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Does The Consummate Prayer In The Gospel Of Matthew?

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The Consummate Prayer given to us by Our Lord in Matthew
The gospel of Matthew in the bible was written somewhere around 58-68 AD. This particular gospel was written by a tax collector named Matthew, who was the son of Alphaeus (Mark 2:14). The Lord’s Prayer is described as a letter sent from earth to heaven to carry our desires and wants to God, “Whom, Our Father, where, art in heaven” (Henry 1300). Jesus is credited by Dockery as giving us the “classic prayer”, which through the passage of time has become best known as the Lord’s Prayer or “Our Father” (Dockery 408). Jesus used this classic as a model for us to aspire to, as it has all the proper elements in an appropriate sequence for our requests to the Lord. These elements include such …show more content…

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread. ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen’ (Matthew 6:9-13). “Ignorance and infirmity are consequences of sin; and, perhaps nothing more surely proves man’s fallen condition than his inability to pray” (Field 1). Prayer is described as an intimacy with God and the contemplation of the invisible, satisfying our yearnings or desires and giving us an equality much like that of the angels in heaven. It is through prayer that good triumphs evil and sinners are converted. “Prayer is the enjoyment of things present and the substance of things to come” (Hammerling 4). Fleming contends that prayer is to be a strictly confidential matter, to be kept secret even between the best of friends. “God is like a loving father who understands his children’s needs” (417). Through Pope Benedict XVI we find that “In Prayer, Jesus lived in constant and uninterrupted contact with our Lord in order to help fulfil his plan of love for mankind” (118). We find that Hamilton, contends that the Lord’s Prayer is actually a teaching tool designed to teach us the proper way or …show more content…

Amen’ (Matthew 6:9-13). Henry manifests that best form of praise and thanksgiving is to end with pleading a compliment in the form of praise to obtain his divine mercy (1301). Pink reiterates this by telling us that if we are going to ask God for his blessings, it is only the right thing to do to bless him in return. (60)
We see that when Jesus admonishes his disciples to act in secret, before the Lord Our Father, he sees what is done in secret and that is when he will reward you. This contrast between the lust for public recognition and acknowledgement versus anonymity highlight a distinguishing characteristic of surpassing the Kingdom of Heaven (Hamilton 739). Pope Benedict XVI believed that although Jesus’ teachings on prayer may have evolved from his family, but that its basis was rooted in his unique and divine relationship with the Lord

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