http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14843238/how-does-truth-free-us-from-sin
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.
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The Other Lord’s Prayer
The KJV translation of the Lord’s Prayer is one of the most well-known portions of Scripture in the West. But we find the Lord’s Prayer twice in the Gospels — once in Matthew (6:9–13) and once in Luke (11:1–4). Doubtless Jesus delivered this prayer on multiple occasions. While the Matthew and Luke versions are remarkably similar, there are a handful of important differences. The most obvious difference is Luke’s omission of “Your will be done” and “Deliver us from evil.” In this article, however, we will briefly sketch two of the subtler differences and apply these insights to our personal lives.
Before we comment on a handful of unique features of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, we will first examine one common, salient denominator between the two presentations of the Lord’s Prayer (a point I expand upon further in my Handbook on the Gospels). Both evangelists underscore the name “Father” at the beginning of the prayer (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2).
Our Father
This appellation is odd, as Jews typically do not address God as their “Father.” The Old Testament primarily casts God as Israel’s covenant-keeping King who rules over the cosmos and graciously commits himself to preserving his people. This explains why the typical names are, for example, “Lord,” “Yahweh,” and “God.” While the Old Testament presents Israel’s God as Father on a few occasions (Exodus 4:22–23; Deuteronomy 1:29–31; 32:6; Psalm 103:13–14; Proverbs 3:11–12; Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Malachi 2:10), the title appears relatively rarely.
In the four Gospels, on the other hand, Jesus’s favorite term for addressing God is “Father” (for example, Matthew 10:32; Mark 8:38; Luke 2:49; John 5:17). Furthermore, Jesus, on a number of occasions, claims that God is also the “Father” of the disciples (Matthew 5:16, 48; 6:1; Mark 11:25; Luke 6:36; 11:13; 12:32; John 14:7, 21). What accounts for the shift of language from the Old Testament to the New? Richard Bauckham argues that “Jesus may have understood Abba to be the new name of God that corresponded to the new beginning, the new exodus, the new covenant with his people that God was initiating” (Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 67). Just as God gives Israel a distinct name for himself in the exodus (Exodus 3:14–15), so now God receives another name in the second exodus.
The term “Father,” then, would include not only a new dimension of intimacy but also a new revelatory description of Israel’s Lord. God, the Father, will now be known by his work of redemption in his Son. The Lord’s Prayer, then, is primarily marked by pleading to God to continue working out the new eschatological phase in his program — the long-awaited second exodus.
Teach Us to Pray
Now that we can appreciate the trajectory of the Lord’s Prayer more fully, let us consider how Luke frames the prayer. The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew (6:9–13) occurs within the famed Sermon on the Mount (5:1–7:29), whereas Luke places the account in Jesus’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–19:27).
All three Synoptic Gospels record Jesus’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, but Luke reserves more than one-third of his narrative for the journey. This portion of Luke’s Gospel is largely filled with parables and difficult sayings. The crowds (and Luke’s audience) must be willing to suffer for the sake of the kingdom and embrace a Messiah who suffers and bears God’s curse. The Lord’s Prayer, then, serves as a guide for communing with God, asking him to achieve his redemptive purposes in the life of believers, and solidifying one’s commitment to him.
“The Lord’s Prayer serves as a guide for communing with God.”
Luke dedicates more space to Jesus’s prayer life than any other evangelist (3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 29; 22:41, 44). Jesus prays at critical moments in his ministry. Indeed, prayer bookends his ministry: we find Jesus praying at his baptism in the Jordan River (3:21) as well as on the cross (23:46). We should assume that the disciples, like many first-century Jews, would have sought a robust prayer life. They would have recited the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:5–9) in the morning and evening and often prayed in their local synagogues.
The second half of Luke 11:1 reads, “When [Jesus] finished [praying], one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’” This verse gives us the impression that the disciples noticed something peculiar about Jesus’s prayer life. Was it when Jesus prayed, how he prayed, or what he prayed? Was it all three?
Each Day’s Bread
Five imperatives are found in both Matthew’s and Luke’s depictions of the Lord’s Prayer — “hallowed,” “come,” “give,” “forgive,” and “lead . . . not.” The first two commands are somewhat synonymous since they entail the expansion of God’s presence throughout the cosmos (Luke 11:2). The remaining three petitions constitute the manner in which the first two are carried out. That is, the requests for provision (11:3), forgiveness of sin, and deliverance from temptation (11:4) entail the responsibilities of the disciples in the ever-expanding kingdom.
