And she had a sister called Mary, who also, having sat down at the feet of Jesus was listening to his word.
Luke moves straight from a parable about a rescued traveller to a quiet house where a woman sits and listens. The verse raises a question. What does a rescued person do next, and why is this the one thing needed?
One writer links the scene back to the traveller left half dead in the story just before it.
The good Samaritan had bound up the wounds of the man he found half dead, pouring in oil and wine. He had set him on his own animal and taken him to an inn. He made all the provision needed for him until he should return. Now Mary's occupation shows us what the diligent service of the saved soul should be in the meantime. Hearing the word of Jesus is indeed the good part which shall not be taken away.
Mary sits rather than stands. One writer weighs that difference against another woman in Luke.
The woman who was a sinner stood at the feet of Jesus, for as yet she was not enjoying forgiveness and peace. Mary, on the other hand, sat. That was a sign that every question about the state of her soul had been settled, so she was at rest. So we take our place at the feet of Jesus first as people who repent, and we stay there as His servants and disciples.
The ESV keeps the reading most editors prefer: "at the Lord's feet." One writer finds two kinds of people in this scene, and weight in that title.
Two kinds of souls are pictured here. Some receive the Lord as Saviour and rest there, whatever service they think best to give. Others, having received Him, press on with purpose of heart to learn His mind and to know Him personally. … Sitting at His feet declared that she had become His disciple. It means even more if we adopt the reading preferred by most, "at the feet of THE LORD." It is a blessed moment for any soul when that point is reached. He is enthroned in the heart as supreme, and His will becomes the only law of our daily lives.
Older translations end the verse with "heard His word." One writer separates that from simply hearing sounds.
There were many who listened to the words of the Lord Jesus who did not hear His word. To hear His word there must be an ear to hear, and only those in whom God had worked had this capacity. Hearing His word is a mark of a true follower of the Lord Jesus. It shows that a person values the divine revelation brought to men in the Person of Jesus. It shows a desire to know its substance, spirit and details.
One writer weighs what Mary could give the Lord against what He could give her.
Mary had discovered that all she could do for the Lord was nothing compared with what He had to give her. To receive His word is the one thing needful, for out of that will flow all service that is acceptable to Him.
Reverse that order and the work starts to weigh. Mary's sister worked without first listening.
She set herself to work without having first been in the company of the Lord, in communion with Him. So the word of the Lord had never taught her the mind of the Lord. As a result she was "distracted with much serving" and "anxious and troubled about many things." She complained about her sister, and even entertained the thought that the Lord was indifferent to her work.
Nothing dramatic happens here. One writer makes that the point.
It was not much to record of this one that she sat at Jesus' feet. Has it any value in our eyes? Yet it was like ointment poured out to the heart of the Beloved One. We may be active in service, and that is right in its place. But there is nothing He values so much as our loving to listen to Him. He is now exalted on the throne of the Majesty on high. How wonderful that He still looks for the chance of speaking to us down here!
Mary appears three times in the Gospels, always in the same place.
We see her first in her sister's home at Bethany. The Lord of life entered that home, and Mary sat at His feet as a learner (Luke 10). Later, when death had entered the home, she is found at His feet as a mourner (John 11). Last of all, a few of His loved ones make a supper for the Lord, who had just displayed His resurrection power and glory. There she is found at His feet as a worshipper.
- Rescued first. The parable carries a wounded traveller to safety. Mary shows what the rescued do until their Rescuer returns.
- Seated, not standing. Sitting marks a soul at rest, with the question of its own state already settled.
- A learner's place. Some receive the Lord and rest there. Mary pressed on to learn His mind, sitting as a pupil at the feet of her Lord.
- Receiving before serving. What He gives outweighs anything we bring. Real service flows out of that. Work begun without it turns into distraction and complaint.
- Kept forever. Learner in Luke 10, mourner in John 11, worshipper at the supper — the same feet, and a portion that will not be taken away.
Now Martha was distracted with much serving, and coming up she said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Speak to her therefore that she may help me.
Martha has opened her home to Jesus. Her sister sits and listens, while the work of hosting Him pulls Martha in every direction. Her words carry a double complaint: against Mary for not helping, and against the Lord for not seeming to mind.
