17 April 2024
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Unlike the 18 Jewish prayers, which includes a plea of forgiveness, Jesus connects it to forgiving others. Promptly after the end of the Model Prayer, Jesus adds a comment to reinforce the necessity of embracing forgiveness as the way of life. Thus, Bailey notes that Jesus forgave in the very midst of the brutality against Him.
Bailey explains that English and Greek both differentiate between "debt" and "sin", but it's one term in Hebrew (khoba), and that's the word that appears in all the Syriac versions. Matthew uses "debt" and Luke uses it alongside "sins". It's something we need every day, right alongside the daily prayer for bread.
He raises the issue of injustice versus forgiveness. Are we doormats for sinners? Sadly, Bailey misses it again. He does say something useful, but misses an important point: Forgiveness we offer is not received unless the sinner repents. Our duty is to stand ready to forgive, to put it out there for those who do evil against us to claim. Instead, Bailey notes that the most hardened unforgiving people are those who didn't actually experience injustice themselves, but are dealing with it conceptually on behalf of others.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one. (NRSV)
We tend to see a strong moral distinction between "trial" and "temptation", but both Greek and Aramaic make them one word. What can we do with this ambiguous petition?
1. Bailey looks at it like God as our trusty guide across a trackless waste. The petition reaffirms our trust in God, and is not a rude demand for reassurance over actual doubts.
2. Another viewpoint has to do with Aramaic grammar. The idea is that we are not suggesting that God could cause us to get lost in sin, but that we are asking Him to prevent us from stumbling in paths blindly, to restrain us like wandering children.
3. The third point of view is that this was demonstrated in how Jesus warned Peter to pray while in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was not going to prevent the Devil from testing him -- and he surely was tested to the point of denying Jesus thrice -- but it was up to Peter to claim the promise that he need not fall.
My own answer is to go back to the Hebrew/Aramaic concept. Testing is part of life; the only temptation is already in your flesh (James 1:13-15). God does not tempt; He uses Satan as His servant to test us. Satan doesn't actually tempt us, but calls out to our fleshly nature. Nearly all the appearances of "temptation" in English translations miss the point. The western notion of being tempted from external sources is wrong. The real issue is the word translated "lead/bring into". The Model Prayer would be better phrased in English: "Keep us from getting lost in the folly of our fleshly temptations."
Bailey waffles on whether the second phrase means "evil" or "evil one"; Matthew's Greek word is frankly ambiguous. It makes little difference in Hebrew thinking. As noted in Heiser's teaching, "evil" refers to an outcome, an adjective, not an adverb. To harvest an evil outcome is placing yourself in Satan's hands. We are asking God to rescue us from giving in to our temptations so that we do not end up in those bad outcomes.
The final benediction in the Model Prayer is not in all our New Testament manuscripts. Bailey notes that it is a short version of 1 Chronicles 29:11-13, and fits the pattern of Jewish prayers, ending with something just like this. Who can say whether church leadership eventually decided it was a good addition in their own use of the prayer in worship?
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