The Jews were and are great prayers. A devout Jew would pray 5 times a day. Five times a day he would stop what he was doing, turn to the temple and refocus his attention on God. Through set prayers handed down through the generations they would make sure that every aspect of their lives came before their God in worship.
Jesus disciples were steeped in this culture of prayer. From their earliest years their fathers would have taught them to pray, and yet they came to Jesus and asked him to teach them to pray. There was something about the prayer life of Jesus that caught their attention. There was some connection between Jesus ministry life and prayer life that stopped them short and made them inquire. Perhaps they realised that there was a consistency between the power and authority of Jesus and the intimacy he had with God in prayer. Teach us to pray they said.
In response Jesus gave them the most famous prayer in church history. The Paternoster, the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer. Appearing twice in the gospels, in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, and found in the earliest of Christian catechisms, the Lord’s Prayer has been a central pillar of the church in prayer for 2000 years.
What does it mean? Why is it still significant in our multimedia interactive world? How might spending time in these words connect us with the power and passions of Christ?
Through this term we will seek to answer these questions as we study the Lord’s Prayer together and try to become more like Jesus in our prayer life.
Simon Elliott
