The Lord and His Prayer [Paperback]

N. T. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

Drawing on his years of study as a scholar, Wright offers a deeply devotional approach to the Lords Prayer. He shows how the Lords Prayer sums up all that Jesus was about in his earthly ministry and what Christians must be about to help his kingdom come.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Taking the Lord's Prayer clause by clause, Wright locates this prayer within the historical life and work of Jesus and allows the prayer's devotional application to grow out of its historical context. Grasping the Lord's Prayer in its original setting can be the starting point for a fresh understanding of Christian spirituality and the life of prayer. This is spirituality to stimulate and refresh both the heart and the mind. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We have already seen that Jesus was announcing God's Kingdom, God's Rule. God was at last liberating Israel from her slavery and thus setting the whole world back to rights. What his contemporaries wanted, politically, socially, culturally and economically, was the end of oppression and exile. But they never thought that those were the deepest things at stake. Oppression and exile, according to all the prophets, had come about because of Israel's sin. So, if Israel was set free from oppression and exile, that event of liberation would be, quite simply, the forgiveness of sins. People in prison will, no doubt, want forgiveness at all sorts of levels; but if the Home Secretary were to run down the road to open the prison gate and let them out (now there's a shocking idea), they would know in no uncertain terms that they had been thoroughly pardoned, forgiven. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 95 pages
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802843204
• ISBN-13: 978-0802843203
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

N.T. Wright is Bishop of Durham and was formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and dean of Lichfield Cathedral. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Wright's full-scale works The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. Among his many other published works are The Original Jesus, What Saint Paul Really Said and The Climax of the Covenant. He is also coauthor with Marcus Borg of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and the volume on Colossians and Philemon in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNDERSTANDING THE PRAYER IN ITS HISTORICAL SETTING, December 28, 1999

By 

Terry B. Cullom (Memphis, Tennessee) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lord and His Prayer (Paperback)

If you come to this book expecting to find another brilliant historical theological treatment, as in NTPG & JVG, you may be somewhat disappointed, but you will find some very suggestive material and some of his unusually excellent analogies or twist of phrases. Though the book is a popular treatment, which began as a series of sermons, Wright does approach the prayer as understood in its historical context, and sees it as a lens through which to view Jesus himself and understand his vocation. He deals with six of the prayer's key phrases pertaining to: the Father, Kingdom, Daily Bread, Forgiveness, Deliverance, and Power & Glory.

He acknowledges that, in some sense, the use of the word "Abba" (Father) may indicate a boldness of addressing God as "Daddy" and a deep sense of personal intimacy with God [as Jeremias claims]. This, however, he argues, was not the most important thing about Jesus' use of the word. For Jesus, based on its O.T. background, it primarily was a word used in God's freeing Israel to be his sons and calling her to be his own people with a unique mission of salvation for the world. Thus, to pray to God as Father means to acknowledge our liberation and the boldness to carry on the Kingdom mission.

As in his other works, Wright stresses that prayer for the Kingdom to come is to acknowledge that it is a "this-worldly" ("on earth") reality, an event that happens within history, through Jesus. As his followers, who have been captivated by his music and cured by his medicine, we are to sing his song and apply his medicine to a world that is offbeat and sick.

The prayer for daily bread, he claims, must be understood in the context of the Messianic banquet and the festive meals Jesus shared as a deliberate sign of the Kingdom's presence. It is equivalent to saying: "Let the party begin" [or should we rather say, continue]. He also stresses, again, as in his other works, the "physical" reality of our existence, and that this prayer is a request to our Father to continue to provide us with daily sustanence for our lives in the Kingdom.

Prayer for forgiveness is not, he tells us, simply a request for forgiveness of trivial matters that daily occur, but rather, that we remain within the life of the new exodus--the liberation of the sons of God. And, as the second clause reminds us, we are only to expect forgiveness if we are ourselves forgiving others. The two are mutually dependent.

There are three levels of meaning to the request to be delivered from Evil: 1) escape from the great tribulation and dealing with Evil itself [this was a bit confusing; apparently Jesus has already deal with Evil itself, so we don't have to, at least not in the same way]; 2) it is a request not to face temptations we are unable to bear, and 3) it is a petition to pass safely through the testing of our faith.

In the final chapter, on the power and glory, Wright shows how Luke's Gospel contrasts two kingdoms throughout his work: that of Augustus, Roman Emperor, and the young Prince of Peace, born in an obscure province fifteen hundred miles away in a little town that just happened to be the one mentioned in prophecy about the coming of Messiah. The real power and glory rightly belong, not to the rule that had to establish itself by killing plenty of people and even more to maintain itself, but to the rule of the one who brought peace to all, without harm to anyone, through the cross. We are all left with the question to answer for ourselves: Which rule is the reality, and which the parody?

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasing mix of scholarship and devotion, December 15, 2004

By 

Paul S. Russell III (Chevy Chase, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lord and His Prayer (Paperback)

I am in the process of preparing a series of retreat talks on the Lord's Prayer, so I have read more than a dozen books on the topic in quick succession. Of all of these, I have decided to use Wright's book as the book for those on the retreat to read because it is a wonderful mix of scholarship and devotion, offering the intelligent reader a lot to chew on but speaking on a non-technical level. (This mix is harder to achieve than most people think, as I well know.) If you are going to read only one book on the Lord's Prayer, I suggest that you make it this one.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarship and Devotion Clasp Hands, May 25, 2000

By 

Timothy M. Edwards - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lord and His Prayer (Paperback)

Elsewhere, Wright has provided the most exaustive and compelling historical treatment of the historical Jesus available. In this brief work, he shows what this historical understanding means for those who would pray this prayer.

I took this book as my lent book this year. I decided that I needed to improve my prayer life. I still do: I doubt I shall ever not need to pray, "Lord, teach me how to pray." Yet, this book achieved the invaluable service of bringing alive the prayer I have known by heart since before I can remember. Could one hope for more?