Lord's Prayer

[fhkjds]

A Muslim friend recently pointed out to me that there are different versions of the Lord’s prayer in Matthew and Luke. He said, why didn’t they preserve the teachings of Jesus reliably enough to know what the prayer actually was?

The best answer I can come up with is that Jesus was teaching about prayer on more than one occasion, and was teaching about a PATTERN about the way to pray, rather than a specific prayer that was the same way every time the way we say it today. And I also realized, the prayers say essentially the same thing.

But it still bothers me that something as important as the Lord’s prayer comes in two different versions in those two gospels. What do you guys make of that? Why do you think there are two different versions?

 

[nickybr38]

I don’t think the words were what was important. I think it was the ORDER that was important. The Lord’s Prayer is rightly ordered and we should model OUR prayers after it.

Judging by the two different versions I think it’s safe to say the disciples saw this the same way. It wasn’t that he was teaching them a specific prayer, he was teaching them HOW TO pray.

 

[Apollos]

why didn’t they preserve the teachings of Jesus reliably enough to know what the prayer actually was?

The version in Matthew was part of the Sermon on the Mount. The one in Luke was given in response to one of the disciples’ questions. They were so reliable that they preserved both.

At any rate, the reason Jesus didn’t repeat himself verbatim was to teach us that prayers are not magical incantations that only work if you say the right words in the right order.

 

[Disciple71]

The version in Matthew was part of the Sermon on the Mount. The one in Luke was given in response to one of the disciples’ questions. They were so reliable that they preserved both.

At any rate, the reason Jesus didn’t repeat himself verbatim was to teach us that prayers are not magical incantations that only work if you say the right words in the right order.

I agree with this. If you say the same thing over and over it becomes redundant and you will lose intrest. I have also read other versions from different Bibles.

 

[GloriousOrder]

This same problem has also come up for me regarding another passage: that of the centurion who sees Christ die. In Matthew 28:54, this singular centurion says “surely this was the Son of God”, but in Luke 23:47 he says “indeed this was a just man” (in the Rheims translation). At first, I was disturbed by this utter lack of continuity between the two Gospels. Worst of all, I learned that Matthew was written 6-10 years after the Ascension, and that Luke was written perhaps 25 years after the Ascension, so it seemed as if Jesus’ status degenerated from “Son of God” to “a just man” over time!

What I failed to realise (and what a Protestant friend of mine pointed out) is the significance of the fact that those two accounts of the Passion were written 15-20 years apart, in different parts of the Empire. The fact that each account presents a few different (but trivial) aspects of the Lord’s Ministry, but preserves the overall Good News is proof that the Gospels are credible. Each man was inspired to write his own account of the Life of Jesus on Earth, according to his own nature. Luke, being a doctor and kindly human, was obviously going to focus on the justice of Jesus’ human side; Matthew, being a proud Jew, wanted to focus on Jesus’ divinity first and foremost. This is the reason that there are two accounts of the Passion, and also two accounts of our Lord’s Prayer!

The fact that they are different attests to the sincerity and inspiration of the writers. They did not make up some conspiracy to fake everyone out on this Jesus fellow, obviously! If everything was the same in each Gospel, we’d have much more reason to suspect that it was all a lie propagated by a bunch of criminals over 60 years. That is not the case.

 

[Apollos]

The fact that they are different attests to the sincerity and inspiration of the writers. They did not make up some conspiracy to fake everyone out on this Jesus fellow, obviously! If everything was the same in each Gospel, we’d have much more reason to suspect that it was all a lie propagated by a bunch of criminals over 60 years.

It’s easy enough to confirm this. Pay attention to what different people say and don’t say about something that you yourself witnessed, and the variations among the Gospels will seem trivial. I’m not talking about the unexpected like car accidents, but about the expected like what happened during a birthday party or on a TV show.