# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2013_S358
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

358

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
He cannot do His own will?”136 Many ask this very question, look at history’s
horrors and at natural disasters, and then conclude that such events prove that
both the idea of God’s will and God’s very existence are simply untenable.
That Jesus teaches us to pray for God’s will to be done helps us to think
more deeply. Here as in the previous two petitions, he reminds us of the great
gulf between earth and heaven. Unlike heaven, where nothing hinders God’s
bright and gracious will, on earth we pray “before the dark backdrop of a
world in which, notoriously, this will is not done.”137 David Crump reminds
us that “Prayer is the language of eschatology.” We live “between the times,”
that is, “while Christian prayer occurs in this life, its priorities and values are
dictated by the next.”138
The paradox of prayer itself is highlighted in this petition. Prayer always
seeks changes. “God’s will” is too deep for us to fathom. “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does
all these things” (Is. 45:7). An earthquake is in some fashion God’s will, yet we
pray that no one will die from it. Prayer “involves not only submission to the
will of God but seeking to change his will.”139 Like Jacob, we are “striving with
God” (cf. Gen. 32:28) to seek His blessing, but not in some attempt to manipulate or coerce God to do what we want, because we know that we are better off
in God’s hands than ours. This is so because faith sees that in Christ God wills
our salvation (1 Tim. 2:4), no matter how much other aspects of His will befuddle us. There is indeed much that is mysterious about God’s will, but what is
completely unambiguous is his desire to bring life and salvation through faith
in Jesus Christ (Ez. 18:23; 1 Tim. 2:4; John 6:39–40). For this we pray.

the sinful world stand in opposition to God’s love for that same world.
Cyprian comments: “It may moreover be thus understood, dearest brethren,
that as the Lord commands and admonishes us, to love even our enemies, and
to pray too for those who persecute us, we should make petition for those who
still are earth[ly], who have not yet begun to be heavenly, that in their instance
also that will of God may be done, which Christ fulfilled, in the saving and
renewing of man’s nature.”141
How deeply we need God’s will to be done amid our confusion and
rebellion! No wonder that in this petition our Lord has us praying against
ourselves. We sinners pray with Him: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours,
be done” (Luke 22:42). This petition “presupposes willingness on our part to
have our own will broken.”142 It seeks the new, right, holy, and free spirit, or
will, of Psalm 51:10 where the Holy Spirit teaches this paradox: “A free will
does not want its own way, but looks only to God’s will for direction. By so
doing it then also remains free, untrammeled and unshackled.”143 Bloesch
notes:
Because God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are
not our thoughts, God’s answer will usually be somewhat
different from what we request. This is why Luther could say,
“It is not a bad but a very good sign if the opposite of what we
pray for appears to happen. Just as it is not a good sign if our
prayers eventuate in the fulfillment of all we ask for.”144
In that same context, Luther added:
By this His most blessed counsel He renders us capable of
receiving His gifts and His works. And we are capable of
receiving His works and His counsels only when our own
counsels have ceased and our works have stopped and we
are made purely passive before God, both with regard to
our inner as well as our outward activities. . . . What is said
in Is. 28:21 takes place here: “He does a strange work in order
to do His own work,” and in Ps. 103:11: “As the heavens are
high above the earth (that is, not according to our thoughts), so
great is His steadfast love toward us, etc.”145

This petition also forces us to acknowledge the paradox that the almighty
God does not “get His way” in all things even though His good and gracious
will is accomplished in the end. The third petition recognizes forces that are
contrary to the intention and will of God. Jesus teaches us to strive earnestly
in prayer against all that makes earth inferior to heaven. The Scriptures show
us the real problem against which we struggle: the evil one exerts a will of his
own and our own fallen will is a party to his rebellion.
Luther is graphic: the “furious foe” rampages upon the earth; he “raves
and rages with all his power and might, marshaling all his subjects and even
enlisting the world and our own flesh as his allies.”140 War rages and evil’s
power must be broken. Yet, Luther also cautions us, lest our striving against

136

Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer, §9, 184.

137

Thielicke, 69.

141

David Crump, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 299.
138

139
Bloesch, 72. Note also the section above, “Prayer and the Paradox of Influencing an
Immutable God.”
140

Rather than going too far into such paradoxical complexities, Melanchthon reminds us that the third petition is also a simple prayer for obedience to

Graebner, 26.

143

AE, 42:48.

Bloesch, 92, quoting Luther from Lectures on Romans (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1961), 240.
144

145

LC 62, KW, 448.

Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer, §12, 186.

142

AE 25:365.

