Power of Positive Thinking

[*~1Best~*]

Good Morning Tina Marie & Everyone...

God will deliver us from evil when we trust HIM.

We all seek, "Happiness"!

Have a great day and may the Spirit leads you.


~~~


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Prayer


"Our Father, which art in Heaven"

The opening pronoun of Matthew's version of the prayer—our—is plural, which is viewed by many as a strong indication that the prayer was intended for communal, rather than private, worship. Together, the first two words—Our Father—are a title used elsewhere in the New Testament, and other Jewish literature, to refer to God. This is most likely the intent of the prayer.

[edit] "Hallowed be thy Name"

Having opened, the prayer begins in the same manner as the Kaddish, hallowing the name of God, and then going on to express hope that God's will and kingdom will happen. In Judaism the name of God is of extreme importance, and honouring the name central to piety. In that era names were not simply labels, but were seen as true reflections of objects' nature. Therefore, when the prayer seeks to hallow God's name, it was seen as equivalent to actually hallowing God. Hallowed is the passive voice and future tense, which to some makes it unclear how this hallowing is meant to occur. One interpretation is that this is a call for all believers to honour God's name. Those who see the prayer as primarily eschatological understand the prayer to be an expression of desire for end times when God's name, in the eyes of those carrying out the prayer, would be universally honoured.

[edit] "Thy kingdom come"

The request for God's kingdom to come is usually interpreted as a reference to the belief, common at the time, that a Messiah figure would bring about a Kingdom of God. Some scholars have argued that this prayer is pre-Christian and was not designed for specifically Christian interpretation. Many evangelicals see it as quite the opposite—a command to spread Christianity.

[edit] "Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven"

The prayer follows with an expression of hope for God's will to be done. This expressing of hope can be interpreted in different ways. Some see it as an addendum to assert a request for Earth to be under direct and manifest divine command. Others see it as a call on people to submit to God and his teachings. In the Gospels, these requests have the added clarification in earth, as it is in Heaven, an ambiguous phrase in Greek which can either be a simile (i.e., make earth like Heaven), or a couple (i.e., both in Heaven and earth), though simile is the most common interpretation.

[edit] "Give us this day our daily bread"

The more personal requests break from the similarity to the Kaddish. The first concerns daily bread. What this means is slightly obscure, since the word that is normally translated as daily—ἐπιούσιος epiousios—is almost a hapax legomenon, occurring only in Luke and Matthew's versions of the Lord's Prayer, and in an Egyptian accounting book, with no other surviving written citations. Daily bread appears to be a reference to the way God provided manna to the Israelites each day while they were in the wilderness, as in Exodus 16:15–21. Since they could not keep any manna overnight, they had to depend on God to provide anew each morning. Etymologically epiousios seems to be related to the Greek word ousia, meaning substance. Early heterodox writers connected this to Eucharistic transubstantiation. Modern scholars tend to reject this connection on the presumption that Eucharistic practise and the doctrine of transubstantiation both developed later than Matthew was written. Protestants concur since they reject belief in transubstantiation. Epiousios can also be understood as existence, i.e., bread that was fundamental to survival. In the era, bread was the most important food for survival. However, scholars of linguistics consider this rendering unlikely since it would violate standard rules of word formation. Koine Greek had several far more common terms for the same idea. The usage of epiousios in the Egyptian papyrus is in the sense of for tomorrow. That is more clearly stated in the wording used by the Gospel of the Nazoraeans for the prayer. Therefore, the common translation is daily, a translation conveniently close in meaning to the other two possibilities as well. Those Christians who read the Lord's Prayer as eschatological view epiousios as referring to the second coming—reading for tomorrow (and bread) in a metaphorical sense. Most scholars disagree, particularly since Jesus is portrayed throughout Luke and Matthew as caring for everyday needs for his followers, particularly in the bread-related miracles that are recounted.

[edit] "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us"

After the request for bread, Matthew and Luke diverge slightly. Matthew continues with a request for debts to be forgiven in the same manner as people forgive those who have debts against them. Luke, on the other hand, makes a similar request about sins being forgiven in the manner of debts being forgiven between people. According to literal translation of the Greek, the debts are financial debts. However, in Aramaic, the word for debt can also mean sin. The difference between Luke and Matthew's wording could be explained by the prayer about which they were writing was originally written in Aramaic. It is generally accepted that the request is talking about forgiveness of sin, rather than merely loans. This is the traditional interpretation, although some groups read it literally as a condemnation of all forms of lending. Asking for forgiveness from God was a staple of Jewish prayers. It was also considered proper for individuals to be forgiving of others, thus requiring the sentiment expressed in the prayer would have been a common one of the time.

[edit] "And lead us not into temptation"

Interpretations of the penultimate petition of the prayer—not to be led by God into peirasmos—vary considerably. Peirasmos can mean temptation, or just test of character. Traditionally it has been translated temptation. Since this would seem to imply that God leads people to sin, individuals uncomfortable with that implication read it as test of character. There are generally two arguments for this reading. First, it may be an eschatological appeal against unfavourable last judgement, though nowhere in literature of the time, not even in the New Testament, is the term peirasmos connected to such an event. The other argument is that it acts as a plea against hard tests described elsewhere in scripture, such as those of Job. Yet, this would depart heavily from Jewish practice of the time when pleas were typically made, during prayer, to be put through such tests.

[edit] "But deliver us from evil"

Translations and scholars are divided over whether the evil mentioned in the final petition refers to evil in general or the devil in particular. The original Greek is quite vague. In earlier parts of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Matthew's version of the prayer appears, the term is used to refer to general evil. Later parts of Matthew refer to the devil when discussing similar issues. However, the devil is never referred to as the evil in any Aramaic sources. While John Calvin accepted the vagueness of the term's meaning, he considered there to be little real difference between the two interpretations, and therefore of no real consequence.

[edit] "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen"

The doxology of the prayer is not contained in Luke's version, nor is it present in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew. The first known use of the doxology (in a less lengthy form) as a conclusion for the Lord's Prayer is in the Didache. In it are at least ten different versions among the early manuscripts before it seems to have standardised. Jewish prayers at the time had doxological endings. The doxology may have been originally appended for use during congregational worship. If so, it could be based on 1 Chronicles 29:11. Most scholars and many modern translations do not include the doxology except in footnotes. Nevertheless, it remains in use liturgically in Eastern Christianity and among Protestants. A minority, generally fundamentalists, posit that the doxology was so important that early editions neglected it due to its obviousness, though several other quite obvious things are mentioned in the Gospels.