been made of supposed parallels between the Lord"sPrayer and some devotional utterances in Jewish and even in heathen scriptures. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that our Lord appropriated sentences in use by his countrymen: what matters it? Did he not express his innermost feeling on the cross in the words of the Psalter? The affectation of novelty is one of the poorest kinds of affectation. What could have been more worthy of the Divine Teacher than the selection of that which was fitted to nurture the soul-life from the devotional literature which his followers already had, or which had moulded the sweetest elements of the religious consciousness of his nation? And for the rest, if he is the Truth, I should expect to find traces of his thought, rays of the light by which he has lightened all men, in every quarter and age of his world. Truth is always Catholic. The finder of truth unites scattered fragments, and, as he unites, he creates a new thing, a new unity. The thoughts of many generations might be gathered into the prayer which Christ taught his disciples; but not the less on that account would it be a new and blessed fact.

2. Observe, further, there are slight differences in the form of the fourthand the fifth petitions in the prayer as rendered in Luke, and the prayer as rendered in Matthew. May we not infer from this that, whilst the prayer is to be used, whilst it is more than a mere outline, whilst it is indeed the Breviary of the Christian Church, it is not pressed on us as a hard-and-fast rule. For the same reason that rendered it fitting that Christ should teach words, it may well be argued that it is expedient, so far, to prescribe words when the wants of many are to be interpreted, sometimes even when the wants of individual worshippers are to be expressed. But there is an elasticity, a freedom, which is an essential element of spiritual worship.

Christ"s prayer is not to be slavishly used. His own deviations in the second from the first giving of it are suggestive of flexibleness. And so also his commands. In the Third Gospel we read, "say ye;" but in the first, "After this manner pray ye." Have these sentences in the heart; let the mind realize the fullness that is in them; at times speak them forth; yet take your liberty. As those who have confidence as to their entering into the holiest in the blood of Jesus, let the cry of the Spirit of adoption freely ascend, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.

II For in teaching to pray, we need instruction, not so much in what to say as in HOW TO SAY IT. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Therefore, no sooner has Christ expounded the rule, or form, than he proceeds to exhibit the spirit of prayer, the right mental attitude, the faith without which the most perfect words are no prayer at all. And this he does, according to his wont, first in the shape of a simple parable, and next through an appeal to and from the heart of Fatherhood. The parable (vers. 5-8) is very short, referring to things of commonplace life. A great many meanings have been fastened on every point in this little story. Take it, however, as it is wiser to do, as bringing out the one feature that if, as between friend and friend, importunity overcomes reluctance; if it triumphs even over surliness; much more effectual will it be when reluctance to give is only seeming when, indeed, that of which it takes hold is the willingness of eternal love! Therefore ought we to pray, and not to faint. Augustine (quoted by Trench) has some good sayings on this. "When God sometimes gives tardily, he commends his gifts; he does not deny them. Things long desired are more sweet in their attainment... God for a time withholds his gifts, that thou mayest learn to desire great things greatly." It is this great desiring of great things that is the moral of the story. Prayer is not a mere isolated act; it is, as typified in the story of Jacob with whom the angel wrestled, as proved in the history of the Lord himself, an energetic, prolonged dealing with God: "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." An old Greek writer calls it" the silence of the soul;" and there is in it the silence of the soul that ceases from the will of self, and worships only the sweet will of God. But there is another view taken in the word of Jesus. In this word it is described (vers. 9, 10) as an asking; beyond this, as a seeking; beyond this even, as a knocking ascending scale of earnestness." To this earnestness the promise is given. Mark how full and unqualified the promise is. The relation of friend to friend can teach much; but there is the relation more intimate still of child to parent, and this can teach more. For here we come into the inner circle of the thoughts which are connected with prayer. Therefore the Lord proceeds to illustrate what it is in his heart to teach by a reference to this analogy. What is it in his heart to teach? Surely, that the Father"s good things are open to all his children, and, as the Crown of all, as the Gift of gifts, his own Holy Spirit. This is the climax of all childlike desire. Even in what is lower, the child stretches forth to this as his highest. "Father, give me the Holy Spirit." Is it possible to conceive a refusal? Would a parent who has bread meet the cry of a hungry child with the offer of a stone? Would he torment him by giving a serpent when he asked a fish? or by giving him a scorpion when he asked an egg? If it is so with us imperfect men, if we wish to share our good things with our children, how much more (ver. 13) shall our heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them who ask him? His Fatherhood must be the fountain-light of his children"s day. "Fear not," says Christ, "to appeal to it." "Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust." Thus the Lord answers the request of the disciples. Is it not a request as pertinent to us in the nineteenth as to them in the first century? There is a secret in prayer which only the Lord can teach. We may recall a remarkable passage in the life of Coleridge which suggests this: "Shortly before his death he was conversing, solemnly, although familiarly, on his own history and thoughts. "I have no difficulty," he said, "as to forgiveness. Indeed, I know not how to say with sincerity the clause in the Lord"s Prayer which asks forgiveness as we forgive. I feel nothing answering to it in my heart, Neither do I find or reckon the most solemn faith in God as a real object the most arduous act of the reason and will. Oh no, my dear, it is to pray to pray as God would have us: this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing he pleases thereupon this is the last, the greatest, achievement of the Christian"s warfare on earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord! " And then," adds his biographer, "he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray for him. Oh, what a sight was there!

