Question about the ‘Our Father’

Originally posted on December 01, 2007 – by Andre Piet

From someone who had listened to my study on prayer, and had also received last Sunday’s message, I received an email with a question. In the aforementioned studies I argue that we should stand on what has been promised to us. It is not fitting to place question marks where God places exclamation marks in His Word. If God promises to take care of us, does it not show unbelief when we ask: “Lord, will You take care of us?” If Scripture says, “we have the forgiveness,” is it then appropriate for us to pray: “Father, will You forgive our sins?”

The woman who wrote the email wondered how these assertions relate to certain petitions in the so-called ‘Our Father’:

• “Give us today our daily bread” and
• “forgive us our debts…”

She added that she knows the teaching of the ‘Our Father’ is specifically for Israel, but still… how does this work?

The misunderstanding in the question, in my view, is the assumption that the various petitions in the ‘Our Father’ are uncertain requests. That is certainly not the case. In fact, they are not even questions! They are claims. Not: “will You give us today our daily bread?” but “give us today our daily bread.” In the same Matthew 6 where the ‘Our Father’ is recorded, we read the guarantee that when we first seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, all that we need will be given to us. That is a promise! The petition “give us today our daily bread” is nothing other than an appeal to that promise.

The same can be said about the petition “forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” That too is not a request for forgiveness, but a claim on forgiveness. It presupposes that we forgive our debtors. If we do not do that, we merely demonstrate that our prayer is not sincere. Is it not hypocritical to expect from God what we ourselves withhold from others? The thought in the ‘Our Father’ is: since we forgive our debtors, we expect nothing less from “our Father Who is in the heavens.”

Delen: