What's your prayer?

We're kind of following Matthew's account in our Coffee and Bible studies, so now we come to the Lord's Prayer, which Luke (and maybe Mark) don't include until much later in the story. Chances are, Jesus taught the same prayer over and over, to disciples who, like us, could never quite remember. So now he teaches it to us...

(21) What’s Your Prayer?

We’re still reading the Sermon on the Mount, though Luke places the next section later in Jesus’ ministry. Maybe we’re reading several sermons, repeated sermons, or separate sermons. We can’t know which, but we can and do know, this teaching was believed to be true by those early readers, writers and followers of Jesus. As present-day followers, we also know this teaching and prayer was important enough that God inspired his writers to include it (twice) in his Bible.

Following on from the “love your enemies” and “be perfect as your father is perfect” passages, Matthew looks at some of the ways we try to prove we’re obeying. Read Matthew 5:48-6:4

1.       What’s your (or your child or grandchild’s) favorite way of trying to prove you’re good?

2.       Do you ever compare your “goodness quotient” with your neighbor’s? How do you come out in the comparison?

3.       What do rewards already received look like? Can you avoid them? How should you respond to them?

4.       Is all non-secret charity forbidden? What would that look like? What does public charity look like today? And where do taxes and “entitlements” fit in?

5.       If the left and right hand verse is hyperbole, what might it really mean in practical terms?

Read Matthew 6:5-8

1.       What did public prayer look like then? What does it look like today?

2.       How does this relate to arguments over prayer in public schools/at public sports events/at political meetings?

3.       How does it relate to prayer accompanied by sackcloth and ashes, fasting and abstinence? (Read 2 Samuel 3:31)

4.       How does this relate to prayer in our small group?

5.       What’s the difference between shopping-list (babbling?) prayer and believing God cares about all the details?

Read Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:1-4 What is different in the two passages? (You might want to read the footnotes too)

1.       When Jesus said “Our Father” it was new and exciting. What do we lose by making this a formal prayer?

2.       How do we balance praying for God’s will to be done and trying to force God’s will on our neighbors (e.g. with human laws, prohibition, etc)?

3.       How do we balance asking for our daily needs with caring for our neighbors’ daily needs? How does this apply when the neighbor might have broken a human law (immigration for example)?

4.       How do we balance asking forgiveness with giving it? What do you (or society) consider unforgivable? How does your forgiveness interact with society’s? Read Matthew 6:14-15, Mark 11:25-26 Does this affect your answer? And what forgiveness should we offer when “men sin against” not “you,” but others?

5.       What is your greatest temptation? Why do you return to it? Why doesn’t God make it easier to resist?

6.       Is it just the glory that’s forever, or are the kingdom and power eternal too? And why might this verse be missed out (or added)? (Could the fact that Jesus is heading to Jerusalem at this point in Luke be important?)

Read Matthew 6:16-18

1.       In Jesus’ day, fasting was public; it included wearing sackcloth, putting ashes on your skin, etc. Today the closest we get is Ash Wednesday—Do our Ash Wednesday celebrations follow Jesus’ directions?

2.       Jews all fasted at appropriate times and for appropriate reasons, so Jesus says “when” you fast because he knows they will. What if we don’t fast? How might this passage apply (like 6:1-4) to other things we do?

3.       We don’t anoint our heads either, but in Jesus’ day, anointing made you fit in with Romans as well as Jews. What do we forbid or allow that might make us fit in, and why might fitting in be as important as standing out?