Nothing Martha did was wrong in itself. The trouble was how much she took on, and what it did to her.
It would seem that, in serving, Martha was only doing the duty that rightly belonged to her. Her trouble was in aiming at much serving: she wished to do the thing in very special style, and this "cumbered" or "distracted" her. Her distraction was such that she spoke in a way that cast blame not only on her sister but on the Lord. Mary, she thought, was neglecting her duty, and the Lord was indifferent to her neglect. Martha represents distraction and Mary, communion.
Notice the direction her sentence travels. She starts by doing something for Jesus. She ends by asking Mary to do something for her.
Dear friends, if you are busy about many things, you will not only be busy, but troubled. Martha, we read, was "distracted with much serving". She was not only loaded down, but troubled. It weighed upon her. If you have service that weighs you down, look into it and find out why. … She began by seeking to help the Lord, as it were. In the end she complains that she cannot get help herself. She wants to serve the Lord, but she turns round at last and wants to get Mary to serve her.
Martha does not simply lay the matter before Him. She tells Him what to decide, and what to say to Mary.
Not only was there a large streak of self-importance in Martha, but she felt herself constantly slighted and put out by others. The spirit of self-centredness measures by itself. It cannot appreciate a love that is deeper than its own. … Martha's thoughts circled round herself. Had she been thinking of Jesus, she would not have dictated to Him. Nor would she have complained of Mary. … She does not even leave it to the Lord to direct. Self is always fault-finding as well as self-important. It is as quick to blame others as to claim for itself what is unbecoming. "Tell her then to help me." She forgets that she was only the servant of the Lord.
Martha aims "Do you not care" at Him, not at Mary. Yet His reply carries no sharpness.
Does this not show that a complaining spirit is always against the Lord? Whatever the occasion, the Lord is over all things. By our complaints we always imply that He is not caring for us as He should. The Lord could not accept her reproof. Yet He rebuked her very gently for being full of care and troubled about many things.
Martha asks Mary to take the other end of her load. The same rare word appears once more in the New Testament.
This word, "helps," is of deep and wonderful meaning; it occurs only twice in the New Testament, in Romans 8:26, and in Luke 10:40. The word in the Greek (sunantilambano) means to take one end of a burden, and share it with the one at the opposite end. This is what the blessed Spirit of God does with us. On his path the believer finds many burdens too great to bear alone. He gets discouraged, just as Martha did with her housework.
Martha's order was work first. One writer presses the opposite order as the cure.
Whenever you find anyone serving without sitting at His feet, you may be sure they are Martha-like. If you begin with serving (as many do today), you will never sit at His feet. But if you begin with sitting, you will soon serve well, wisely, and in a way He accepts. The serving quiets the conscience, and the sitting is overlooked and neglected.
This is not the last meal Martha makes for Him. Later she serves Him again, and the strain is gone.
Martha still serves, but she is no longer weighed down by her service. In other days her service had a larger place in her thoughts than Christ; now Christ has a larger place than her service. She is serving to make "Him a supper".
- Right work. Martha's serving was her proper duty; the fault was in "much" — she aimed at special style and it distracted her.
- Wrong weight. Much serving does not only make you busy. It makes you troubled. Look closely at any service that weighs you down.
- Wrong direction. She began by helping the Lord and ended demanding help for herself, telling Him what to say to Mary.
- Wrong target. "Do you not care" blames Christ for not caring. He will not accept the reproof, but He answers her gently.
- Right order. Begin with sitting and you will soon serve well; begin with serving and you will never sit. Martha proves it later, still serving, but now to make Him a supper.
But Jesus answering said to her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things;
Martha has welcomed Jesus into her home. Now she is the one He has to correct. His words in this verse are not aimed at her work but at what her work was doing to her.
The verse names two things, not one: she is anxious, and she is troubled. One writer presses the second word, and asks what it says about the state of a servant.
"You are anxious," He says to Martha. Friends, if you are busy about many things, you will not only be busy, but troubled. Martha, we read, "was distracted with much serving." She was not only burdened but "troubled." It was very busy service, but it weighed her down. Dear friends, if you have service that weighs you down, look to it — find out why.
The same writer traces where her complaint ended up: "She began by seeking to help the Lord. She ends by complaining that she cannot get help herself."
