Jesus gave his disciples a short prayer to base theirs on. On the one hand, the prayer provides a good structure, teaching us to put God and his praise first, confess our sins, and only then make our petitions for our material and spiritual needs. However, it was never meant to be an ideal prayer. It could contain no mention of the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension, and so on. The church's prayers became were to become much fuller, doctrinally speaking. It was clearly a prayer suitable for the great transition from old to new, from the age of the law to the age of the gospel, and the church should make more effort to incorporate pleas for that kingdom to come, as suggested by Jesus. Our prayer is not to go up to heaven but for it to come down. |
