The sixth supplication of the Lord’s Prayer: God, the Father, does for us the good

Rainer Stahl retired general secretary of Martin Luther Bund (Habichtstrasse 14 A, Erlangen, Germany, D-91056)
rainer.stahl.1@gmx.de

Stahl R. The sixth supplication of the Lord’s Prayer: God, the  Father, does for us the good, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2019, vol. 8, pp. 86–98.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2020-00022

Language: Russian

Until Advent 1st, 2018, there was a discussion in the Roman-CatholicChurch about the understanding of the sixth supplication of the Lord’sPrayer: What God is doing with us? In the French and in the Italian language they have changed the formulation away from God as tempting usto God as testing, as proving us. Also, the French speaking Lutheran congregation in Moscow did follow this decision. Therefore this paper goesthe following way: we have to understand the difficult dimensions seeingGod as Father and Mother (Pope John Paul I). This was done for a longtime, what the personal names in the Bible show. One important storyof the New Testament is that one of the «lost son» and his relation to hisfather (Luke 15). Against this background we have to question the formulation that God does not lead us into temptation. First we have to understand that God does not tempt us — see: James 1. And important is herethe statement of the Apostle Paul in 1. Corinthians 10: «God is faithful».We as Lutherans have a very clear insight by Martin Luther in his SmallCatechism: «God does not tempt anyone — but we’re asking in that prayerthat God may save us from all bad powers <…> that we may win and get thevictory». Therefore, depsite using the traditional formulation, the Lord’sprayer can be understood it in the reflected way: within our lifetime Goddoes not tempt but does prove us.

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Key words: Lord’s Prayer, God as Father and Mother, sixth supplication, temptation, testing, proving, Pope Francis, Martin Luther, Small Catechism

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/en/stahl-2020-en/

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