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 1. The influence of devout example, etc.

The fact which is stated in the first verse of this chapter suggests

I THE INFLUENCE OF A DEVOUT EXAMPLE. "As he was praying.., one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray." It was the sight of his Master in the act of prayer which prompted this disciple to make his request. Thus devotion in him begat devotion in them. All actions, good and bad, are contagious. Bad actions entice the evil, and good ones attract and inspire the holy and the pure. An oath is an encouragement to the profane, a prayer is an incentive to the devout. Only infinite wisdom can tell whether we produce the greater effect by the unconscious influence of our life, or by the result of direct, verbal persuasion. But we can all see that they go well together; that persuasion to piety with the drawback of a prayerless life would be of very small account. But to be a man of prayer, to be (without ostentation) known to be such, to be evidently "at home" with God, to be felt to be one that continually seeks Divine guidance in the daily conduct of life, this is to be influential for good. it is to be saying in the most effective way," It is good for me to draw near to God," and indeed to be saying most forcibly also, "It is good for you to draw near to God." The man of sustained piety, of devout habits which he never lays down, who compels men to feel that in his view God is not to be forgotten or his service relegated to the second place, is a power for good; he is living a truth of vital consequence, he is a blessing to the society in which he moves.

II THE HIGHEST FUNCTION OF A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. "Lord, teach us to pray.

1. Not to instruct in sacred truth, high as that is, enlightening the mind on the greatest of all subjects.

2. Not even to cause disciples to meditate on their spiritual condition, and to consider how they are themselves affected by the truth they have learned.

3. But to lead to God in direct and immediate devotion: the teacher or religious friend who helps another to unburden his heart in prayer to God, to pour out his spirit in submission or in dedication to the Divine Savior, is rendering the highest possible service one human being can render to another.

III THE OFFICE OF THE DIVINE TEACHER. This is not only or chiefly to instruct or to cause us to inquire, but rather to lead us to God in direct, spiritual communion. This Jesus does by:

1. Opening the way to God; becoming the one and only Mediator between God and man, through whom we have constant and perfect access to the Holiest One.

2. Showing us the efficacy of prayer; and this he does

(1) by his own most strong and satisfying assertion (vers. 9-13); and

(2) by revealing God to us as a Father who distinguishes each one of his children from all others, earnestly desires the return of each absent child, and purposes to renew and transform every son and daughter into his own likeness. Such a Father could not but listen and respond when his children cry to him.

3. Giving to us a deep sense of the need of prayer; and this he does by his own example, and also by his teaching. In this he so impresses us with the value of each human soul, with the sinfulness of sin, with the possibilities of spiritual worth and sacred usefulness, and with the grand opening for the faithful soul in the higher spheres beyond, that we are impelled to come to God for his redeeming, sanctifying, strengthening grace. C.

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-13. Lessons on prayer.

Luke takes us from "the one thing needful," which Mary"s loving waiting on her Lord illustrates, to.a kindred subject, viz. the lessons on prayer which Jesus gave his disciples. He had been enjoying what we should now call a retreat"with them, and had himself led the devotions of the little band. Struck by the beauty of his petitions, one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, as John had taught his disciples. To this appeal Jesus responds at once, and in doing so gives them first a form, which was also meant to be a model; and secondly, a theory of prayer, in which we shall have little difficulty in finding its true philosophy. Let us look at these two matters in their order.

