INDEX SENTENCE: NUMBER FOUR

“Give us bread today for the coming day”

“Give us today the bread we need for today”

Our bread, that for the coming day, give us today. (Wuest)

J C Ryle explains that...

We are here taught to acknowledge our entire dependence on God for the supply of our daily necessities. As Israel required daily manna ("Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction." Ex 16:4), so we require daily “bread.” We confess that we are poor, weak creatures in need (cf "poor in spirit" Matthew 5:3), and beseech our Maker to take care of us. We ask for “bread” as the simplest of our wants, and in that word we include all that our bodies require.

Give (1325) is in the aorist imperative calling for this to be carried out effectively and even with a sense of urgency.

Give Us - Not "give me"! Intercede for your brethren as well as yourself.

Daily (1967) is an interesting, somewhat difficult to explain Greek word because it does not have an etymology upon which all expositors agree. The Greek word is epiousios (some feel it derives from epí = for or into + ousía = being, substance) appears to have been coined by the gospel writers. It pertains to recurring on a daily basis and in the NT is used only here and in Luke 11:3, the parallel prayer.  It is descriptive of a daily and needed portion of food, that which suffices for each day or for the coming day.

Vine feels that epiousios is derived from epi + eimi = to go and thus means

(bread) for going on, i.e., for the morrow and after, or (bread) coming (for us). This suits the added sēmeron, “today,” i.e., the prayer is to be for bread that suffices for this day and next, so that the mind may conform to Christ’s warning against anxiety for the morrow."

Bread (740) (artos) refers to bread.

Wuest translates this passage

Our bread, that for the coming day, give us today.

This translation may sound redundant, but it is a precious and urgent petition by those who live from hand to mouth.

EBC adds that this is a petition

for one day at a time ("today"), reflecting the precarious lifestyle of many first-century workers who were paid one day at a time and for whom a few days' illness could spell tragedy. (Gaebelein, F, Editor: Expositor's Bible Commentary 6-Volume New Testament. Zondervan Publishing)

Even though God knows our needs before we ask, this prayer acknowledges our dependence on His for daily provisions, spiritual and physical. Note that is a prayer for our needs not our greeds.

D. L. Moody knew the secret of spiritual "daily bread" writing

A man can no more take a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next 6 months, nor can he inhale sufficient air into his lungs with one breath to sustain life for a week to come. We are permitted to draw upon God’s store of grace from day to day as we need it!

God never gives His strength in advance, so let’s stop crossing bridges before we come to them. The Heavenly Father will graciously supply our every need—one day at a time! Don’t try to bear tomorrow’s burdens with today’s grace.

Prayer should be more than a wish list so if we pray as Jesus taught us, we'll do much more than say, "Our Father, give us."

Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray;
This is my heart-cry day unto day.
I long to know Thy will and Thy way;
Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray. --Reitz

Ray Stedman in his sermon When Prayer Becomes Personal has some wonderful thoughts on this topical sentence...

You will notice that this is a prayer for the whole of man: body soul and spirit. With magnificent accuracy he puts his finger squarely on the area of paramount need in each of these areas so that if we understand this prayer properly, and pray it as it should be prayed, there is really nothing further to be said. This magnificent prayer covers every aspect of life.

This is one of the amazing things about the Bible -- how the writers of Scripture were able to reduce to the simplest terms some of these mighty themes of life, stating them in just a word or two, so that we can grasp what they mean. As we will see, however, this prayer is not intended to be merely repeated over and over in some mechanical rote-fashion like a Christianized prayer-wheel; though, unfortunately, it has become that in some circles. This prayer is intended to become a guide to prayer. Each of these areas is capable of infinite expansion as to detail, but, in principle, this is a completely adequate prayer. Nothing more needs to be said if we have genuinely prayed as our Lord indicates. There is no essential area of life neglected. God's interest and love for man touches the whole of our lives every single area. That is why Paul says "Pray about everything. And do not forget," he adds, "to thank him for the answers," (See note 1Thessalonians 5:18).

