Lords prayer in Biblical History

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Schaff's Bible Dictionary

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What is the Lords prayer?
LORD'S PRAYER
, the name given to the prayer which our Lord himself taught his disciples, and which is recorded Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4. "The Lord's Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, as the Bible is the Book of books and the Apostles' Creed the Creed of creeds. It is the best and most beautiful, the simplest and yet the deepest, the shortest and yet the most comprehensive, of all forms of devotion. Only from the lips of the Son of God could such a perfect pattern proceed. An ancient Father calls it a summary of Christianity or the gospel in a nutshell. It embraces all kinds of prayer, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving, all essential objects of prayer, spiritual and temporal, divine and human, in the most suitable and beautiful order, commencing with the glory of God, gradually descending to man's needs, then rising to the final deliverance from all evil, and ending in thanksgiving and praise, as all prayer must end at last, in heaven, where all our wants shall be supplied. It accompanies the Christian from the cradle to the grave. It can never be superseded. If we have exhausted the whole extent of our religious wants and the whole vocabulary of devotion, we gladly return to this model prayer as infinitely superior to all our own effusions. It may indeed, be abused, like every gift of God, and become a dead form -- Luther called it in this respect 'the greatest martyr on earth' -- but this is no argument against its proper and frequent use. It is not intended, of course, to supersede other forms or extemporaneous prayers, but it should serve as a general pattern and directory to all our devotions, and breathe into them the proper spirit." -- Schaff. The Lord's Prayer is divided into three parts -- the address ("Our Father who art in heaven"), the petitions (six or seven), and the doxology. The address or preface puts us into the proper filial relation to God as our Father, to our fellow-men as our brethren ("our"), and into the proper attitude of prayer as an ascension of the soul to heaven ("who art in heaven") as our final home. The petitions are divided into two classes. The first three refer to the name, the kingdom, and the will of God; the other three or four to the temporal and spiritual wants of man till his final deliverance from all evil (or, better, from "the evil one" -- that is, from Satan, sin, and its consequences). The doxology is wanting in Luke and in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew; it probably found its way into the margin and then into the text from the habit of the Christians, inherited from the Jews, to wind up their prayers with a doxology. It is certainly very ancient and appropriate, and will never drop out of use, whatever critics may do with the text. The Lord's Prayer is intended for his disciples. He himself addressed God, not as "our Father," but as "my Father," or simply "Father," owing to his unique relation to him as the eternal and only begotten Son; and, being free from sin and guilt, he had no need to pray, "Forgive us our debts."

Bibliography Information
Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'lords prayer' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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