Teach Us to Pray
So Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Luke 11:2 · Berean Standard Bible
Jesus teaches them to start prayer with one word: 'Father.' Not a distant king, not an angry judge -- Father. Then He says to honor God's name and ask for His kingdom to come.
Calling God 'Father' in prayer was startlingly intimate for Jesus' time. He's inviting you into the same closeness with God that He experiences.
Jesus gives His disciples -- and you -- a template for prayer that starts with relationship, not requests.
The Lord's Prayer begins by reorienting your heart. Before you ask for anything, you remember who you're talking to: a Father who loves you and whose purposes are bigger than your problems.
Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer is shorter than Matthew's, opening with the intimate 'Father' (Pater) rather than 'Our Father in heaven.' The petition 'hallowed be Your name' (hagiasthētō to onoma sou) asks that God's character be recognized and revered.
Addressing God simply as 'Father' reflects the Aramaic Abba -- an unprecedented intimacy in Jewish prayer. The two petitions here -- for God's name and kingdom -- orient the pray-er toward God's purposes before personal needs.
Jesus teaches His disciples this prayer as a model for all their communication with God.
Jesus gives His followers a prayer that begins not with their needs but with God's glory. The simplicity and intimacy of this prayer revolutionized how people approach God.
1One day in a place where Jesus had just finished praying, one of His disciples requested, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2So Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come.
3Give us each day our daily bread.
4And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’”
Read all of Luke 11 — The disciples ask for a prayer, and Jesus gives them words that have echoed for two thousand years. Then he warns against empty religion.
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