Jesus Teaches Us to Pray

Frames in this band: e era · S Society · A Arts · s sources

● Start with what Jesus told people to stop doing. Act it out yourself — stand up, spread your arms, use a big voice.

“Some people used to pray like this — right in the middle of the street, in the loudest voice they had, so everybody would look and say, ‘Wow, look how good that person is.’ Jesus said: you do not have to do that. God is not far away. God is already listening.”

● Then teach the prayer on your five fingers. Hold up your hand and count with them. Do it three times through, and let them count on their own hands.

• Thumb — “God, you are great.” That is praise.
• Pointer — “Please give us what we need today.” That is bread.
• Middle — “Please forgive us, and help us forgive.” That is sorry.
• Ring — “Please show us the right way.” That is help.
• Pinky — “Please keep us safe.” That is protect.

● Read the first line from the Bible itself, slowly.

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’” (Matthew 6:9)

○ Say the small word out loud and let them catch it: “Listen again. Our Father. Give us. Forgive us. Not me. Us. Jesus gave everybody a prayer they say together, even when they are alone.”

What is something you need today? Not want. Need.

● Take the answers as they come, including the silly ones, and write four or five on the board. Then circle the ones that are food, a home, a grown-up who takes care of them, and a friend.

Is it easy to say sorry? What makes it hard?

Is it easy when somebody says sorry to you and you have to say “it's okay”?

○ Say this plainly, once, and then move on: “Jesus says we ask God to forgive us, and we forgive other people too. Those two go together. That is hard for grown-ups as well.” Do not add anything about a child forgiving somebody who is hurting them. That is not what this is for.

A — Arts. The prayer is built in two halves, and children can hear it. The first half is all about God — your name, your kingdom, your will. The second half is all about us — give us, forgive us, keep us. Have them stand up and point upward for the first half and put their hands on their own chest for the second half while you say it. Then ask which half we usually start with when we pray on our own.

S — Society. “Where do people pray?” Take answers — church, bed, table, car. Then: Jesus said you can go into a room and shut the door and nobody has to see. Ask why somebody might want other people to watch them being good. (This is the first version of the question. It comes back every year until they are eighty.)

e — era. “Jesus grew up praying. He went to a place called the synagogue, and people prayed out loud together, at the same times, with words everybody knew — a lot like we do.” The prayer he gave was not the first prayer anybody in that crowd had ever heard. It was a short one they could carry.

s — sources. Hold the Bible open to Matthew 6. “Two men wrote this prayer down — Matthew here, and Luke over here.” Turn to Luke 11 and hold both pages open. “Luke's is shorter. Same prayer, written down twice, a little bit different. That is not a mistake. That is what happens when two people remember the same day.”

● Make a hand. Each child traces their own hand on paper and writes or draws one thing in each finger, in order: praise, need, sorry, help, safe. You write the words for anyone who cannot.

“The thing I most want to ask God for is ______________.”

○ Pray it together as a lap around the circle, one finger at a time. You say the line, the room holds up that finger, and each child adds one word of their own before you move to the next finger. End with everybody's hands open.

Frames in this band: e era · A Arts · s sources

● Read Matthew 6:5–8 first, before the prayer. Ask what Jesus is telling people to stop doing. (Two things: praying so people watch, and using a lot of words to get God's attention.)

“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)

If God already knows what you need before you ask (6:8), why ask at all? Take every answer seriously, including the ones that do not work.

● Now read 6:9–13 and sort it. Build this with them, one phrase at a time.

The first part of the prayer says “your.” The second part says “us” and “our.” Where exactly does it switch, and why do you think it is in that order?

○ Read Luke 11:2–4 aloud and have them mark what is missing compared with Matthew. Then ask the follow-up: how do you know it is missing rather than added? (You do not, from the page alone. Say so.)

● Start where the passage starts. “Jesus is not against praying out loud in front of people — he did it. He is against praying so people will think well of you.”

What is the difference between doing something good and making sure people see you do it?

Verse 12 asks God to forgive us the same way we forgive other people. Say that back in your own words. Now: is that a comforting sentence or a frightening one?