I THE FORM AND MODEL OF PRAYER COMMONLY CALLED THE LORD"S PRAYER. (Vers. 2-4) Jesus is represented here as saying to the disciples, "When ye pray, say," while in Mat_6:9 it is "After this manner therefore pray ye." It is evident from this that he meant the words to answer the double purpose to be a form in constant use, and to be a model constantly imitated. It is consequently most important to look carefully into its contents. And here we have to notice that it sets intercession before petition for personal benefits. Prayer thus becomes a great instrument for rendering us disinterested and unselfish. When modelled on this peerless prayer of Christ, it carries us at once into the wide interests of God"s kingdom before we devote any consideration to petty personal interests. The genius of prayer is thus seen to be the subordination of self to the universal interest. The hallowing of the Father"s precious Name comes first, then the coming of his kingdom, and then the doing of his will on earth as in heaven. What a statesmanlike view we are thus led to take of the general problem before we even think of the particular and personal problem! The moment we have in our closet entered intelligently and heartily into these three petitions, we have got out of the narrowness of petty cares and troubles into the broad expanse of the Divine love. We are taken to mountain-tops at once, and from the sublime heights of Divine compassion we are led to intercede for the world below us, that it may be as speedily as possible transmuted into something like what heaven happily is. Then for the minor personal petitions, these refer to daily bread, and daily pardon, and daily deliverance from evil the personal blessings, in fact, which fit the individual for aiding the wider interest and subserving the universal blessing. We are thus warranted in asking for bread to sustain the body, for pardon to relieve the heavy-laden soul, for deliverance amid the further temptations to which we may be,exposed. And in the petition for pardon, it is clearly implied that forgiveness can only be realized by a forgiving spirit. The soul which will not forgive a brother who asks for forgiveness shows that forgiveness has not been and cannot be realized. In fact, the unforgiving spirit is, as far as we can judge, the unpardonable sin. (cf. Mat_18:21-35)

II OUR LORD"S THEORY OF PRAYER. (Vers. 5-13) When we analyze our Lord"s argument here, we find it to be analogical; and the truth is that we are shut up in this matter to analogical reasoning. It can be shown that it is to analogy we owe our knowledge of human beings, of the lower animals, and finally of God above us. In order to ally other than analogical knowledge, we should require to become incarnated, so to speak, in the other being whose condition we desire to know. Seeing that this is impossible, we are shut up to the argument from analogy upon such a subject, Our Lord, then, looked around him, and saw that efficacious prayer was embedded as a fact in the very constitution of society. Petition is the form which conscious need assumes in social intercourse; and a response comes forth with more or less promptitude and grace, and demonstrates that the prayer has proved efficacious. It is further to be noticed that our Lord, in pointing out efficacious prayer as existing in the society of his time, gives us first an example of efficacious intercession, and then an example of efficacious personal petition. His illustrations consequently follow the lines laid down in his prescribed form of prayer. To encourage intercession, he presents the picture of the importunate friend begging successfully a supper for an unexpected and hungry guest; to encourage personal petition, he presents the picture of hungry children crying to their father for food; and he would have us to reason from the efficacious prayer among men to the certainty of prayer being efficacious when presented unto God. Let us look at the illustrations in the order given. A kindly, hospitable man is about to retire to rest with his household, having in the last meal consumed the small stock of food which his humble house contains; when, lo! to his surprise, a friend arrives after a long journey, hungry as well as weary a most fitting object, therefore, of hospitality. What is to be done? He quickly decides. Having most probably arranged for the washing of the guest"s feet, he passes out into the darkness, and seeks the door of a friend who can, he believes, lend him as many loaves as he needs. It is not a personal want he is about to urge, but the need of a hungry and weary friend. He stands before the door, consequently, in the simple majesty of disinterestedness. He begins to knock, but at first receives no encouragement. "Trouble me not," says his friend within: "the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee." Nothing daunted, however, and pocketing all his pride, for he knows well it is no selfish plea he is urging, he resolves to knock on till his beleaguered friend capitulates. At length importunity triumphs; the friend in bed sees plainly that the only chance of rest that night for himself and his children is to give in as soon as possible, and let the importunate petitioner have his way; and so he rises and gives him as many loaves as he needs. Here, then, according to our Lord, is a case of efficacious intercessory prayer as between men. It may not receive an immediate answer, but importunity secures an ultimate answer. We are warranted, therefore, in rising from efficacious intercessory prayer among men to the assurance that intercessory prayer will prove efficacious with God. God may keep us waiting, not certainly from any selfish consideration, but for our own good, but ultimately he will respond to every unselfish intercession. Hence our Lord reaches the assurance, And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you," etc. The second case brought before us by Christ is efficacious prayer in the family circle. Hungry children present prayers to parents for food, for bread, for fish, for eggs, as among the humbler classes in Palestine; and the fathers who are asked for such things never think of mocking the hungry ones with a stone, a serpent, or a scorpion. The earthly parent hears and answers the children"s prayer; the prayer is efficacious. So will it be, argues our Lord, as we appeal for the needful blessings to our Father in heaven. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" It is surely instructive to think that earthly parents, in the midst of a "reign of law," which they only partially understand, can yet know how to give good things to their children. Be the times ever so hard, they can generally manage to give the little ones bread and keep them off the parish. Is it not reasonable to argue that the heavenly Father, who knows all the reign of law," because its Author and Lord, can give the Holy Spirit, or any minor and needful blessing his children crave, unto the prayerful? We have only, in conclusion, to emphasize the fact that the Holy Spirit is the great need of human souls. Let us ask him as God"s supreme Gift, and we shall assuredly receive him even in Pentecostal power. It is this Gift which individuals and Churches need to make them truly useful! R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples - The Jewish masters used to give their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. This it is probable John the Baptist had done. And in this sense it seems to be that the disciples now asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Accordingly he here repeats that form, which he had before given them in his sermon on the mount, and likewise enlarges on the same head, though still speaking the same things in substance. And this prayer uttered from the heart, and in its true and full meaning, is indeed the badge of a real Christian: for is not he such whose first and most ardent desire is the glory of God, and the happiness of man by the coming of his kingdom? Who asks for no more of this world than his daily bread, longing meantime for the bread that came down from heaven? And whose only desires for himself are forgiveness of sins, (as he heartily forgives others, ) and sanctification.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

