Posted by Ray Kidder on 9/13/2009, 8:49 pm, in reply to "Re: Religious Rituals"
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Searcher,
I do not think repetitive prayer is necessarily an example of vain repetitions. In Luke 11 (NKJV), the teaching of the Lord's prayer is followed by these verses (NKJV):
5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;
7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’?
8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
These verses teach of the usefulness of persistence in prayer. Doesn't persistence imply repetition in prayers?
Here again is the teaching on the Lord prayer found in the preceding verses in Luke 11 (NKJV):
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
Notice how those who say this prayer are in the first person plural, rather than just an individual who would start by saying "My father in heaven."? If it was said by multiple persons together, then for them to agree to these petitions, they would have to say these words such that they can hear each other; right? This is therefore not the sort of prayer to be said by someone in a closet, although such individual prayers were indeed endorsed by Jesus.
If it was to be said by multiple persons in unison, then it makes sense for this prayer to be commonly spoken in a church, although it could also be spoken in other places as well.
Because I view this prayer as being based on the 10 Commandments, and because I view the father of humanity (Adam) as God's prototype Christian, I view this prayer as the sort of thing that leads to the covering of sin; the way Adam's flesh was covered while Adam was still in the garden. Adam became ashamed of his flesh as he became ashamed of his transgression. His flesh was covered by the grace of God. Adam's flesh was not destroyed but preserved and covered up to end his sense of alienation from God.
You wrote with respect to "Give us today our daily bread", that this is NOT talking about food on your table. Jesus is talking about the true bread from heaven, the Word of God.
I can accept the idea that this "bread" can come in the form of information from God, but why can't it also represent literal bread, including the bread that came when Jesus and His disciples fed the 5000 back in Luke 9:12-16? Can't this daily bread also represent a myriad of other helpful things (e.g. medicine that a physician would need to handle a midnight emergency medical situation)?
Do you believe the word of God that this daily bread represents is just the Protestant Bible, such that anyone who has such a bible in a language they can read need not ask for this daily bread anymore?
Ray Kidder
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