Matthew’s Gospel reads, “Give us today our daily bread” (6:11), whereas Luke adds, “Give us each day our daily bread” (11:3). The addition of “each day” (to kath’ hēmeran) accents the disciples’ radical dependence upon God’s provision in their lives. This precise idea of relying upon God providing “bread” for his people recalls Jesus’s first wilderness temptation, where the devil entices Jesus to transform a stone into bread (Luke 4:3). Jesus refuses and then quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone’” (Luke 4:4). In Deuteronomy 8, the general point is that Israel must be wholly dependent upon God’s life-giving promises and presence. If Israel trusts God, then the nation will enter the promised land, “a land where bread will not be scarce and you [Israel] will lack nothing” (Deuteronomy 8:9).
The Lord’s Prayer likely has in mind Jesus’s wilderness temptation and Deuteronomy 8 — a passage that, in turn, looks back to Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and God’s feeding them daily with manna. Because Jesus succeeded in clinging to the promises of God by not transforming the stone into bread, he gained the victory over the devil. Jesus’s success in the wilderness empowers the disciples to conquer sin and thereby receive the “daily bread” of the Lord.
In a word, the daily provision of bread the Father delivers to his people concretely demonstrates that they have spiritually entered the promised land of the new creation. Perhaps, then, Luke’s addition of “each day” functions as a continual reminder of God’s end-time blessing in one’s life.
Forgive Our Sins
Luke’s prayer also contains another unique detail. Matthew’s Gospel reads, “Forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12), but Luke’s Gospel states, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Luke 11:4 NIV). The forgiveness of sins is exclusively bound up with Jesus’s atoning work on the cross.
Old Testament prophets, especially Isaiah, expected God to forgive the sins of his people at the end of history — a final, eschatological act of pardoning grounded in the servant’s faithful atoning ministry (Isaiah 43:25; 52:13–53:12; Jeremiah 31:34; Micah 7:19). Luke explicitly identifies Jesus as the long-awaited servant of Isaiah (Luke 2:32 [citing Isaiah 49:6]; 22:37 [citing Isaiah 53:12]). Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer, then, rests upon Jesus’s sacrificial death.
Remarkably, Jesus institutes the Lord’s Prayer before his work on the cross, but we must remember that all of Jesus’s life is oriented toward securing forgiveness of sins on the cross (see Luke 3:3, 21; 5:20–24; 7:47–49; 24:47). In addition, because Jesus’s followers fully identify with Jesus, they are endowed with the authority to grant “forgiveness” to others. What is true of the “servant” is true of his followers — the little “servants.”
Pray Like This
How do we apply these truths to our daily lives?
“Those forgiven have firsthand knowledge of the need for forgiveness.”
First, by asking God to provide us “each day our daily bread,” we admit our radical dependence on him, pleading with him to finish what he began. God has initially and spiritually placed us in the promised land of the new creation, but we still await the full transformation of our hearts and bodies.
Second, Jesus calls us to always ask God to grant us forgiveness of sins. While Christ died for our sins once for all, we continually come before the throne and plead with him to forgive the sins that beset us. In addition, he commands us to extend forgiveness to those who have offended us. Those forgiven have firsthand knowledge of the need for forgiveness, so we should never be tightfisted in granting it to others.
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Young Love in a Cruel Land: The Wife Who Sailed with Adoniram Judson
On February 18, 1812, Ann and Adoniram Judson (ages 21 and 22) boarded the Caravan in the New England port of Salem. They had been married for less than two weeks, and set sail for Asia, expecting not to see America again.
They arrived in Burma (now Myanmar) to commence pioneer gospel work in July of 1813 — having already endured a four-month sea journey, a painful separation from their sending body and colleagues (due to their conscientious decision to be baptized as believers), the death of Ann’s friend Harriet, and the stillbirth of Ann’s first child.
