We now conclude our journey through the Lord’s prayer by looking at Matthew 6:13. The complete prayer is below.
9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Matthew 6:9–13 (NKJV)
Our first phrase in 6:13 is a prayer to not be led into temptation but instead be delivered from evil or the ‘evil one.’ The obvious question is whether the Father leads us into temptation. To clarify, He doesn’t tempt us with sin, He does test us to reveal what we are carrying in our hearts. We have an example in Deuteronomy.
2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. Deuteronomy 8:2 (NKJV)
Of course, we have Jesus being led into the desert and tempted and tested by Satan after His public baptism. This is made explicit in Matthew 4:1. In Greek the word tempted is πειράζω peirazō; from 3984; to make proof of, to attempt, test, tempt:[1] It is a variant of the word translated as ‘temptation’ in 6:13 with the same basic meaning. The purpose of Jesus’ ‘temptation’ in the wilderness is the same as ‘test’ in Deuteronomy, the proving of character. We of course have Paul’s view as well, which aligns with Deuteronomy 8 and Matthew 4. Any testing or temptation we experience is designed to reveal our character. The Lord gives tests but His exams are ones we can pass if we choose rightly.
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NKJV)
Having looked at the issue of temptation, we arrive at the latter half of our phrase, deliverance from evil, which is available. It means looking to the Father in our trials knowing that He has provided a way through, even though we may not initially see it. Think of the Israelites leaving Egypt, ending up at the Red Sea, impassable water before them, the army of Egypt behind them – impossible. Yet when they looked to Yahweh, He led them through in victory. However, deliverance meant trusting Him.
Now we turn to our final phrase in the Our Father, ‘For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.’ In some of your bibles the phrase will be missing or there will be a note saying it is not in older manuscripts. I won’t delve deeply into textual criticism. It is a field with vast volumes of written literature. However, the closing phrase is in almost all Greek manuscripts we have and variants of it are also in two other places, the Didache and 1 Chronicles.
The Didache, meaning ‘teaching’ and written more fully as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is an early Greek church manual from the 1st or 2nd century on how the church is to be ordered and function. It has The Lord’s Prayer as follows in 8:2, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily (needful) bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; for Yours is the power and the glory forever.” Interestingly the ending is very similar to the longer ending we have in most Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. It is also in line with, and echoes, part of David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles.
10 Therefore David blessed the Lord before all the assembly; and David said: “Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. 11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, And You are exalted as head over all. 1 Chronicles 29:10-11 (NKJV)
Thus, we can be confident that ‘For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever’ expresses truth whether or not we believe it belongs in Matthew 6:13. This closing phrase summarizes everything else we have looked at. If we use the topics in this model prayer we begin with worship and a recognition of who the Father is and we end with again exalting and honouring His name. Let’s focus on that as we pray.
[1] Robert L. Thomas, New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries : Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998).