Is there a difference between forgiving somebody and being friends with them again? How do you know?

○ Push once, carefully: “Is there anybody it would be unfair for somebody to be told to forgive?” Let them raise the hard cases. Your answer is that forgiving is never being alone with a person who hurts you, and never pretending it did not happen, and that a trusted adult is the right next step. Then stop.

A — Arts. Count the words. This prayer is under seventy words in most English translations, and it comes immediately after a warning about using too many. The form is the argument. Have them time how long it takes to say it slowly — under thirty seconds — and ask what that teaches about what prayer has to be.

e — era. Jesus is teaching people who already prayed, at set times, with shared words, in a synagogue and at home. Jewish prayer of the period included asking that God's name be honored and God's kingdom come — the same two things the prayer opens with. Jesus is not replacing his people's prayer. He is giving a short one shaped like it.

s — sources. Matthew's version and Luke's version are both in the Bible and they are not identical. Luke's is shorter. Say plainly that the oldest handwritten copies we have of Matthew also stop at “deliver us from the evil one,” and that the ending some churches say — “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” — turns up in later copies. That is why some Christians say it and some do not, and why nobody is doing it wrong.

Put the Arts frame next to the era frame. If everybody already knew long prayers, why would a short one be worth giving?

● Write your own five-line prayer, one line for each move — praise, provision, forgiveness, guidance, protection. Your own words, not Jesus' words. Then attach the plan:

“I will pray this at ______________ o'clock, at ______________, starting ______________.”

● Say out loud that a real plan names a time and a place. Praying “more” is not a plan.

○ Have three or four read the forgiveness line only — not the whole prayer — out loud. That is the line people leave vague, and hearing somebody else be specific is what makes it possible.

Frames in this band: e era · S Society · A Arts · R Reason · s sources

● Read Matthew 6:5–15 in full — not just the prayer. Mark three things with a pencil:

• The two things being corrected before the prayer arrives: praying to be seen (6:5) and heaping up words (6:7). Both are about audience — who you think is listening.
• Every plural. Our, us, we. There is no “I” or “me” anywhere in it, and Jesus has just told them to pray behind a closed door. Both at once.
• The one petition that comes with a condition attached, and the two verses after the prayer that come back to it and press (6:12, 6:14–15).

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14)

Verse 15 says the reverse of verse 14, and it is blunter. Read it. What does the passage do to you if you take it at face value?

Jesus says God knows what you need before you ask (6:8), and then immediately gives a prayer full of asking. Both are on the same page. What is asking for, if it is not for informing God?

○ Have them read Luke 11:2–4 and list the differences from Matthew without commentary. Then tell them one fact and let it sit: many later handwritten copies of Luke were filled out to match Matthew, which is the best evidence we have for which direction the copying pressure ran.

● Put 6:5 where they live: “Praying on a street corner is not a thing you do. Posting the fundraiser, the mission trip photo, the caption about how blessed you are — that is the same street corner with better lighting.”

Is it wrong to let people see you do something good? Where exactly is the line, and how would you know you had crossed it?

Verse 12 makes your forgiveness and God's forgiveness the same transaction. Is that fair? Argue it, do not just accept it.

Who is the person you would have to think about if you prayed verse 12 honestly tonight? Do not say the name out loud.

○ Name the limit plainly, because this is where the passage gets misused on people your age. Forgiving is not trusting, not being alone with somebody, not staying quiet about being hurt, and not saying it was fine. If any of that is live for someone, they talk to an adult they trust, and this verse does not overrule that.

e — era. This is a Jewish prayer taught by a Jewish teacher to Jewish listeners. God is addressed as Father in the Hebrew Bible already (Isaiah 63:16; 64:8), and asking that God's name be hallowed and God's kingdom come is the shape of Jewish communal prayer — the Kaddish opens the same way. Our copies of that prayer are much later than the first century, so the honest claim is that this prayer sits inside a recognizable Jewish idiom, not that we can date the parallel exactly. Say that out loud in the room, because the alternative — hearing 6:5 as a swipe at how Jews prayed — is both false and old. The people being warned about praying for an audience are the same people being handed the prayer.