So what was wrong with getting a meal ready for her guest?
Martha's case was very different, for she was doing what was right. The house was hers and the Lord was her Guest. If she had not busied herself in the service of her house, she would have failed in what was plainly her duty. The trouble was her getting burdened and distracted by "much serving." And what lay at the root of this? Evidently a self-centred spirit. She began to be annoyed with her sister Mary, because Mary did not join in this excess of preparation. Instead she sat at the feet of Jesus, captivated by His word... His answer was most clearly a word of rebuke because of self-centredness.
That self-centredness shows in how she spoke to Him. She did not ask; she instructed.
Martha had a strong streak of self-importance. She also felt constantly slighted and put out by others. The spirit of egoism measures by itself, and cannot appreciate a love which is deeper than its own... Had she been thinking of Jesus, she would not have dictated to Him any more than have complained of Mary... She forgets that she was but the servant of the Lord. Who was she to wish to control Him?
Before He says a word about Mary, He speaks to Martha about her own state.
Jesus, however, answers with the dignity that was proper to Him, and the love that always sees true to its mark... He loved them both, indeed... He deals first of all with herself. She ought not to have been thus anxious and careworn. Martha did not know what Paul knew so well: "One thing I do" (Phil. 3:13). There was never a man with such varied occupations as the apostle... What carried him through all his unmatched toil and suffering, undistracted and happy? The reason was that one person, the only worthy Object, filled and governed his heart.
Her interference, not her cooking, drew out the rebuke.
Her service had its place and its value. Her Lord knew well how to value it. But, blessed be His name, He will not allow anyone to interfere with another. Each had her own place, her own line of things... If Martha had gone quietly on with her work, with Christ as her object in all she did, she would not have met a rebuff.
The cure is not to do less. It is to have a different centre.
In this world many troublesome things are bound to confront us. The real trouble is not those things. It lies in the inward disposition that lets them trouble us. We get anxious and troubled about many things because we are so self-centred. What is the desirable thing? To be Christ-centred. If Christ is the great Object before our hearts, the many things become simplified and lose their power to worry.
And the "one thing" itself is not a task at all.
That good part is prizing Christ and His Word, not thinking what Mary could do for the Lord, but what the Lord could do for Mary. To receive all for her soul from the Lord, instead of receiving Him into her house, was before Mary's soul. This was the one thing needful — it was Christ Himself.
- Symptom — The word is not only "busy" but "troubled": service that weighs you down is service to examine, not to admire.
- Cause — Self at the centre. It shows less in the work than in the irritation with others and in telling the Lord what to do.
- Correction — He answers Martha about Martha before He answers her about Mary. And He speaks with love, not coldness.
- Cure — Not fewer duties, but a different centre. When Christ is the object, the many things lose their power to worry.
- Content — The one thing needful is a Person, not a task: receiving from Him rather than only doing for Him.
but there is need of one, and Mary has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her.
Martha is cooking for Jesus, and the work has become a burden she resents carrying alone. His answer cuts life down to one necessity, and says that what Mary gained that afternoon can never be taken from her.
The "one thing" is hearing Christ's word. Nothing else lasts, and nothing else can stand in for it:
He wanted His words to enter and to have power in the heart. The only thing that endures forever is "the word of the Lord." The wisdom of this world is against it, and so is human reasoning. But it is the only thing worth waiting on diligently... To hear Jesus is the "one thing" needful. No attention, even to Himself in the flesh, though it came from one who loved Him and whom He loved, could replace this.
The verse is often quoted as though Jesus ranked two good options and Mary took the higher one. The wording will not carry that:
Mary realised that He had much more to give her by His word than she could give Him by her service. So she chose the good part and sat at His feet. It does not say "the better part," as it is so often misquoted. There is no comparison here. It is simply "the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." By hearing His word we come to know Himself, and that closeness with Him and His mind will last for eternity.
Martha was busy for Jesus. The problem was what her service had pushed aside:
There can be so much apparent zeal, activity and earnestness that does not spring from the heart's appreciation of Christ at all! This was what was lacking in Martha... All service has its value in His eyes according to how far the heart is engaged with Himself as its first object. Now "Martha was distracted with much serving." She was putting her service in the place of Jesus. He loves her too well to agree to her heart being taken up like that. He wanted her to enjoy Himself.