50

51

God.146 In His commands God has revealed His will in a form that is not too
high for us (Ps. 131:1; 139:6). He tells us what is good and bad, what He wants
for us and what He wants to spare us (cp. Luke 12:47!) and teaches us to pray
to be His faithful disciples, doing God’s will as He reveals it.147 In Psalm 40 the
Spirit moves the Christian to pray: “I delight to do your will, O my God; your
law is within my heart” (v 8), though “evils have encompassed me” (v 12).

word translated “daily.”151 Yet, the petition is not unclear. Jesus teaches us to
pray for bread—not steak or cherry cheese cake. And, no matter how we take
“daily,” Jesus is clearly teaching us to pray for bread that is needed at present
and not for some far tomorrow. His focus is not on luxury or future desires, but
the bread on our plate today.

Humble acquiescence toward God smacks of fatalism for some, but this is
a petition of quiet hope. Christ’s prayer in the garden ends in the presence of
a strengthening angel, not in grudging submission (Luke 22:43).148 And David
leads us into serene certainty: “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are
not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its
mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in
the Lord both now and forever” (Ps. 131, NIV).

The Fourth Petition: “Give us this day our daily bread”
In the first three petitions Jesus reminds us that on earth God’s name is
profaned, His kingly rule faces rebellion, and His gracious will must crush the
raging opposition of sin and Satan. The last three petitions address equally
grim truths of sin, temptation, and evil. 149 We might conclude that “earth
is a desert drear” and that we should pray of nothing but heaven. Instead,
the Lord’s Prayer next leads us into confident prayer about today. Christian
“spirituality” is not disembodied, nor does it neglect physical creation. The
tradition of beginning the day with Psalm 95150 invites us to “sing to the Lord”
and gives this reason for our praise: “In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his for he made it, and his
hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us
kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” (vv. 4–6). Christian spirituality is anchored
in creation.
Earthly, “daily bread” is the object of the fourth petition. The phrase “daily
bread” is both familiar and challenging. Scholars debate the meaning of the

146
Philip Melanchthon, Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine: Loci communes 1555 (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1965), 303. So also Luther: “That God’s will be done means undoubtedly
nothing else than that his commandments are kept, for through these God has revealed his will
to us” (AE 42:43).
147
See also Cyprian: “The will of God, is what Christ has done and taught.” The Lord’s Prayer,
§11, 185.
148
See Thielicke, 73: “It is the hour of angels, the hour of communion with the world of glory,
the hour of deep, mysterious, hidden happiness.”
149
See Ebeling, 55: “The prayer for our daily bread stands unpretentiously in between with its
face towards natural, everyday, matter-of-fact things.”
150

Psalm 95 is the chief psalm in the office of Matins (Morning Prayer).

52

2013 Convention Workbook

To pray for bread may seem too small a thing after praying at the expansive level of the eternal name, kingdom, and will of God. But God, much more
than the devil, is in the details of life. We may forget that by food came the
Fall, but God remembers such a small detail. The God of highest heaven is not
above lowly bread. “The very greatness of God lies in the fact that he condescends so low.”152
God-with-us shared our flesh and broke bread. He knows us better than
we know ourselves. He noticed the hunger of the crowds before His disciples
did (Mk. 8:1–3). Here He invites us to entrust ourselves to the Father’s daily
miracles of gracious provision, as He sends rain from heaven and causes earth
to feed man and beast (Ps. 72:6; 147:8; Matt. 5:45). To pray for daily bread is to
pray for this promised provision. We pray with confidence, knowing that our
Father saw our need before we could ask (Is. 65:24). To pray for bread with
Jesus is therefore also to learn thanksgiving, because life is sustained according
to the gracious will of our heavenly Father. “In this petition, therefore, we are
admonished and taught that men’s affairs in this common outward life do not
unfold rashly and occur by chance.”153
This petition wars against both anxiety and avarice. It teaches contentment
and to wield prayer against life’s worries. In Matthew 6 this petition parallels
a warning that follows: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble”
(Matt. 6:34). Paul echoes this: “But if we have food and clothing, with these
we will be content” (1 Tim. 6:8). He urges us: “[D]o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). Worry recedes as we “receive our
daily bread with thanksgiving.”154 Table prayers are spiritual weapons!

151
See Gibbs, 331. The Greek word ejpiouvsio", -on occurs only here in the NT. Scholars are
uncertain about which two or more Greek words have been combined to form it. “Bread
necessary for existence” assumes a derivation from epi plus ousia; “bread for the current day”
derives from epi ten ousan, “bread for tomorrow” derives from he epiousa hemera, and “bread that
is coming” assumes that the present infinitive of epeimi lies behind the word in the text. Gibbs
endorses the fourth understanding of the phrase: “it emphasizes that Jesus’ disciples cannot
procure or provide today’s bread for themselves; it must be the bread that is drawing near to
them from the Father’s provision.” See Chemnitz for the various understandings of “daily” in the
Fathers, The Lord’s Prayer, 58–61.
152

Thielicke, 86.

153

Chemnitz, The Lord’s Prayer, 62.

154

Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 189.

53