S — Society. Bread and debt were not metaphors for most of this audience. Day laborers were paid by the day and ate by the day, and small farmers carried debt they could lose land over. “Give us today our daily bread” and “forgive us our debts” are ordinary vocabulary from an economy where both were the actual problem. Ask what changes when a prayer written for people with no reserves is prayed by people with a pantry.

A — Arts. Two halves and a hinge. Three petitions about God — name, kingdom, will — then three about us — bread, forgiveness, testing and rescue. The phrase “on earth as it is in heaven” sits at the seam, and interpreters disagree about whether it belongs only to “your will be done” or governs all three of the first petitions. Have them read it both ways out loud. The second reading changes the prayer noticeably.

R — Reason. “Lead us not into temptation.” The word underneath it means testing or trial as much as it means enticement. Ask the question the wording forces: what would it mean to ask God not to bring you to a test, and what does that assume about who arranges the tests? Do not settle it. Note that this is not a modern worry — some churches have recently revised their spoken translations of this line for exactly this reason.

s — sources. The ending “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” is absent from the earliest manuscripts of Matthew and appears in later ones; a short form of it shows up in the Didache, an early Christian manual, attached to this prayer. That is why the King James Bible has it and most modern translations footnote or omit it, and why Catholic and Protestant congregations say the prayer differently out loud. A textual variant is not a scandal and it is not a secret — it is what happens when a text is copied by hand for centuries, and it is visible to anyone who reads the footnotes in their own Bible.

Choose one.

• Write the five moves — praise, provision, forgiveness, guidance, protection — for one specific situation you are actually in this week. Name the situation at the top. One line each, no vagueness allowed in the forgiveness line.
• Go a week without posting, saying, or hinting at one good thing you do. Write down at the start what you are giving up the credit for, and at the end write two sentences on what it was like.
• Rewrite verses 14–15 in your own words with nothing softened. Then write the one situation where you think that sentence is hardest to say to somebody, and why you would still not delete it.

Frames in this band: H Historiography · e era · S Society · A Arts · R Reason · s sources

● Close reading of Matthew 6:5–15 with the frame verses included. Put five observations on the table:

• The prayer is introduced as a correction. 6:5 targets prayer performed for an audience; 6:7 targets accumulated words. Only then, 6:9, “this, then, is how you should pray.” The prayer is what is left after the audience and the volume are removed.
• 6:6 tells them to go into an inner room and shut the door. The Greek word points to a storeroom — the room in an ordinary house that had a door that shut. The instruction is not about architecture; it is about who is watching.
• Every pronoun for the pray-er is plural, in a prayer commanded to be prayed alone. Hold both halves of that.
• 6:11 contains a word — epiousios, rendered “daily” — that is essentially unattested in Greek outside this prayer and its early quotations. Origen, in the third century, said he could not find it in ordinary Greek. Proposals include “for the coming day,” “necessary for existence,” and “supersubstantial,” which is what Jerome's Latin says here while his Luke says “daily.” Nobody has settled it.
• 6:12 makes the request reciprocal, and 6:14–15 refuse to let it pass — stating the promise and then, in the next breath, its negative. Matthew comes back to the same machinery at 18:21–35.

Take 6:14–15 at full strength, with no softening. What theology of forgiveness does that require, and what does it rule out?

A prayer that asks for one day's bread cannot be prayed the same way by a person with a full pantry and a person with an empty one. Is that a problem with the prayer, or with the pantry, or with neither?

● Say the uncomfortable thing without cushioning it. The passage does not present forgiveness as optional or as a feeling. It ties the thing every person in the room most wants from God to the thing they least want to do. That is not a mistranslation and it is not a scribe's addition — Matthew states it twice.

Is a conditional forgiveness still grace? Argue both sides before you take one.

Some things that are done to people are not the injured party's to forgive on anyone else's behalf. Where does this text apply and where does it not? Be specific about the difference.

Praying for an audience is the sin named here. What is the current form of it in a church like ours — not in general, here?

