Last week the Broken Messenger had a great post regarding the Lord’s Prayer, but read that one for yourself…
I want to touch on one particular verse – Matthew 6:13a:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…
…I have been praying this prayer since I was a little girl, but lately it bothers me when I say: “And lead us not into temptation…” Why does it bother me? Because in James 1:13-14 we read:
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
So, I did a little research online. (I really like those online study tools like StudyLight.org. This way you don’t need an entire library at home). This is what I found and it helps me to understand this passage much better:
The word here translated “temptation” (Peirasmon) means originally “trial” or “test” as in James 1:2. Braid Scots has it: “And lat us no be siftit.” But God does test or sift us(emphasis mine), though he does not tempt us to evil. No one understood temptation so well as Jesus for the devil tempted him by every avenue of approach to all kinds of sin, but without success. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus will say to Peter, James, and John: “Pray that ye enter not into temptation” (Luke 22:40). That is the idea here. Here we have a “Permissive imperative” as grammarians term it. The idea is then: “Do not allow us to be led into temptation.” There is a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13), but it is a terrible risk (taken from Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament)
Yes, the life of a Christian is not without any trials and temptation, but Jesus has set the example how to withstand those temptations: Holding on to the Word of God and trust Him that He will bring us home…
In His grip,
Nice thoughts, thank you for the mention.
Brad
Thanks Brad for stopping by…Yeah, your post was really inspiring to me and so I had to do the research for myself…to come clear on this passage…
Thanks for clearing that up. I know that God will only put us in challenging situations with the purpose of building us up.
Yup – it was bugging me for the last year, until finally I set down and took the verse apart…:)
To me it is just so amazing sometimes how we can say something all the time and than it just hits us right between the eyes…hm
Prayers that become rote to many, like this one, have a tendency to do that.