Jesus begins this section of the prayer with the needs of the body. I like that! I find that we have such distorted concepts of prayer that we often feel there is something wrong with praying about physical needs. I am afraid this is a reflection of a pagan concept of life. The Greeks regarded the body as coarse and unworthy of redemption and they therefore mistreated it. They beat their bodies tortured and tormented them. You find this philosophy widespread in the Orient today, this idea that the body must be subdued by physical torment or suffering, but you never find this in the New Testament nor in true Christian faith. Oh, I know there is that verse in Philippians which in the King James' Version speaks of looking for "the coming of the Lord Jesus who shall change our vile body" (Philippians 3:21), but all you can say about that is that it is a very vile translation! The word does not mean vile at all, it means "a body of lowliness, of humiliation" that is not yet glorified. It has not yet entered into the ultimate state that God has designed for it. But Paul is not saying there is anything wrong with the body.

It is important that we see that prayer must quite properly begin on this level. God likes bodies. That may startle you, but it is true. God engineered and designed them, and he likes them. It is perfectly proper then that we pray about the need of the body. Bread here is a symbol of all the necessities of physical life. It includes more than mere bread; it stands for all that our physical life demands -- shelter, drink, clothing -- anything that the body requires. The vital concern in this area is that there be available to us an immediate unbroken supply. So this prayer moves right at the issue when it says "Give us this day each day our daily bread." The only limit in this prayer is that we are never to pray for a warehouse a full supply for a year ahead. There are no giant economy packages available to us in this are of life. We are to pray for one day's supply.

Now I would like to put this simply to your own heart as I have asked my own this week. Do you pray daily for your physical needs? I wonder if any really do this. Do we pray about the supply of our food, clothing, shelter, and all the physical necessities of life? Do we take time to ask God for them or at least to give thanks for them? Perhaps this has become such a familiar request in the repeating of The Lord's Prayer that it has lost any real meaning to us, and we do not take it seriously. It may therefore be that this is the most flagrant and frequent area of Christian disobedience. For, after all, our Lord meant it when he told us to pray "give us each day our daily bread."

"Oh," you say, "I say grace before every meal." Yes, so do I, but unfortunately I find that it is often so perfunctory so mechanical it really sounds like a sanctimonious way of saying "Let's eat." When I was in high school in Montana we had a neighbor who was a self-confessed atheist, a godless fellow, but with a very engaging personality. We boys often went out to his place because he was a very generous man and let us do many interesting things on his ranch, but he had no use for the gospel or for Christian things. At meal time he engaged in a form of ribald mockery in this matter of giving thanks. I think he did it to shock us. But he would sit down to the table and before anyone could start to eat he would say "Now we are going to say grace," and he would fold his hands and say,

"Pass the bread and pass the meat,
Pitch in, you gol-darn fools, and eat."

Of course he intended it as mockery, but I wonder if our own graces, repeated perfunctorily, mechanically, are not equally as blasphemous? I do not wish to be negative at this point, but I am sure that there must have been some good reason why the Lord told us to pray this way.

I know there are many who are ready to argue that Jesus said elsewhere, "Your Father knows that you have need of these things even before you pray" (Matthew 6:8), so it is not in order to inform God of our needs. And there are others who say it really makes little difference, whether they pray about physical things or not. They get the necessities of life regardless. Furthermore, some say there are many people who never bother to pray at all and who are eating steak and ice cream while we Christians are trying to get along on hamburgers and jello. What is the point, then, of praying?

The answer to that question really touches the central value of prayer. It is very illuminating. Obviously, prayer is not something by which we inform God of our needs or influence him. But prayer is designed to influence us. It is we who are in need of this kind of prayer, not God. Of course, he knows what we have need of, for he knows everything about us. But prayer is something we need. God does not need to be told, but we need to tell him, that is the point.

If you want to see why, ask yourself the question, "What happens to me when I neglect this area of prayer?" If you are honest and look at your life over an extended period of time, you will see that, inevitably, a slow and subtle change occurs in the heart of a Christian who does not pray about material things, who does not take time to thank God for his daily supply of food, shelter and raiment -- the necessities and the luxuries of life.

What happens is that we take these things for granted, and gradually we succumb to the quite foolish delusion that we actually can provide these necessities ourselves. We become possessed with the incredible vanity that our wisdom and our abilities have really made these things possible, that we can supply these things quite apart from God. And when we begin to think that way, we find pride swells within us and a kind of blindness settles upon us, a blindness which darkens our spiritual insight, and we become moody, restless and depressed.