The next thirteen years would be punctuated by serious illness, lengthy separations, and continual harassment. Ann’s second child, Roger Williams, died at eight months. She was pregnant with her third child when Adoniram was taken into the notorious Death Prison in Ava in June 1824. They would not know freedom together until February 1826. During that time, both suffered immensely; Ann daily risked her own life to care for Adoniram. These privations resulted in her death, at age 36, in October 1826. Little Maria Eliza would die six months later.
So much suffering. So many tears.
Yet Ann’s determination to serve Christ shone, undimmed, to the end. What fueled her resolve? To answer that question, we have to go back to her profound conversion, which resulted in a passionate concern for God’s glory and a powerful certainty in God’s promises.
Profound Conversion
Ann Hasseltine was born in 1789, in Bradford, New England. Popular and sociable, she would confide in her diary that she was “one of the happiest creatures on earth” (Ann Judson, 20). Ann attended church each Sunday, but her life revolved around friends and parties.
When she was 15, a teacher arrived at Bradford Academy who urged his pupils that repentance was urgent. Many were convicted of sin, including Ann. But she lurched, for months, between fear of judgment and terror of what friends would say if she became “serious.” Ultimately, God drew her to himself. At age 16, she wrote,
A view of [God’s] purity and holiness filled my soul with wonder and admiration. I felt a disposition to commit myself unreservedly into his hands, and leave it with him to save me or cast me off, for I felt I could not be unhappy, while allowed the privilege of contemplating and loving so glorious a Being. . . .
I felt myself to be a poor lost sinner, destitute of everything to recommend myself to the divine favour. [I knew] that it had been the mere sovereign, restraining mercy of God, not my own goodness, which had kept me from committing the most flagrant crimes. This view of myself humbled me in the dust, melted me into sorrow and contrition for my sins, induced me to lay my soul at the feet of Christ, and plead his merits alone, as the ground of my acceptance. (24–25)
Ann joined the Congregational Church in Bradford in September 1806. Her parents and siblings were also converted and joined the church. This is a vignette of what was taking place throughout America — a movement we now refer to as the Second Great Awakening.
“Christ did not issue the Great Commission on the condition that health, comfort, and safety could be assured.”
One outworking of revival was increased concern for those unreached with the gospel. Previously, American Protestants had sent missionaries to the North American Indians, but not overseas. Now, some young Christians were convinced that Christ’s command to go to all nations applied to them too.
Following her conversion, Ann began teaching in a small school. She wanted the children in her charge to follow Christ, but in her prayers she ranged across the globe, praying for the conversion of all nations:
My chief happiness now consisted in contemplating the moral perfections of the glorious God. I longed to have all intelligent creatures love him. (27)
Passionate Concern
Ann now knew that she was here on this earth to serve God. At 18, after reading the journal of David Brainerd, she wrote in her own journal of her passion to pray for all nations, and of her willingness to go wherever Christ would choose.
A year after that, in June 1810, four young students met with the General Association of Congregational ministers in Bradford. They were volunteering to take the gospel to the unreached people of Asia. One of them was Adoniram Judson. The brilliant son of a Congregational minister, he had been converted after a period of rebellion. Like Ann, his conversion resulted in a passionate concern that all nations should praise God.
That day, the would-be missionaries were given lunch at the home of the Hasseltines. Unsurprisingly, Adoniram set his heart upon Ann. One month later, he wrote to her father,
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life . . . to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? (37)
Mr. Hasseltine left the choice to Ann, who resolved to marry Adoniram and to leave all she knew for the unknown:
I rejoice, that I am in [God’s] hands — that he is everywhere present, and can protect me in one place as well as in another. He has my heart in his hands, and when I am called to face danger, to pass through scenes of terror and distress, he can inspire me with fortitude, and enable me to trust in him. Jesus is faithful; his promises are precious. (40)
At this time, sea journeys were hazardous. Letters took months, and some never arrived. There was no established mission network to which these pioneers could go. Nothing was guaranteed: safety, health, toleration — least of all success. Many thought the idea insane.
But Christ did not issue the Great Commission on the condition that health, comfort, and safety could be assured.
