The Lord’s Prayer really does my head in!!! For two reasons:
- churches generally have much more regard for a tradition form of the prayer than is warranted by biblical manuscripts and textual criticism. Most reliable manuscripts stop with v13 at the word “evil”. The whole “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Forever and ever Amen” is not part of the Lord’s prayer. Why do we include it? Well it’s another (annoying) tradition we have adopted from the KJV when few manuscripts were available and even fewer reliable ones.
- But here’s the thing that really annoys me at the moment. Where in the bible are we given the command to repeat this prayer in each church meeting? Does Jesus tell us to repeat it word for word – I don’t think so (unless someone can correct me)! Do we read of the early church using it – I don’t think so (unless someone can correct me). But again, some extra-biblical tradition has crept in and now provides some kind of litmus test for church services.
In contrast, things which Jesus does command us to repeat and we do see the early church doing (e.g. communion) we relegate this to the ‘less-important’ list of ‘things to do in church’ and so most of us do it once a month.
If you fancy starting a fight in your church: ask your pastor to demonstrate to you biblically why you should pray the Lord’s prayer more often than we take communion? The bible reckons it should be the other way around!
