Penna Dexter

It’s good to periodically unpack the Lord’s Prayer so it’s never vain repetition. Two Christian apologists do this in a 2001 interview Lee Strobel conducted with Hank Hanegraaff on Hank’s book The Prayer of Jesus.

The two men agree: In this prayer, no words are wasted.

In beginning with “Our Father” Jesus taught His disciples to address God as Father. Only those adopted into the family of God could actually pray ‘Our Father.’ It’s plural, Hank says, because we come before God as a community of faith that “stretches throughout history.”

Praying, “Hallowed be thy name” places our focus on God and His nature. Hank Hanegraaff says this “is to pray that God be given the unique reverence that His holiness demands.”

He explains that when we pray, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we’re “praying that God would expand His rule over the territory of our hearts…areas in our hearts that still belong to us…rooms that have not yet been swept clean.” We’re also asking “that God would extend His territory in the kingdom of this world” and we’re acknowledging the promised Second Coming of Christ.

The two men lament that believers often “rush into the presence of God with a laundry list of requests.” But, by this point in the Lord’s Prayer, we have put into context the requests that follow:

When praying for “our daily bread,” we ask not just for ourselves, but also for “the needs of our brothers and sisters around the world.”

In asking God to “Forgive us our trespasses,” we acknowledge that “it is a horrendous evil even to consider withholding forgiveness from those who seek forgiveness from us.”

Finally, with “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” we acknowledge the power of our adversary, Satan, but recognize that he is “a lion on a leash” whose length God controls.

There’s more — a wealth of meaning in this concise prayer.