Independent Biblical Exegesis - Part 3

• Homework Review: Read Matthew 6:1-13

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

• Let me begin by establishing at least 3 ground rules: (These are my rules!)

  • Rule 1: Every single word in the Bible has purpose and meaning

    • (The Rabbis said – even the spaces between the words have meaning)

  • Rule 2: Gods word has the meaning you read (the surface message), and then the message you don’t read – which requires study to extract

  • Rule 3: Many of the answers to your questions will show up in the text itself – simply back up and re-read what came before it

• Questions to Examine:

  • Who is Jesus speaking to? Disciples

  • What’s this section of scripture about?

    • It’s part of the Sermon on the Mount – which took place on the Mount of Beatitudes, which was a hill in Northern Israel

    • It’s considered one of the most famous speeches in history

    • It includes the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer

    • It emphasizes humility, forgiveness and caring for others.

  • What commands or instructions is Jesus giving?

    • The first three petitions in the Lord's Prayer deal with God, and the last three deal with us.

    • Some Christians believe that Jesus gave this prayer for the use of His disciples only before He sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

• However, I see no good reason for this limitation of its use. As with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, this teaching also was intended for all inter-advent disciples of Christ. One of Jesus' unique emphases, as I have already mentioned, was that His disciples should think of God as their heavenly “Father." It was not characteristic of believers to address God as their Father until Jesus taught them to do so.

  • ”Only fifteen times was God referred to as the Father in the Old Testament, and where it does occur, it’s used of the nation Israel or to the king of Israel. Never was God called the Father of an individual or of human beings in general (though isolated instances occur in second temple Judaism, (Sirach 51:10). But in the New Testament we have numerous references to God as Father.

  • Why is He giving these commands?

    • Jesus gave His disciples a model prayer commonly known as "The Lord's Prayer."

    • It was not His prayer in the sense that He prayed it, but in the sense that He taught it.

    • He introduced this prayer as a model or example. Here is a way to pray that is neither too long, pretentious, nor unnecessarily repetitious. But in fact, contains all the essential elements of prayer!

  • Why does Jesus emphasize praying in secret?

    • Pride of the Religious Rulers of the day

  • Why did Jesus feel the need to teach them how to pray?

    • Is Jesus instruction on prayer a mandate on the words we are to say when we pray? NO

  • Why did Jesus structure His prayer the way He did?

    • What is daily bread? - Food? Money? Sustenance?

  • What does Jesus mean when He speaks about God forgiving our debts and us forgiving our debtors?

    • Debts is a Greek word (opheilemata) that translates into the Aramaic word (hoba) – which was a common synonym for sins.

    • This is why some versions of the Lord's Prayer have “trespasses” in place of “debts”.

    • The Greek word means “a failure to pay that which is due, a failure of duty”. Viewing sins as debts was thoroughly Jewish.

  • What is Jesus saying, when he says do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]

    • Some interpreters view verse 13 as containing one petition, while others believe that Jesus intended two.

    • In one sense, one petition is correct, in view of the close connection of the two ideas. They are really two sides of one coin. If there were two, the argument goes, the connection would normally be “and" rather than "but."

  • However, Matthew may have intended seven petitions, since seven was a number indicating completeness to the Jews.

    • Because this verse contains two parts, there really are seven petitions. "Temptation" translates the Greek peirasmos, and in this case it means "testing."

    • It refers not so much to solicitation to evil, here, as to trials that test the character. God does not test (peirasmos) anyone (i.e., He does not seduce people to sin; James 1:13-14).

  • Why then do we need to pray that He will not lead us into testing?

    • Even though God is not the instrumental cause of our testing, He does permit us to experience temptation from the world, the flesh, and the devil (cf. 4:1; Gen. 22:1; Deut. 8:2).

    • Therefore, this petition is a request that He would minimize the occasions of our testing that could result in our sinning (cf. 26:41).

    • It expresses the humble disciple's felt weakness to stand up under severe trials, in view of his or her weakness and sinfulness (cf. Prov. 30:7-9).

    • "But" introduces the alternative. "Deliver us" could mean either "spare us from" or "deliver us out of.”

  • The meaning depends on what “evil” means. Is this a reference to evil generally or to the evil one, Satan?

    • When the Greek preposition apo ("from") follows "deliver" elsewhere in the New Testament, it usually refers to deliverance from people.

    • When ek ("from") follows it, it always refers to deliverance from things.

  • Here apo occurs. Also, the adjective "evil" has an article modifying it in the Greek text (tou), which indicates that it is to be taken as a substantive: "the evil one." God does not always deliver us from evil, but He does deliver us from the evil one.

    • However, the evil one is part of evil, so probably all evil was intended. "It makes very little difference whether we understand by the word 'evil' the devil or sin."

  • "Why should we ask that we may be kept from evil? For the great and wonderful reason that our fellowship with God may never be broken.

• Who wrote Matthew?

  • There is no explicit mention of an author in the text of Matthew.

  • However, Christian tradition attributes the Gospel to Matthew, who was also known as Levi, a former tax collector and disciple of Jesus.

Topics that help you learn

• Eschatology - the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.

• "Christian hope is concerned with eschatology, or the science of last things"

The Tribulation                                                                    Mormons

Soteriology - the doctrine of salvation.                            Jehovah Witness

Speaking in Tongues – Gifts of The Spirit                       Scientology                   

Church History – denominational history                        Calvinism

Reformation                                                                        Molinas – Molinist – Provisionist

Baptismal Regeneration                                                    Catholicism

Replacement Theology                                                     Bible Versions

Reformed                                                                           King James Only

Arminian                                                                             Infant Baptism

Suggested Resources:

McArthur Study Bible
Accordance Bible Software
Logos Bible Software
Teachers – Verse by Verse Ministry International
Debates – Dr. James White vs. and others
Bible Hub - Hebrew – Greek translations
Sonic Light – Dr. Thomas Constable

Dangers of Knowledge

Tunnel Vision / Blinders                   Quit Church

Legalism                                            Isolation

Hardened

Recommended Items Needed

Bible

Note Pad / Paper

Pen – Highlighter

IPAD – Computer – Not required

Resources

Bibles Versions: KJV, NASB, Legacy Standard Bible (LSV), NIV – ESV etc.….

Internet – IMORTANT – Source must be trustworthy!  

Concordance – Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

• Remember – Concordances are translation specific

  • A Bible concordance can be a helpful tool for studying the Bible. A concordance contains an alphabetical index of words used in the Bible and the main Bible references where the word occurs. A Bible concordance is useful in locating passages in the Bible. If you can remember just one word in a verse, you can often find what you’re looking for.

  • Most Bible publishers place a short concordance among the back pages of the Bible. Longer, more thorough concordances, such as Young’s Analytical Concordance, are available separately. If a concordance contains all the words in the Bible (including a, an, and the!), it is called an “exhaustive” concordance. The classic exhaustive Bible concordance is Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

    • Lexicon – a dictionary, especially of Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, or Arabic

    • Online – Blue Letter Bible