Mary is not idle in this scene. She is taking in. The two sisters differ in which way the traffic runs:
We must be receivers before we can give, and Mary was a receiver. Martha was a giver, and the Lord Jesus was her guest, but Mary was the Saviour's guest. Sadly, we are often content with taking in only a few drops. No wonder we can only give out a few drops. If rivers are to flow out from us, we must receive rivers. Where the Lord is, there is always plenty of provision — His presence always gives plenty.
Martha's dinner would be gone and forgotten by morning. What Mary took in was of a different order, and it followed her into the next day:
What she received that day was eternal in character, and so it could not be taken away from her. In her present frame of mind, Martha's household cares would start all over again when the sun rose the next day. But Mary would wake with heaven in her soul, because Christ filled her heart. His presence and the enjoyment of His love would light her whole future path. She would meet her daily responsibilities all the better, and more according to God.
The promise does not rest on how strongly we feel it at any given moment:
We may not always enjoy or value the good part as we ought to, but it shall not be taken away from us. God says it, and that is enough for faith.
One writer translates the Lord's words literally, and hears in them a comment on Martha's menu:
"Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many: but few are needful, or one." That is the literal translation of what the Lord said. Our translators added "things" to make good English. But the Lord probably meant "many dishes" or "many courses," when "few dishes," or even one dish, was all that was needed — perhaps only a plate of porridge.
- One thing. The one necessity is hearing Christ's word. Nothing else can take its place.
- One posture. Mary's place at His feet is the receiving position; rivers only flow out of those who have taken rivers in.
- One warning. Service is good. But it can take the place Christ should hold, and then it distracts and weighs the heart down.
- One correction. He does not call Mary's choice "better" than Martha's, but "good." The service He values flows out of that hearing.
- One keeping. The many things get eaten, spent and forgotten. This portion is eternal, so it stands even when our enjoyment of it dips.
And it came to pass as he was in a certain place praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples.
A disciple watches Jesus pray, waits for Him to finish, and asks to be taught the same thing. Two questions sit inside that request: why did men already following Jesus feel unable to pray, and why did they name John the Baptist rather than Moses?
The request grew out of two things: what they saw in Jesus, and what they felt in themselves.
The disciples felt their need of prayer. John taught his disciples to pray, and that stirred them up. They were born of God; but for all that, they lacked power for prayer, their souls were feeble in it. No one prayed like Jesus, and no one depended on His God and Father as He did. No Gospel writer shows this as much as Luke, and so no one shows it in as many different situations.
Just before this, Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened. The order of the two scenes matters.
If Mary suggests feeding upon the word of God at the feet of Jesus, this points to its effect — it leads to prayer. Our Lord's example in this stirs His disciples to ask to be taught to pray.
The disciple names John, not Moses. The law of Moses set out forms for almost everything, so that choice is worth noticing.
It is characteristic of the law that, with all its forms, no form of prayer was ever prescribed to the people. When the disciples ask for one, they point to John the Baptist as having taught his disciples, and not to Moses. God's people knew their need and had always expressed it, and of course the Old Testament is full of examples. That makes it all the more striking that the law prescribed nothing of the kind. The law was God's schoolmaster, teaching man his weakness, but it did this by demanding strength from him.
John had given his followers words to pray. Something in the Lord's ministry had made those words feel too small.
By asking, they admitted that the Lord's ministry had brought a great advance in spiritual teaching. The old forms of prayer no longer gave John's disciples a way to express all they desired. So he had taught them to pray. John's ministry stirred people up and dealt with the conscience. It did not minister grace as the Lord's ministry did, which spoke of the Father. This was a revelation by the Son, never entrusted to John. So old forms of prayer could not fit such fresh truth. In His answer the Lord agreed, and showed that prayer should match the revelation given to us.
They asked for a lesson. What they lacked was not a method.
They had not learnt the simple confidence in the Father that turns to Him and tells Him everything. They did not understand their place as children of the Father. He stoops to teach them in that condition and gives them this prayer. He teaches them to pray for the things His own heart was taken up with.
The Lord gave this prayer more than once, and the wording is not the same each time. One writer draws a practical warning from that.