teach us to pray

This is the central N.T. passage on prayer. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ had announced the new basis of prayer, viz.: relationship Mat 6:9; Mat 6:28-32. The believer is a child of God through the new birth. (See Scofield "Joh 3:3"). The clear revelation of this fact at once establishes the reasonableness of prayer; a reasonableness against which the argument from the apparent uniformity of natural law shatters itself. God is more than a Creator, bringing a universe into being, and establishing laws for it; more than a decree- maker determining future events by an eternal fiat. Above all this is the divine family for whom the universe with its laws exists; Col 1:16-20; Heb 1:2; Heb 2:10; Heb 2:11; Rom 8:17".

When ye pray, say, Our Father." What God habitually does in the material universe concerns the reverent investigator of that universe. What He may do in His own family concerns Him, and them, and is matter for divine promise and revelation. Science, which deals only with natural phenomena, cannot intrude there 1Co 2:9.

Christ’s law of prayer may be thus summarized:

(1) He grounds prayer upon relationship, and reveals God as freely charging himself with all the responsibilities, as His heart glows with all the affections of a Father toward all who believe on Jesus Christ Mat 6:25; Mat 6:32; Mat 7:9-11. Prayer, therefore, is a child’s petition to an all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful, Father-God.

(2) In the so-called Lord’s prayer Christ gives an incomparable model for all prayer. It teaches that right prayer begins with worship; puts the interest of the kingdom before merely personal interest; accepts beforehand the Father’s will, whether to grant or withhold; and petitions for present need, leaving the future to the Father’s care and love. Used as a form, the Lord’s prayer is, dispensationally, upon legal, not church ground; it is not a prayer in the name of Christ (cf) Joh 14:13; Joh 14:14; Joh 16:24 and it makes human forgiveness, as under the law it must, the condition of divine forgiveness; an order which grace exactly reverses (cf) Eph 4:32.