The book of Daniel vividly describes this type of thinking in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, that proud monarch of Babylon, the greatest king of the greatest nation of his age. He walked out in the evening hours upon the battlements of his palace in the city of Babylon, looked out over the city, and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have made? My wisdom has built this, my ability has brought it to pass," (Daniel 4:30). He revelled in what he thought were his powers, inherent in himself, by which all this came to pass. As a result of that defiant assumption of basic powers of supply in his life, God brought upon him the judgment of bestiality. He became a beast, and was turned out to grass, to eat in the fields like an animal, which is simply God's dramatic way of saying that ingratitude causes men to become animal-like, to become beasts, with all the ferocity and self-centeredness of a beast growling over his food.

I remember Dr. Ironside telling of an occasion when, as a young man, he went into a cafeteria to eat. When he took his tray and looked around for some place to sit down he found that all the seats in the room were taken except for one chair opposite a man already seated at a table. Ironside went over and asked if he might sit down and the man looked up and grunted something. So Ironside sat down, and, as his custom was, bowed his head and began silently to give thanks for his food before he began to eat. When he looked up he saw the man was eyeing him, almost glowering, and the fellow said to him, "What's the matter, anything wrong with your food?" Ironside said, "No, I don't think so. It seems all right to me." "Well," he said, "have you got a headache or something?" And Ironside said, "No, I haven't. Why do you ask?" "Well," he said, "I noticed you bowing down, and putting your hand up to your head, and closing your eyes. I thought there was something wrong with your head." The tone of voice he was using indicated he wanted to make an issue out of this, but Ironside said to him, "Well, I was simply returning thanks to God for my food." The man snorted, and said, "Oh, you believe in that bosh, do you?" And Ironside said, "Don't you ever give thanks?" He said, "No, I don't. I don't believe in giving thanks for anything. I just start right in." And Ironside said, "Oh, you're just like my dog. He never gives thanks, either, he just starts right in."

After all, it is we who need to give thanks to God, it is we who must always be reminding ourselves that everything we have comes from his hand, and that any moment he can turn it off if for any reason he may choose, that it is only his grace and his goodness that keep it flowing unhindered to us. The only way, therefore, that we can avoid this terrible sin of ingratitude, which the book of Proverbs calls "the sin that is sharper than a serpent's tooth," is to pray daily. Remember that,

Back of the bread is the snowy flour,
And back or the flour, the mill,
And back of the mill is the field of wheat,
The rain, and the Father's will."

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F B Meyer has the following devotional on GOD'S PROVISION -

"Give us this day our daily bread."--Matt. 6:11.

IF YOU want daily bread, and would pray for it aright, you must ask as a child; and you must put first, before your own satisfaction, the Hallowing of God's Name, and the doing of His Will. Implicitly you suggest that if He gives you bread, you will use the strength it gives for His service.

Let us ever think of God as the bountiful and generous Giver. Too often He has been described as hard and austere, and as a result, men dread God, and only think of Him when they have done wrong. But we should describe Him as the All-Giver, who gives all things to all with the most royal generosity. He gives sunbeams and dewdrops, showers and rainbows, grace and glory, His beloved Son and His Spirit, human love and friendship, the daily spreading of our table, the provision of all that we need for life and godliness. Whether we wake or sleep, whether we are evil or good, whether we are pleasing to Him or not; to those who forget and blaspheme Him equally as to the saints and martyrs of the Church, God gives with both hands, pressed down and running over. We cannot buy, we do not merit, we cannot claim, but we may rely on Him to give. God is Love; and Love cannot refrain from giving, or it ceases to be Love.

INDEX SENTENCE: NUMBER FIVE

Give us, this day, our daily bread;
And, as we those forgive
Who sin against us, so may we
Forgiving grace receive.

And (2532) (kai) is used to connect each of the last three petitions, whereas the first three are "independent". Why connect the last three? This connection speaks of all three as absolutely necessary, food for the body, forgiveness for the soul and deliverance from temptation for the spirit.

Spurgeon has a rebuttal for the one who says "I have no need to pray this sentence for I have no trespasses"...

Dear one, look at your own heart. I will have no argument with you. Take the bandage off your eyes. You are about as full of sin as an egg is full of protein. Among the rest of your many sins is this rotten egg of an accursed pride about your own state of heart.

J C Ryle explains that in this index sentence...