In Luke 11 the Lord answered their request, "Lord, teach us to pray," much as He did in Matthew 6, but with slightly different wording and in a shorter form. This prayer comes from the mouth of the Son of God, so it is perfect. Even so, these differences ought to warn us not to make a "fixed form of prayer" out of it. And yet the so-called "Lord's Prayer" has become the most repeated prayer in Christendom.
The Lord's answer does not stop with the words of the prayer.
The Lord next insists on persistence, or perseverance, in prayer, with the blessing attached to earnestness with God. Then He touches on the gift of the Spirit: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" He gives not merely good things, but the Holy Spirit, the best gift. They were really disciples; they were born of God, yet they still had to pray for the Holy Spirit to be given to them.
- Example first. Jesus was praying. No one depended on His God and Father as He did, and that example, not a rule, prompted the request.
- Hearing feeds asking. Mary's place at His feet leads straight into this: taking in God's word is what makes a person want to speak to Him.
- Need, not law. The law prescribed no form of prayer; it demanded strength. Prayer rises where people feel weak, so the disciple names John, not Moses.
- Light shapes words. The old forms no longer fitted people who had heard the Son speak of the Father. Prayer should match the revelation given.
- The best gift. The lesson ends not in a formula to recite but in perseverance, and in a Father who gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
And he said to them, When ye pray, say, Father, thy name be hallowed; thy kingdom come;
A disciple watched Jesus praying and asked to be taught. Luke's record of the answer is shorter than the one in Matthew. What He gave them starts not with their needs but with God — one word of address, then two desires.
The prayer opens with one word of address. One writer marks how far that word moves beyond the names God's people used before.
Our Lord then directs the disciples to their Father. This is the first and very significant word of the prayer. When believers today address God as Jehovah or Almighty God, do they not forget that they are Christians? People addressed God as Almighty with understanding in the days of Abraham and the patriarchs. They were the days of promise. Later, when God called out the nation of Israel and put it under law, they knew Him as Jehovah-God. Now it is as Father that the Christian knows Him.
Many readers know the longer wording from Matthew and wonder where it went. The answer lies in how copyists worked.
It is true that the King James Bible has it in the matching passage of Luke. But everyone who knows this subject well knows there are strong reasons for cutting the clause there back to the single word "Father." My own conviction is that copyists took the longer form in the common text of Luke from Matthew.
The brevity itself carries a warning against treating the words as a fixed formula:
It is the Spirit of God who has decided this. He gives an outline that matches the moral character of Luke's Gospel. But it is an outline, not meant for repeating word for word, since it has no closing sentence and no "Amen."
A "name" in Scripture is not a label. It stands for everything God has shown Himself to be. So this first thing we ask for lands on the one praying.
"Name" in Scripture always expresses what God is as revealed. So, joined to the Father, it is the truth of what God is in that relationship. So when we long for His name to be hallowed, we are asking that it be kept holy in us, by us, and by all who have the privilege of calling on God by this precious title. We are asking that there be in us an answering response to His holiness in this relationship.
The words ask for a kingdom that belongs to the Father. Writers set it apart from the Son of Man's reign over the earth.
It is not the kingdom of the Son of Man, the kingdom of Christ, that is spoken of here, but the Father's kingdom. It is not "my kingdom come," but "your kingdom come." The Father's kingdom is the sphere where the heavenly saints will shine like the sun. The Son of Man's kingdom is the sphere where all peoples, nations, and languages will serve Him. Heaven and earth will both come under the Lord Jesus when He comes, and both will make up the kingdom of God. But the Father's kingdom is the upper department, and the Son of Man's kingdom is the lower one.
Commentators differ on when that kingdom comes. Some place it beyond the thousand-year reign:
For this kingdom of the Father we must look past every age of God's dealings to the sabbath rest of God Himself. To confuse it with the millennium would be a complete mistake, and would drag its character far down. The millennium, with all its blessedness, is only a step toward this glorious completion.
We do not naturally pray in this order.
How often we put ourselves and our interests first in our prayers. It was not like this that the Lord taught His disciples. He taught them to put God first: to pray that His name might be hallowed, and then to stretch their desires out to the furthest bounds of the earth… Only then, when the heart has reached up to the sacred glory of God's name and has widened to take in every home of man, may we ask for our daily needs.
