Hallowed Be Thy Name

An athlete focused on things other than training isn’t going to be a very good athlete (at least not for too long).  A musician who doesn’t devote her primary energies to practicing will never be a great musician.  Devote the scraps and leftovers of your energies to your relationship with your spouse and you will […]

Our Father, Who Art In Heaven

One of the most astonishing features of the Lord’s Prayer is its beginning.  There are many ways to call upon God: many titles, many names, many descriptors.  But the model Jesus provides is a unique and remarkable pattern for addressing God.  With an incredible economy of words, he challenges traditional notions of God, and highlights […]

Forgive us Our Debts and Trespasses

In our last post, we considered the variety found in praying the petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer.  Forgive us our…sins? debts? trespasses? Each of these forms of the petition has something to be said for them.  But, let’s drill down a little bit into the two metaphors Jesus uses for sin: “debts” in […]

Forgive us Our…Debts? Trespasses? Sins?

Despite an enormous variety of denominational (and non-denominational) bodies, there is remarkable unity around the praying of the Lord’s Prayer.  Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants of all stripes pray this prayer and the prayer is prayed nearly verbatim in all traditions…except for the “forgive us our…” section of the prayer. For some it is “Forgive us […]

Teach Us to Pray: Model Prayer

Christianity isn’t magic.  God’s not a genie.  There is no necessary correlation between performing certain religious ceremonies and experiencing good things.  If we think about any prayer in this way (including the Lord’s Prayer), we’ve got it all wrong.  This is superstition. Perhaps one of the great tragedies of the Lord’s Prayer is that it […]