We confess that we are sinners, and need daily grants of pardon and forgiveness. This part of the Lord’s Prayer deserves especially to be remembered. It condemns all self-righteousness and self-justifying. We are instructed here to keep up a continual habit of confession at the throne of grace, and a continual habit of seeking mercy and remission. Let this never be forgotten. We need daily to wash our feet (John 13:10)... Its object is to remind us that we must not expect our prayers for forgiveness to be heard if we pray with malice and spite in our hearts towards others. To pray in such a frame of mind is mere formality and hypocrisy. It is even worse than hypocrisy: it is as much as saying, “Do not forgive me at all.” Our prayers are nothing without love. We must not expect to be forgiven if we cannot forgive.

Why would Jesus mention forgiveness so far down the "list" of this model prayer? What is the emphasis in the first three topical sentences? God the Father - worship, longing for His Kingdom, desiring His will, seeking His provision for our life needs. See the greatness and goodness of our Father Who art in heaven, how can we mere mortals choose to withhold from others the same forgiveness we have received at the time of our salvation and each day the rest of our life? We must have His forgiveness, for we have wounded the heart of our Father by our sins, including our sins of unforgiveness, a sin which God cannot overlook for He is holy. Therefore for our prayer to be effective we must dealt with our sin. Dearly beloved, please don't sweep your sin (including unforgiveness) "under the rug", but put it "under the blood". Proverbs warns us...

He who conceals (intentionally, willfully hides or covers over sins so as to keep secret) his transgressions will not prosper (accomplish satisfactorily what is intended = generally expresses idea of a successful venture, as contrasted with failure),
But (note the marked contrast) he who confesses (acknowledges to God) and forsakes (not just confesses but depart, leave and walk away from the sin! - equates with repentance) them will find compassion (mercy, pity). (Proverbs 28:13)

Forgive (863) (aphiemi from apo = implies a separation + hiemi = put in motion, send) means to send from one's self, to forsake, to hurl away, to put away, let alone, disregard, put off. It conveys the basic idea of an action which causes separation. It refers to total detachment or total separation, from a previous location or condition. In secular Greek it initially conveyed the sense of to throw and in one secular writing we read "let the pot drop" (aphiemi). From this early literal use the word came to mean leave or let go.

It is interesting that "forgive" is in the s in the aorist imperative calling for this to be carried out with effectively and even with a sense of urgency., a command to forgive, but it is "activated" only as we are willing to forgive those who have sinned against us.

Aphiemi means to send forth or away from one's self. It refers to the act of putting something away or of laying it aside and as used here means to let go of the obligation another person has "owes" you because of sin. It means to remit (to release from the guilt or penalty of) as one would a financial debt (e.g., on the Rosetta stone it refers to the "total remission" of certain taxes). In the present context Jesus is referring to an ethical or moral debt due to some offense by another person against us. In that sense they "owe" us. It follows that the basic meaning of forgiveness is to put away an offense. Unfortunately the English word "forgive" does not adequately picture the meaning of the Greek.

In secular Greek literature, aphiemi was a fundamental word used to indicate the sending away of an object or a person. Aphiemi was used to describe the voluntary release of a person or thing over which one has legal or actual control. The related noun aphesis meant described a setting free. .Later it came to include the release of someone from the obligation of marriage, or debt, or even a religious vow. In its final form it came to embrace the principle of release from punishment for some wrongdoing. .

Colin Brown adds that aphiemi means...

With a personal object, to send forth, send away (of a woman, to divorce; of a meeting, to dissolve, end), to let go, to leave, dispatch; with an impersonal object, to loose (e.g. a ship into the sea), to discharge (e.g. arrows), to give up. In the figurative sense the verb (aphiemi) means to let alone, permit, let pass, neglect, give up (taking trouble, etc.); in Josephus, Ant., 1, 12, 3, to lose one’s life, die. The legal use is important: to release from a legal bond (office, guilt, etc. and also, a woman from marriage, e.g. Hdt., 5, 39), to acquit (e.g. cancellation of criminal proceedings, Plato, Laws, 9, 86, 9d), to exempt (from guilt, obligation, punishment, etc.; e.g. Hdt., 6, 30). Similarly the noun aphesis (e.g. Demosthenes, 24, 45) means release, pardon, or remission, etc (Brown, Colin: New International Dictionary of NT Theology. 1986. Zondervan)

Aphiemi was also used of teachers, writers, and speakers when presenting a topic, in the sense of “to leave, let alone, disregard, not to discuss now. It means “to abandon, to leave as behind and done with in order to go on to another thing.”

The Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, contained many of these ideas. In the Old Testament aphiemi spoke of releasing a prisoner or remitting a debt, but it also came to mean pardon or forgiveness.