These desires are not only for a future day. They can shape a life now.
In a coming day of persecution and distress God's earthly people will cry this prayer from their anguished hearts, but how blessed if we are in the moral good and truth of it now.
- Father — The first word fixes the relationship. Not Almighty, as with Abraham. Not Jehovah, as under the law. Father — the name Christians know God by.
- Fewer words — Luke's short form is the true text. Copyists carried the longer address over from Matthew. It is an outline for prayer, not a formula to recite.
- Name — "Name" means all God has revealed Himself to be. To ask that it be hallowed is to ask that His holiness find an answer in us.
- Kingdom — We ask past the Son of Man's rule over the earth for the Father's own kingdom. Commentators differ on what that is: the heavenly side of Christ's reign, or the eternal rest beyond it.
- Order — God's name, then God's kingdom, then our bread. Pray in that order, and you stop putting yourself first.
give us our needed bread for each day;
Jesus has just taught His disciples to pray for the Father's name and kingdom. Now He turns to something as ordinary as a loaf of bread. That shift raises three questions. How much may we ask for? How often? And why does God feed us in small instalments instead of all at once?
The request for bread does not open the prayer. Commentators see meaning in that order:
Short, yet suggestive! Short, because it packs so much into a few sentences. Suggestive, because it reminds us that God's glory, and what concerns our Father, should have the first place in the heart. At the same time, we are perfectly free to make our wants known as well.
The English word "daily" is a weak stand-in for the Greek word behind it.
Then comes a petition expressing dependence on God for our ordinary need. "Give us our needed bread for each day." It takes up the pure and simple need of the body. The word "daily" is a very imperfect expression in English of the original term. The Greek word epiousios really means our "sufficient" bread. It seems to be a word made for this very idea, set against having more than we need. If we ask for more than enough, we slight the wisdom of the Lord.
The same writer links this request to contentment.
Give us today our sufficient (or, necessary) bread. So the disciples are taught to begin by confessing dependence for ordinary wants, as the apostle called us to be content with food and clothing.
Matthew records "this day." Luke records "day by day" — the ESV renders it "each day." Kelly sees a change of outlook behind the change of words:
The believing Jews looked simply at the one day, it might be, before them. It was a definite request for the present need... But in Luke the Lord was teaching the Gentile believer — the one who is not a Jew. That believer shows a more constant spirit of dependence: "day by day" is the word. He was never to expect rest or a settled home on earth, as the Jewish believer might. His inheritance lay elsewhere; his portion here was to be always that of a stranger... The word for "give" is the same verb in both Gospels, but its form and force differ a little. In Matthew it implies a single passing act; in Luke it is the continuous habit, which naturally goes with the phrase "day by day."
Commentators differ on how far this request reaches. Kelly takes it as the plain need of the body. Others point to the manna, the bread God gave Israel in the desert, and hold that the request cannot stop at the body:
It is not straining the request for daily bread to make it include a spiritual application too. With the Lord it would be simply impossible, while remembering the need of the body, to forget the immensely greater need of the soul. In both ways the supply must be continual. The manna had to be fresh every morning, and freshly gathered as the morning came: hoarded, it bred worms and went bad.
God could settle our needs once and for all. Grant explains why He does not:
Often all we think of is having our need met; but how little a thing is that with God! It would cost Him nothing, we may say, to meet the need of a lifetime in a moment. A lesser love than His would supply it all at once and be rid of a constant burden. But that is not His way. To supply the need is a small thing. But He means to supply it in a way that makes us feel, in each supply that comes just in time, that the Father's eye is never turned away from us and the Father's heart is always taken up with us.
Praying this way exposes where we really look for security.
"Give us this day our daily bread." Many a believer would almost break his heart if he thought his income would come to an end in twelve months' time. But this prayer means we look to Him as our only resource for today's needs.
- Order: God's name and kingdom come first, then our wants. We are still perfectly free to bring those wants.
- Enough: The word behind "daily" means sufficient. God teaches us to ask for what we need, not for more.
- Daily: Luke's "day by day" is a habit, not a single request — the outlook of a stranger whose inheritance is elsewhere.
- Fresh: Like the manna, the supply must keep coming. Hoarded provision spoils. God feeds body and soul alike.