Shortly after arrival in Burma, Ann’s journal records her desire that all should honor God, her concern for the plight of people deprived of gospel light, and her conviction that it was a privilege to have been called to sacrifice comfort for the kingdom:
If it may please the dear Redeemer to make me instrumental of leading some of the females of Burma to a saving acquaintance with him, my great object would be accomplished, my highest desires gratified: I shall rejoice to have relinquished my comforts, my country, and my home. . . . When shall cruel, idolatrous, avaricious Burma know, that thou art the God of the whole earth, and alone deservest the homage and adoration of all creatures? Hasten it, Lord, in thine own time. (83–84)
Cruel and avaricious were not malicious terms. Burma’s penal system was indeed brutal, including public torture for minor offenses. And the country’s exorbitant taxation trapped the majority of the population in dire poverty. Ann’s passionate concern was warranted.
Powerful Certainty
The day-to-day routine of surviving in harsh and hostile circumstances, acquisition of a new language, hundreds of hours in discussion with inquirers — all was motivated by the conviction that God is sovereign, and his promises are sure. “We have nothing to expect from man, and everything from God . . . we are in the service of Him who governs the world” (55, 172).
Such confidence liberated Ann to see the long-term perspective. They were laying a foundation for future work:
We cannot expect to do much, in such a rough, uncultivated field; yet if we may be instrumental in removing some of the rubbish, and preparing the way for others, it will be a sufficient reward . . . when we recollect that Jesus has commanded his disciples to carry the gospel to the nations, and promised to be with them to the end of the world; that God has promised to give the nations to his Son for an inheritance, we are encouraged to make a beginning, though in the midst of discouragement, and leave it to him to grant success, in his own time and way. (73, 83)
She longed for Christ to be magnified and souls to be won in Burma — whether she saw the harvest or not.
Permanent Contribution
Ann’s life, albeit short, was hugely influential in the expansion of the missions movement in the nineteenth century. Ann and Adoniram established the first church in Burma. Ann was fully engaged in evangelism. She engaged in translation in both Burmese and Siamese (Thai), including a catechism. She started schools and stirred up support for female education among American women.
Ann died prematurely. Her valiant efforts to secure her husband’s survival in prison had shattered her own strength. He would minister in Burma for another 23 years, during which time a firm foundation for church life was laid (including his magnificent translation of the Bible).
In time, the epic drama of the Judson story inspired generations of Baptist missionaries. Ann’s writings were among the first at a popular level to stir up missionary interest among the Protestant population in America, and beyond. Her Memoir was printed soon after her death, and ran through many editions. She was the childhood heroine of Adoniram’s second and third wives.
In 1815, a 10-year-old American girl, Sarah Hall, wept when she heard of the death of Ann’s baby Roger, and she wrote a poem to mark the sad event. Little did she know that eighteen years later she would become the second Mrs. Judson!
“The epic drama of the Judson story inspired generations of Baptist missionaries.”
In 1828, a 12-year-old factory girl, Emily Chubbuck, was moved to tears by reading of the death of baby Maria. Eighteen years later, she would become the third Mrs. Judson! Emily said to a friend before meeting Adoniram, “I have felt, ever since I read the Memoir of Mrs Ann H. Judson when I was a small child, that I must become a missionary” (253).
Pray for Burma
Ann’s God-centered testimony inspired, and continues to inspire, many. It challenges the self-absorption of our comfort-obsessed culture. It spurs us on to plead with God for many to come to a living faith and a joyous determination to serve God whatever the cost.
It also reminds us of Burma (now Myanmar), where the military regime is brutalizing the population, including many Christians. We can pray that their testimony of eternal hope would win many to Christ, and that God would be honored in the nation Ann Judson so willingly served and departed from into glory.
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Let God Decide What Mothering Is Worth
When I was a young mother with an overflowing stroller, accustomed to strangers counting my children aloud, I could not have been more aware that this particular kind of fruitfulness was not generally admired in the world. I received vast amounts of godly encouragement from my husband, from the word, and from the church — but I was also very clear on why I needed that kind of encouragement.
Believing that what God says about children is true is not the same as living like it is true. As it turns out, this tremendous blessing of children that God sent into my life was the ground on which I learned the glorious truth that baskets full of fruit are heavy. Glorious, bountiful, fruitful, faithful living does not feel easy, carefree, relaxing, simple, or streamlined. The life of faithful mothering, it turns out, must actually be full of faith.
