The Lord's Prayer Explained

In this episode of the Straight Truth Podcast, Dr. Richard Caldwell and host, Dr. Josh Philpot return to the subject of prayer. This week, the discussion centers on the Lord's prayer. Dr. Philpot mentions that it is one of the first things many Christians memorize. We teach it to our children, it's often recited regularly in many church gatherings, even repeated line for line at secular funerals. He asks if it is just something to be repeated all the time, or is there something more to it that we might be missing?

Dr. Caldwell tells us that our Lord gives this prayer in response to the request of His disciples' desire to learn how to pray. The Lord's prayer is the Lord's prayer, in the sense that He gave it. It's the disciples' prayer, in the sense that it's the disciples who learn how to pray by it. As Christians, we ought also to have this longing desire to know how to pray and to pray. One of the greatest indicators that the Lord has saved us, is that we become praying people. It's an area of our Christian lives where we will have a true sense of our inadequacies. Therefore, we should also have a desire to grow in, and improve in, this essential part of our relationship with our Lord.

Dr. Caldwell reads through Matthew 6:5-13 where the Lord gives His answer to the disciples' request. Dr. Caldwell pauses between the verses to break down our Lord's answer. He brings to our attention that Jesus mentions a wrong kind of praying before going on to give His model of prayer. At verse 9 our Lord gives this instruction, "Pray, then, in this way…", He doesn't say, "pray this". That's very important for us to see, as this isn't a prayer to be repeated over and over, verbatim. T