Trench says that the image underlying aphiemi is that of releasing a prisoner (Isaiah 61:1), or letting go, as of a debt (Deut 15:3). One is reminded of the one goat who was offered as a sin-offering on the Day of Atonement, and of the other goat upon which was placed the sins of the people (symbolically) and which was let go in the wilderness, never to be seen again by Israel, the latter goat typifying that aspect of redemption in which the sins of the human race were put away, never to be charged against the individual again (see Leviticus 16)..

Wuest explains aphiemi from God's perspective noting that

It refers to the act of putting something away. God did that at the Cross when He put sin away by incarnating Himself in humanity in the Person of His Son, stepping down from His judgment throne, assuming the guilt of man’s sin, and paying the penalty, thus, satisfying His justice, and making possible an offer of mercy on the basis of justice satisfied. When a sinner avails himself of the merits of that atoning sacrifice, he thus puts himself within the provision God made. His sins were put away at the Cross, and he comes into the benefit of that when he believes. (Wuest, K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans) (Bolding added)

Richards notes that aphiemi...

is a verb that occurs 146 times in the NT. It has the sense of "forgive" 49 of these times, 44 of which occur in the Gospels; but it has this meaning only once in Paul's writings (Ro 4:7). It is used in the sense of forgiveness of sins, of debts, and of crimes. The majority of the occurrences of aphiemi convey a meaning other than forgiveness: i.e., dismiss, release, leave, or abandon. (Richards, Larry:. Expository Dictionary of Bible Words. 1985. Zondervan)

The aorist imperative is a command which calls for this to be carried out with effectively and even with a sense of urgency.

Our English word “forgive” does not, as commonly used, give an adequate picture of the Greek word. We say that we have forgiven some one who has wronged us. By that we usually mean that any feeling of animosity we may have had, has changed to one of renewed friendliness and affection. We do not hold the wrong done us against the person anymore. But so far as the act itself is concerned, we cannot do anything about it. It has been done, and it cannot be removed from the one who committed the wrong.

When missionaries in northern Alaska were translating the Bible into the language of the Eskimos, they discovered there was no word in that language for forgiveness. After much patient listening, however, they discovered a word that means, “not being able to think about it anymore.” That word was used throughout the translation to represent forgiveness, because God’s promise to repentant sinners is, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34).

Debts (3783) (opheilema from opheílo = to owe) is that which is owed or obligations we have incurred; including sins of omission and commission. Sins are moral and spiritual debts to God that must be paid. In his account of this prayer, Luke uses hamartia (“sins”; Luke 11:4), clearly indicating that the reference is to sin, not to a financial debt. Matthew probably used debts because it corresponded to the most common Aramaic term (hoba) for sin used by Jews of that day, which also represented moral or spiritual debt to God.

In this petition disciples ask God's forgiveness for their failure to live according to His will. John writes...

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:7-9)

Pastor Ray Pritchard writes that...

Augustine called this text “a terrible petition.” He pointed out that if you pray these words while harboring an unforgiving spirit, you are actually asking God not to forgive you. Ponder that for a moment. If you pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” while refusing to forgive those who have wronged you, this prayer which is meant to be a blessing becomes a self-inflicted curse. In that case you are really saying,

“O God, since I have not forgiven my brother, please do not forgive me.”

That is why Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great English preacher, said that if you pray the Lord’s Prayer with an unforgiving spirit, you have virtually signed your own “death-warrant.” During one period of his life, John Wesley was a missionary in the American colonies—primarily in the area that would become the state of Georgia. There was a general by the name of Oglethorpe with whom Wesley had some dealings. General Oglethorpe was a great military leader, but he had a reputation as a harsh and brutal man. One day he said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” To which Wesley replied, “Then, sir, I hope you never sin.” (Matthew 6:12 Forgiveness and the Lord’s Prayer )

AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS: hos kai hemeis aphekamen (1PAAI) tois opheiletais hemon (Mt 6:14-15; 18:21,22,28-35; Nehemiah 5:12,13; Mark 11:25,26; Luke 6:37; 17:3-5; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13)

as we also have forgiven (left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have given up resentment against) our debtors. (Amplified)

As (hos) is the key word in this verse, which marks a comparison (see terms of comparison) between the way we forgive and the way God forgives us. In a sense, we set the "standard" and God follows the standard in the way He deals with us in the issue of forgiveness.