My Own Paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer

O Father in heaven (may Your name be glorified!)
May Your reign be established and Your will accomplished
In this earth, just as it is in Your heaven.
Please give me today just what I need for today,
And forgive my sins, in exactly the same way
That I forgive those who have wronged and hurt me.
Please lead me, not into testing and trial,
But rather delivering me from the Evil One.
For the rule, and the authority, and the glory
Are all Yours forever. Amen.

This is a paraphrase I've made of the Lord's prayer for myself. I'll go line by line by way of explanation:

O Father in heaven (may your name be glorified!)
I've put the second phrase in parentheses, not because it's unimportant, but because I see it more as an expression of honor than as the actual predicate of the expression. In other words, it's like "O King live forever!" in such passages as 1 Kings 1:31, Nehemiah 2:3, and Daniel 2:4--an introductory formula. This allows the first actual predicate of the prayer to be:

May Your reign be established and Your will accomplished
In this earth, just as it is in Your heaven.
The "kingdom" of God refers not to a geographical entity, but to God's rule and reign: the "coming" of God's kingdom is the establishment of His rule. Our prayer is that He rules over this earth just as He rules over heaven. "Earth" here actually refers to dirt; I've written "in this earth" rather than "on this earth" to suggest a reference not only to our planet but to my own piece of flesh: I need Him to rule over me, first and foremost.

Please give me today just what I need for today,
I've individualized this text, not because I don't recognize the corporate nature of the prayer, but because I need to focus on my own responsibilities as a part of that corporate body. "Bread" refers to our basic needs--not everything we may want. We're asking not only for provision but also for the moderation of our own desires.

And forgive my sins, in exactly the same way
That I forgive those who have wronged and hurt me.
The Greek here for "debt" can be used metaphorically for a moral fault; since we don't have that kind of wordplay in the English translation, I want to be very clear and call a sin for what it is. We are too ready to bend our sins into something more acceptable with language: adultery becomes an "affair," for example. But being forgiven involves our willingness to forgive (illustrated graphically by the parable of the unmerciful servant). I've chosen not to use "sin" here, because we generally don't think in terms of people "sinning" against us, but rather of wronging and hurting us. My obligation to forgive others doesn't end if I call someone else's actions by another name. I need to forgive those who have hurt me, because I want forgiveness for how I've hurt God.

Please lead me, not into testing and trial,
But rather delivering me from the Evil One.
Here, I want to focus on being led by God. I'm asking Him to lead me, and asking him not to lead me into tests and trials (the Greek for "temptation" is equally well translated this way)--not because I think that He is likely to do that, but because I'm praying for His mercy and covering and guidance throughout my path. This is praying according to the Lord's will: I know that He wants to deliver me from the paths I would foolishly take on my own, so for me to pray this is to pray exactly what God wants for me.

For the rule, and the authority, and the glory
Are all Yours forever. Amen.
I know that this is a later scribal gloss, but I think it is a harmless wrapping-up of the prayer that brings us back to the beginning: to the glory and rule of God. The prayer, overall, is basically a submission of self to God's rule, provision, forgiveness, protection, and guidance.

Loving the Real Church

Scot McKnight writes a wonderful, brief post dealing with our often misguided attempts to "defend" the church by attacking other parts of it. He writes, "We must learn not to love the ‘idea’ of the church, but the ‘real’ church."

None of us will ever create the ideal church that exists only in our minds by hacking off other parts that we consider unseemly. Much less will we ever create God's ideal of the church. In fact, I'm not sure God has an "ideal" of the church. I think when God entrusted the work of the church to us human beings, he knew exactly what would happen. It doesn't come as a surprise to him. And yet our job is still to love one another, as Christ has loved us.

Sigh.

And we thought it was Bill who had, er, veracity issues.

What's the Atmosphere in Your Home?

Jim Martin writes a terrific post about the emotional atmosphere in homes. This might possibly be one of the most important and neglected issues that almost all of us deal with. None of us control the atmosphere in our homes totally (unless, perhaps, in a negative way). But we all contribute.

Check it out.


For more on marriage, check out my book, Marriage, Family, and the Image of God .