The Lord’s Prayer

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28552, 3 April 1958, Page 3

The Lord’s Prayer

Sir,—The Gospels according to from the Aramaic by George Lamsa, a graduate of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission College in Persia, and of Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, who made a life study of the Scriptures _in their original language, contains an enlightening list of Aramaic words, each with manv meanings. Christ spoke the language. The word “shbak” mav mean reserve, keep, spare, leave, forgive, allow, or permit. The Lord’s Prayer is translated in this volume thus: “Our Father in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Let thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth. Give us bread for our needs from day to day and forgive us our offences as we have forgiven our offenders’, and do not let us enter into temptation, but deliver us from error. Because thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.—Yours, etc., ALSO LEARNING. April 2, 1958.

Sir—ln common with so much in the Gospels, the Lord's Prayer can be interpreted on many levels. “Lead us not into temptation," together with “Thy Will be done." seems to imply that the One to whom we are appealing

can and does lead us into temptation, and that His Will is not done on earth. This is, admittedly, very difficult. May not the whole point be that the Lord’s will is not done on earth until a man makes an effort to redirect his thinking? In sleep we are “asleep” to waking consciousness and dreaming is unquestionably real and substantial. In our ordinary waking state we may, similarly, be “asleep” in comparison with possible higher levels of consciousness in which, attainable only by great effort, God’s will can work in us. Temptation is indentification with the world of appearances and happenings between birth and death.—Yours, etc..

ALSO INTERESTED. April 2, 1958.

Sir,—“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Now, would our eternal heavenly Father, to whom we pray, actually lead us into temptation when all the while he wants us to live victoriously in Him, to be overcomers on this earth where we are placed to live a probationary life for immortality, to be tested and tried through every snare, lie. or delicious thought that Satan can place in our pathway towards our undoing? It does not mean “Stop me from going into the hotel,” but ‘Give me divine strength that I shall not want to go in, that I shall not want to partake of evil.” In short. “Lead us thy way into better things than earth (or Satan) has to offer.’’—-Yours, etc., CLEAR WATERS. April 2, 1958.