(3) Prayer is to be definite Luk 11:5; Luk 11:6 and,

(4) importunate, that is undiscouraged by delayed answers.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A Lesson in Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer:

v. 1. And it came to pass that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.

v. 2. And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

v. 3. Give us day by day our daily bread.

v. 4. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

The habit of Jesus of resorting to prayer as often as possible, but especially at times of great stress and menacing trouble, was well known to the disciples; but one of them at least had occasion also to be convinced of the power and fervency of His prayer. When Jesus, therefore, upon that occasion, had ceased praying, this disciple, one of the later ones, that had not heard the Sermon on the Mount, stated a request to the Master that He teach them to pray, just as John the Baptist had given his disciples such lessons. The questioner had probably been one of John’s disciples, hut had now finally been persuaded to follow Jesus. The Lord gladly yields to the wish and repeats, in a somewhat briefer form, what He had taught before. See Mat 6:9-13. As Father we address God: He is the Father of all created beings; they are His by virtue of His creation and His providence; but Father of the believers in a special sense, through the redemption and merits of Jesus Christ, Gal 3:26; Gal 4:6; 1Jn 3:1-2. His name, His Word, everything that in any way designates and describes His essence, shall be hallowed, not by being made holy, but by being kept untarnished, unblemished, before the world. The believers pray earnestly for power so to live from day to day, so to comport themselves, that the name of God may be praised and honored throughout the world and not in any way dishonored or blasphemed, Rom 2:24. His kingdom should come—to us, by the fact of His keeping us in His Word and faith at all times; to all other people on earth, through the preaching of the glorious news of salvation in all the world. His will should be done. With the same willingness and eagerness as the angels in heaven delight in doing God’s will, so glad should we be found to carry out all His precepts. At the same time we pray for patient submission, if the will of the heavenly Father should find it necessary to lay a cross upon us. He will carry out His good and gracious will against all the attempts of the enemies to frustrate the designs of mercy toward us. The bread of and for the day we ask of the Lord, enough to last us till the next morning, that we may not be concerned and worry about the things of this body and life. For the forgiveness of our sins, the greatest spiritual gift, we pray, promising incidentally to forgive every one that offends us, since the small debts of our fellow-men cannot even come into consideration in comparison with the immense debt of our trespasses against God. We pray that He would not lead us into temptation, not permit our enemies to place traps for our unwary feet, to guard and keep us, that the devil, the world, and our own flesh may not deceive us, nor seduce us into misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice, as Luther explains. Rather do we ask of Him and hope to receive this by faith, that God would deliver us from the devil and every evil which that evil spirit and most dangerous enemy may devise against us. The disciples of Christ of all times, who ought to be instant and expert in prayer, are still very sluggish, weak, and forgetful in spiritual things; they must always learn over again what they have once learned, they must be taught day by day what and how they should pray.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The learned Mr. Mead upon this place apprehends, that it was the custom of the Jewish doctors to deliver some certain form of prayer to their disciples to use, at least that John the Baptist had done so to his disciples; thereupon our Saviour’s disciples besought them, that he also would give them in like manner some form of his own composing, that they might pray with their master’s spirit, as John’s disciples did with his. Accordingly our Saviour gives them here a form of his own, and commands them when they pray to use it. Indeed he had given them this prayer about a year and a half before, in his Sermon upon the Mount. Mat 6:9

After this manner pray ye: where it is probable that the disciples looked upon it only as a pattern of prayer, and not as a form; for had they thought that Christ hd given them a form of prayer before, they had not asked him for one now; therefore says Christ, When ye pray, say. Certainly this gives us to understand that our Saviour intended and commanded it for a set form of prayer unto his church.

Learn hence, that the Lord’s prayer is both a pattern and platform, according to which all our prayers ought to be framed; and also an exact form of prayer, which ought to be used by us in our addresses to the throne of grace: After this manner pray ye, says St. Matthew; When ye pray, say, says St. Luke.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXXXVI. Prayer Taught and Encouraged].

LXXXVI. PRAYER TAUGHT AND ENCOURAGED. (Probably Judæa.) cLUKE XI. 1-13.

c1 And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples. [Jesus had already taught his disciples how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount. This disciple probably thought that the prayer already taught was too brief to be sufficient, especially as Jesus often prayed so long. It was customary for the rabbis to give their disciples forms of prayer, and the Baptist seems to have followed this practice, though the prayer taught by him appears soon to have been forgotten.] 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Father, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation. [The form given by Matthew is fuller [479] than this. See Isa_42:6, Gen_18:23-33, Mat_15:27, Mat_15:28.] 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or i if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? [The substance of this passage is recorded by Matthew as a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. See Luk_11:12 is peculiar to Luke, and in Luk_11:13, Mat_7:11 Matthew has "good things" where Luke has "Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit is the best of all gifts, being as necessary to the soul as food to the body. The scorpion is an insect somewhat similar to a small lobster. It is two or three inches long, and has a sting at the end of its tail which is about as severe as that of a wasp. The old commentators tell us that the white scorpion, when rolled up, closely resembled an egg.] [481]

