page_title: Lord's Prayer
section_title: Analysis
hierarchical_section_title: Lord's Prayer / Analysis
caption_attribution_description: தமிழ்: கிறித்து கற்பித்த செபம் - கிரேக்கம் English: Lord's Prayer in Greek - Church of the Pater Noster
context_page_description: The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father, is a central Christian prayer which, according to the New Testament, Jesus taught as the way to pray:
  Pray then in this way ...
  When you pray, say ...
  Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke when "one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'". Lutheran theologian Harold Buls suggested that both were original, the Matthean version spoken by Jesus early in his ministry in Galilee, and the Lucan version one year later, "very likely in Judea".
  The first three of the seven petitions in Matthew address God; the other four are related to human needs and concerns. The Matthew account alone includes the "Your will be done" and the "Rescue us from the evil one" petitions. Both original Greek texts contain the adjective epiousios, which does not appear in any other classical or Koine Greek literature; while controversial, "daily" has been the most common English-language translation of this word.
context_section_description: St. Augustine gives the following analysis of the Lord's Prayer, which elaborates on Jesus' words just before it in Matthew's gospel: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way" (Mt. 6:8-9):
  We need to use words (when we pray) so that we may remind ourselves to consider carefully what we are asking, not so that we may think we can instruct the Lord or prevail on him.
  When we say: "Hallowed be your name," we are reminding ourselves to desire that his name, which in fact is always holy, should also be considered holy among men. ...But this is a help for men, not for God. ...And as for our saying: "Your kingdom come," it will surely come whether we will it or not. But we are stirring up our desires for the kingdom so that it can come to us and we can deserve to reign there. ...When we say: "Deliver us from evil," we are reminding ourselves to reflect on the fact that we do not yet enjoy the state of blessedness in which we shall suffer no evil. ...It was very appropriate that all these truths should be entrusted to us to remember in these very words. Whatever be the other words we may prefer to say (words which the one praying chooses so that his disposition may become clearer to himself or which he simply adopts so that his disposition may be intensified), we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord’s Prayer, provided of course we are praying in a correct and proper way. 
  This excerpt from Augustine is included in the Office of Readings in the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours.
  Many have written Biblical commentaries on the Lord's prayer. Contained below are a variety of selections from some of those commentaries.
caption: The Lord's Prayer in Greek
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