○ Name the limit for the room, out loud, once. Nothing in this passage requires anyone to be near a person who is hurting them, to stay silent about it, or to call it small. If that distinction is live for someone, they should talk to an adult they trust, and you follow your church's policy afterwards.

H — Historiography. This prayer has been catechetical equipment for the whole history of the church. The Didache, an early Christian manual, instructs believers to pray it three times a day. Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine each wrote treatises on it; Luther's Small Catechism walks through it petition by petition; it has been the standard first text taught to converts and to children in most centuries. It was also recited in American public schools until the Supreme Court's 1963 decision in Abington School District v. Schempp ended official Bible reading and Lord's Prayer recitation there. Ask what happens to a text that everybody can say and few have read in its paragraph.

e — era. The petitions have close relatives in Jewish prayer — the hallowing of the name and the coming of the kingdom stand at the center of the Kaddish, and God is addressed as Father in Isaiah 63:16, 64:8 and in Sirach 23:1. Dating the surviving forms of Jewish liturgy is genuinely difficult and scholars differ over how much of it was fixed in the first century, so the honest claim is not “Jesus copied” or “Jesus replaced” but that this prayer sits inside a recognizable Jewish idiom. Also worth naming: the popular claim that “Abba” meant something like “Daddy,” and was unprecedented in Judaism, was argued by Joachim Jeremias. James Barr's 1988 article took apart the “Daddy” half — abba was ordinary adult address for a father, not baby-talk. The “unprecedented” half was answered separately, by Georg Schelbert, Geza Vermes and others, on the ground that abba was simply the available Aramaic word. Students have almost certainly been taught the claim and not either rebuttal.

S — Society. The prayer's economic vocabulary is not decorative. Bread by the day was how day laborers lived; debt was how small farmers lost land. Matthew's word in 6:12 is the ordinary word for debts, while Luke writes “sins” and then, in the same verse, “everyone who is indebted to us.” The English “trespasses” came into common worship through the Book of Common Prayer, which is why English-speaking Christians say three different words for one line. Ask which of the three is doing the most work, and what each one lets a comfortable congregation avoid.

A — Arts. Structure: an address, three petitions in the second person about God, three in the first person plural about us, arranged with tight parallelism and no wasted word — immediately after a warning against wordiness. “On earth as it is in heaven” may modify only the third petition or all three, and the Greek permits both. Have students read it aloud both ways and describe what the second reading changes. Then ask what a text is doing when its form enacts its own argument.

R — Reason. Two live problems, neither of which the passage solves. First: 6:8 says God knows before you ask, and 6:9–13 is a list of asks. Petition-as-informing collapses immediately; petition-as-formation, petition-as-participation, and petition-as-genuine-request each keep something and pay for it somewhere. Have them state all three and name the cost of each. Second: “lead us not into temptation” — the word covers testing as well as enticement, and James 1:13 says God tempts no one. The French bishops approved a revised wording in 2017 and the Italian bishops did likewise, precisely over this. Require every student to state the case for keeping the traditional English wording before they argue for changing it.

s — sources. Three checkable items, all visible in any study Bible. One: the doxology “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” is absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew, present in the later Byzantine tradition that stands behind the King James Version, and appears in a shorter form in the Didache — which suggests it grew as a liturgical ending rather than being deleted by someone. Two: Luke 11:2–4 is shorter, and later copies of Luke were harmonized toward Matthew, which is evidence for the direction of the drift. Three: epiousios, discussed above. Have students look at the footnote at Matthew 6:13 in their own Bible and read it aloud. The apparatus is not hidden from the laity; it is printed at the bottom of the page.

Choose one.

• Write the prayer in your own words — five moves, praise, provision, forgiveness, guidance, protection — then a 200-word note on which move you habitually skip when you pray alone, and what that omission says about what you actually believe you are doing.
• Interview two people from different traditions about the words they say and where they stop. Do not correct either of them. Bring back both wordings exactly and one sentence about what surprised you.
• Take the harder half — 6:15 — and build the strongest case against it, in terms a serious Christian would recognize. Then say what you would have to give up in Matthew to accept your own case.