Dragon-Slaying Diaper-Changing
Mothers need to believe that the work we are doing is important, that it honors God, that it matters eternally that we do it well. And we need to remember these things when we are physically exhausted, emotionally frazzled, and spiritually thin. It can be hard to believe — in the middle of a wild day of toddler life in your little home — that what you are doing is kingdom-building, dragon-slaying, gospel-proclaiming, glorious work.
“It can be hard to believe that what you are doing is kingdom-building, dragon-slaying, gospel-proclaiming, glorious work.”
The flesh wants to see the Cheerios and the sippy cups and the sticky floors, and it wants to wallow in feelings of not being seen or understood. The flesh wants to believe that what can be seen easily by tired eyes is the extent of the matter. This is all. You, the bedraggled mother of all these dirty children, are wasting your life. You settled. You have been deceived, and now you are being shown to have been a fool with no ambition.
But the flesh, like always, is not on our side. It must be overcome by faith. It must not be listened to, put in an authoritative position, or believed.
Games We Play with Kids
I am sure that mothers throughout all of history have struggled with being discouraged, but our time is actually unique in the momentum that goes against the basic, faithful fruitfulness of Christian marriage. There were other eras when fruitfulness and fertility were still admired by the world. The flesh would not have needed to stand up to so much in that context, and the devil would have found other ways to keep women off task. But in this time, in our era, we are surrounded by a world that thinks it is inventing itself.
A young Christian couple can get married today and announce, without pushback, what their goals and dreams are. Essentially, this is our board game of life, and these are the rules we are playing with. Our goals are financial — we will view owning our own home as a reward. We want to plant for a life of leisure and harvest the blessing of relaxing vacations. In this world we think we are making, children would not be a blessing. They would not be a reward. They will not be our inheritance. We’ll probably choose a dog at some point. Success will be measured by our desires, and we will have done well when we have pleased ourselves.
But for Christians, we cannot imagine that we’re actually building this world, or the rules. We are not planning out the purpose of our own life — God the Creator has done that, and he has given us his word. This is the truth about the real world, about what actually matters, about what we must value and pursue and believe and live for. God has already decided these things, and they are not up in the air for us to decide.
What God Calls Children
If you look to Scripture to tell you what to think about children, you will find a shocking contrast to the worldly thoughts that all of us have been marinating in.
Even those of us who have always been pro-life have nonetheless taken on some thinking that children are objectively an interruption, a burden, a difficulty — unless you decided you wanted one like the world wants a pet. We have still thought the barefoot pregnant woman in the kitchen is a little lowbrow. We have allowed the world to shape our understanding on the most fundamental things of life.
What we need more than anything is to marinate more deeply in the truth of God’s word, to let those unbelieving thoughts be driven out by reality. Because what God says is reality, and we cannot and should not want to opt out of it. God says,
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is that man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3–5)
The modern Christian couple will shy away from almost everything in this passage. I don’t want that reward, thanks. I don’t care to be fighting with anyone, so this military language does not appeal. I’d prefer to not have a quiver of any kind really, much less one that is full of life. I don’t think that sounds like a blessing I want . . .
If you feel yourself shying away from the language that Scripture uses about children, know that what you are shying away from is blessing — God’s blessing. There is nothing in the world so heavy, so glorious, so desirable as God’s blessings.
Another Unexpected Blessing
Those first four children of mine that used to shock the world are now all taller than I am, all teenagers. It is easy for me to see the glory now. Proverbs 17:6 says that children’s children are the crown of the aged — and we are far enough into this parenting life to know that crowns are made out of things that take great effort. Gold that must be mined and refined in fire, precious stones that are found deep in the earth and cut and polished and worked until they can be set. Glory is heavy, like gold — but also like gold, it is real and precious.
“What God says about the world is reality, and what the world says about him is nothing but a mist.”
God has blessed us with a surprise pregnancy this year, a baby number eight — and while being pregnant at 41 was never one of my plans or ideas, I am deeply grateful. I know from the inside out that what God says about children is true and real. And when people are inclined to look at me with my pregnant belly like I am the dot on a wild exclamation point, I agree with them. This exclamation point is needed, because it follows after a testimony that God is faithful. He is merciful. He is doing great things for us.
Our God is the living God, the one who spoke all of reality into existence. What he says about the world is reality, and what the world says about him is nothing but a mist.