Give us Today our Daily Bread

In recent weeks I have been reflecting upon this clause in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. It is the central clause of five and almost appears like the ‘hinge’ upon which the other four requests turn. This suggests to me that Jesus viewed it as particularly important.

Yet, though only a few words, it is not without its interpretative challenges. The word usually rendered as ‘daily’ is, apparently, unique to Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the prayer – it is not found anywhere else in the voluminous literature of ancient Greek. Naturally, this has generated extensive and, ultimately unresolved, exegetical discissions! Perhaps the early church invented the word to try to capture the meaning of the word when translating Jesus’ Aramaic? Whatever the case, to those familiar with the earlier history of the people of God, it must surely have resonated with the accounts of the provision of manna during Israel’s wilderness wanderings. There, the fatherly care of Yahweh had provided, day by day, for the needs of his children – even to those who were often ungrateful and undeserving.

Another exegetical challenge is that the request, usually rendered ‘give’, is differently rendered in the two Gospels. Matthew, in 9:11, uses the aorist imperative. Luke in 11:3 of his Gospel uses the present imperative. I suspect (though I am no expert!) that this reflects two different attempts to translate the force of Jesus’ Aramaic. However, the gnomic aorist combined with the present continuous, appear to highlight the fixed and ongoing nature of our Heavenly Father’s provision for those he loves! As such, the request becomes little more than our own recognition that within the family of the Heavenly Father we cannot lack what we need on a day-to-day basis – he will provide, a day at a time, even an hour or minute of our time. In this way, the request is our recognition that, as God’s children, we can rely upon our Father’s provision… even in the darkest days. As such, it is an invitation to maturing faith.

But there is one other exegetical issue. In an individualistic world (certainly in the ‘West’) we tend to fail to notice that the request is expressed in the plural. Thus, we come, as and with the family of God throughout the world, and in the wide variety of circumstances in which we find ourselves, to pray for our daily ration of his grace – a ration that is secure in who he is and how he works.

This has challenged me! While reflecting on this passage I paid a short trip to a group of Christian believers in Pakistan. Subject to both passive and (sometimes) active persecution, they often have to live one day at a time. Then one of the attendees at the conference at which I was speaking, returned home from a three-day journey to find his hut in the desert destroyed by a storm and his younger brother dead under the rubble.

So I ask myself, how do I pray with and for my Christian sisters and brothers and how do I fellowship with them in prayerful action? As I have asked these questions, I have been reminded that the apostle Paul spent the greater part of the latter years of his ministry seeking to meet the needs of the Jerusalem church and encouraging others to join him in this work. Had he understood this prayer better than we have so often done?

Stephen Dray
Billericay, England