[FFG 479-481]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Luke Chapter 11

The prayer which He taught His disciples (chap. 11) has respect also to the position into which they came before the gift of the Holy Ghost. [32] Jesus Himself prayed, as the dependent man on earth. He had not yet received the promise of the Father, in order to pour it out on His disciples, and could not till His ascension into heaven. These, however, are in relationship with God as their Father. The glory of His name, the coming of His kingdom, were to occupy their first thoughts. They depended on Him for their daily bread. They needed pardon, and to be kept from temptation. The prayer comprised the desire of a heart true to God; the need of the body committed to their Father’s care; the grace required for their walk when they had sinned, and in order that their flesh should not manifest itself, that they might be saved from the power of the enemy.

The Lord then dwells on perseverance, that petitions should not be those of a heart indifferent to the result. He assures them that their prayers should not be in vain; also, that their heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to those that asked Him. He puts them into His own relationship on earth with God. Hearkening to God, applying to Him as a Father-it is the whole of practical Christian life.

Afterwards the two great weapons of His testimony are shewn forth, namely, casting out demons, and the authority of His word. He had manifested the power that cast out demons; they attributed it to the prince of the demons. Nevertheless He had bound the strong man; He had spoiled his goods; and this proved that the kingdom of God was indeed come. In such a case as this, God being come to deliver man, everything took its true place; everything was either of the devil, or of the Lord. Moreover, if the unclean spirit had gone out and God was not there, the wicked spirit would come back with others more wicked than himself; and the last state is worse than the first.

These things were taking place at that time. But miracles were not all. He had proclaimed the word. A woman, sensible to the joy of having a son like Jesus, declares aloud the value of such a relationship to Him after the flesh; the Lord puts this blessing, as He did in the case of Mary, on those who heard and kept His word. The Ninevites had hearkened to Jonah, the queen of Sheba to Solomon, without even one miracle being wrought; and a greater than Jonah was now among them. There were two things there-the testimony plainly set forth (Luk 11:33), and the motives which governed those that heard it. If the true light shone fully into the heart, there remained no darkness in it. If the perfect truth was presented according to God’s own wisdom, it was the heart that rejected it. The eye was evil. The notions and motives of a heart at a distance from God only darkened it: a heart that had but one object, God and His glory, would be full of light. Moreover light does not merely display itself, it enlightens all around it. If God’s light were in the soul, it would be full of it and no part dark.

Verses 37-52. Invited to the Pharisee’s house, He judges the condition of the nation, and the hypocrisy of its pretended righteousness, putting His finger on the whited show and inward covetousness and self-seeking, the making God’s law burdensome to others, while neglecting the fulfilment of it themselves, announcing the mission of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, the rejection of whom would fill up the measure of Israel’s iniquity, and bring to a final test those who hypocritically built the tombs of the prophets their fathers had killed. And then all the blood, with respect to which God had exercised His long-suffering, sending testimonies to enlighten the people, and which had been shed on account of those testimonies, should at length be required at the hand of the rebels. The Lord’s words did but stir up the malice of the Pharisees, who sought to entangle Him in His talk. In a word we have, on one side, the word of the testimony set in full relief, in place of the Messiah fulfilling the promises; and, on the other, the judgment of a nation that had rejected both, and would also reject even that which should afterwards be sent to bring them back.

Footnotes for Luke Chapter 11

32: The desire to have a form of prayer given by the Lord has led to a corruption of the text here, recognised by all who have seriously inquired into it (the object being to conform the prayer here to that given in Matthew). It runs thus: “Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, give us each day our needed bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.”

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–4. Praying in a certain place. Luke neither tells where nor when. Teach us to pray. Matt. 6:9–13, gives the Lord's prayer, but does not say that the prayer was taught in response to a request. See the notes on Matthew.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

The is the beginning of the next part of the story. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray.

It happened

This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new part of the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

when Jesus was praying ... one of

It may be more natural to state that Jesus finished praying before the disciple asked the question. AT: "that Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished praying, one of"

translationWords

pray

disciple

lord

teach

John (the Baptist)

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.