- Love: God could meet a lifetime's need in a moment. He gives it day by day so we feel the Father's eye and heart on us.
and remit us our sins, for we also remit to every one indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.
The disciples had asked to be taught to pray, and this verse gives two requests for the soul: pardon and protection. But whose forgiveness is in view, does forgiving others earn God's pardon, and how could God lead anyone into temptation?
The people the Lord was teaching were already His followers. So they are not asking for the pardon that settles a person's standing before God. They ask for the pardon a Father gives His own children when they fail.
This is not a sinner's forgiveness, when he first comes to know the Lord. It is the forgiveness of the disciple living under the daily government of his Father. How misleading, then, to make an unconverted person ask forgiveness as if he were already a child of God! Under the gospel, the unconverted receive forgiveness of sins by faith in the blood of Jesus — by receiving the gospel itself. This passage speaks only of a child's forgiveness: the removal of whatever gets in the way of fellowship with God.
Applied to someone not yet converted, this prayer would make pardon depend on his own conduct.
Does God make the forgiveness of an unconverted man depend, in any sort or degree, upon his forgiveness of others? By no means. That would demand a very high standard of conduct from a person in the lowest possible condition... In a word, it would ruin and deny the gospel, which would then be of works and no more grace.
Matthew's account of this prayer uses a different word, and the change is worth noticing.
If in Matthew it is said "debts" and in Luke "sins," there is a slight shade of difference that ought not to pass unnoticed. "Sin" says plainly how deep the soul's moral need is. The simplest non-Jew would understand the word "sin." A Jew would feel what a debt was in his responsibility to God. It assumes a known relationship — one he already stood in, and in which he had failed. To those who had never stood in that position, the idea of "debt" was not so clear... "Debt" is more of a picture, though a Jew understood it perfectly.
The next words tie how I treat people to how God deals with me day by day.
That means our attitude to others has a serious bearing on ourselves. No doubt this passage looks at forgiveness from the standpoint of God's government. And it is exactly on those lines of government that the matter becomes very serious. Do I forgive? Then I can call upon God to forgive me. Am I hard and unforgiving? I shall reap what I sow.
Knowing your own debt is cancelled does not make you casual about wrongdoing. It makes you gentle with others who fail.
God counts no sin against us now; it is all put away. But will that make me hard when others fail? No. Seeing that Christ went through agony on the cross for me gives me a sense of my freedom, but not indifference about sin. Instead of hardness, it will give us tenderness and softness of spirit.
God never tempts anyone to do wrong, so the word here means something else: being tested and put to the proof.
The disciples knew their own weakness, so they were right to ask God not to lead them into such severely testing circumstances. No prayer such as "Lead us not into sin" is or could be in the Bible, for that would charge God with moral evil. The temptation here means putting a person fully to the proof. If there is evil in the heart that has never been judged, the test brings it out to his shame.
This prayer comes from knowing yourself, and Christ's prayer for Peter shows what happens without it.
Whoever knows himself will pray, "Lead us not into temptation." May the grace of God work in us so that Satan need not sift us to strip away our pretensions. When Jesus prayed for Peter, whom He knew to be self-confident, He did not ask that His disciple escape the enemy's sifting, but only that his faith should not fail.
Luke's account ends without the closing line found in Matthew, and the oldest copies support that.
The most ancient copies leave out "Deliver us from evil"... This is not taking anything away from Scripture; it is laying aside what is not Scripture. We still have these words, and rightly, in Matthew: leaving them out here is a gain, not a loss.
- Family, not court. A child asks his Father to clear away what spoils daily fellowship. This is not a stranger asking to be let off forever.
- Plain word. Luke writes "sins" where Matthew writes "debts." A debt assumes a known relationship already failed. "Sin" names the moral need in words anyone understands.
- Mirror clause. How I treat those who owe me sets the measure of God's daily dealings with me. Forgive, and I can ask forgiveness. Stay hard, and I reap what I sow.
- Softened, not slack. Knowing my own guilt is gone makes me tender toward those who fail, never careless about wrong.
- Sifting, not sin. God tempts no one to evil. The prayer asks Him to keep us out of tests that would expose hidden weakness — the prayer a self-confident heart never thinks to pray.