A lot of people know the Lord’s Prayer by heart. The Catholic version, the “Our Father,” leaving off “For thine is the kingdom,” etc., comes closer to the actual words found in Matthew 6 than Protestant versions. Despite a long tradition of saying it, the manuscript evidence for “For thine is the kingdom…” (Catholics do say it, just a bit later in the prayers of the mass, not right after the “Our Father”) is poor and inconsistent. It’s a beautiful closing doxology for the Lord’s Prayer, but not part of the original text of Scripture.
So the version of the Lord’s Prayer we read together this Sunday from Luke 11:1-13, though it sounds abbreviated to our ears, is actually very close to what was actually written first in Matthew.
One other interesting modern English embellishment of the actual text of both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of the prayer is the word “trespasses,” which is not found in either text. In Matthew the prayer is for forgiveness of “our debts as we forgive our debtors,” and in Luke 11:4 it is for forgiveness of “our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” Thus the modern versions which use the words and “debts” and “debtors” or “sins” and “those who sin against us,” are closer to the actual texts. The former, being exactly what Matthew wrote, is the most literal.
The little parable of the friend at midnight in verses 5 to 8 is a strong encouragement to prayer based in the goodness of God. It is basically an a fortiori argument, as seen by the “how much more” in verse 13. If even sinful human beings grant rude and unreasonable requests, how much more will our gracious heavenly Father grant reasonable prayers properly and faithfully prayed.
This is probably not a parable about persistence in prayer. Klyne Snodgrass in Stories with Intent argues persuasively that despite a long history of interpreting and translating the key word in verse 8 as “persistence” (as the NRSV does), it is actually a negative word that means “shamelessness.” The most recent NIV gets much closer to literal with “shameless audacity,” although that “audacity” addition sneaks in an attempt to put a positive spin on the word.
The “ask,” “search,” “knock” directions in verses 9 and 10 and the even briefer parables about a child asking a parent for a fish or an egg in verses 11 and 12 are also not about persistence. Their focus is on the goodness of God, which is why we may pray with confidence.
So the direction for praying, the answer to “Lord, teach us to pray” in verse 1, comes in just the first few verses, the actual prayer Jesus taught. The rest of the text is a theology of prayer based in the character of God. We may pray because God is good, and as some of my friends like to add, though I think somewhat unnecessarily, He is good all the time.