I’ve known the Lord’s prayer since I was around 6 years old. To say I was surprised when I heard a different version while in my 20’s is an understatement. See I never learned that the “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever” part. Fast forward to today when I happened to be reading Matthew 6, which includes the prayer. Much to my surprise that “new” ending I had learned wasn’t included in the prayer. I officially learned that there are different versions of the Lord’s Prayer.
Where did it come from? I had to find out. It was time for a deep dive on the Lord’s Prayer. When I refer to verse numbers in this article, please note that I am using my NIV Bible.
Background
The different versions of the Lord’s prayer occur two times in the New Testament. A longer version is found in Matthew 6 : 9-13. A shorter version is included in Luke 11: 2-4. Both essentially the same thing but are worded somewhat differently. They both honor God as a loving God, acknowledge God’s will to be done here on Earth as in Heaven, recognize that God provides for us, ask for forgiveness, and ask for help to not sin.
Version One of the Lord’s Prayer: Matthew
The first of the two versions of the Lord’s prayer can be found in Matthew. In this version, we meet Jesus with his disciples teaching the Sermon on the Mount. What I find so amazing about this is that although there was a large crowd waiting for Jesus, he took this time to teach the disciples. You see, Jesus knew that when he was gone it was this small group that would carry on his teachings and works to continue spreading the word of Christ. If they didn’t have a good foundation of Jesus’ teaching then his word would not be accurately represented or taught.
Another interesting thing to me is that all the different sections are teaching the disciples how to live their lives. Not how to teach others to live theirs. Jesus knew that the strongest way to teach is by example. If they were to teach something but act the opposite, they wouldn’t have been better than the Pharisees.
As in the version in Luke, Jesus continues to teach after he teaching how to pray. However, the lessons are different. In Matthew 6: 14-15, Jesus teaches the importance of forgiveness, which emphasizes the section of the Lord’s prayer (“and forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”):
"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6: 14-15
Jesus teaches this very sternly because of how important it is to our salvation. No where does it say that our salvation from sin is based on forgiving others, but we can’t receive God’s forgiveness until we realize what forgiveness really means (Ephesians 4:32). Whenever we ask God to forgive us for sin, we should first ask ourselves if we have forgiven the people who have wronged us.
Version Two of the Lord’s Prayer: Luke
When we come across the second version of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, all it says for a reference to when are where is that “one day Jesus was praying a certain place.” One of his disciples came up to him when he finished praying and asked him to teach them to pray. There are different schools of thought on whether this teaching was the same occurrence as the one in Matthew. I’ll leave that decision up to you.
Luke leaves out the the last sentence that is included in Matthew (remember I am refereeing to the NIV version, which does not have the “For thine” part). It ends with “and lead us not into temptation.”
Like Matthew Jesus goes on to teach after the Lord’s prayer. In Luke however, he touches on a different subject. In Luke 11: 5-13, he teaches persistence and boldness in prayer. Jesus wanted the disciples to know that it’s not okay to ask for something you really want just once. This coming back in prayer and constant conversation with God breaks down barriers and assumptions in our hearts and minds. As we practice persistence, we have time to sort out what we really want and what we really need. This helps get rid of short-sighted requests.
Jesus wants us to know that we should keep talking to God and to not be afraid to ask. This persistance and boldness changes the way we communicate with God and builds a deeper level of trust with him. This in turn allows us to listen better.
Where Did the Extra Ending Come From?
As mentioned before there are two different versions of the Lord’s prayer found in Matthew and Luke. Well guess what? In the King James version, not only are they different from each other, the Luke version does includes the last sentence that was included in the Matthew NIV version. What I find fascinating about this the Matthew and Luke writings of the Lord’s Prayer weren’t made the same in the KJV? It was updated so that the Luke version would match the Matthew version. However, then even more was added to the Matthew version so that it doesn’t match again!
Let’s pause after that mini rant of confusion. For the rest of this section we are just going to focus on the differences of the prayer in Matthew between the NIV and KJV.
In the King James Version, it includes “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever.” This added sentence is a doxology or a short hymn of praise. The use of this doxology dates back to at least 1549 with the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, which was influenced by William Tyndale’s New Testament translation in 1526. These texts were used when creating the King James Version. Check out this site for more details.
Did Jesus Actually Say the Doxology?
So the main question…did Jesus actually say “for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever?” According to the modern version of Matthew and Luke, no. However, when studying this question I learned that there is a text that is even older than the Greek manuscripts containing Matthew chapter six called the Didache.
The Didache
The Didache is also known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. In this text, this is how the Lord’s Prayer is ended:
"And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. Thrice in the day thus pray."
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles was a “first century manual of morals, worship and doctrine of the Church.” It would make sense that they included this doxology in the Lord’s prayer since doxologies are short hymns of praise.
The Didache is an anonymous work and is considered the first catechism of the church. Some Christians see it as truth.
Matthew’s Letter
During my research, I was not able to find much information on what the very original book of Matthew. What I did learn was that the doxology was added into the Book of Common Prayer by Queen Elizabeth who wanted to distinguish the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. This was then used by King James when he commissioned a new translation of the Bible
Official Decision on the Versions of the Lord’s Prayer
Through all of this research I was able to come to a conclusion regarding whether the doxology should be sad, at least for myself. This is conclusion is that it truly doesn’t matter. If one is more focused on reciting memorized prayers than having a true conversation with God, they’re missing the point anyway.
The Lord’s Prayer is a template to follow when praying. We are to honor God as a loving God, acknowledge God’s will to be done here on Earth as in Heaven, recognize that God provides for us, ask for forgiveness, and ask for help to not sin. It is of course okay to say the Lord’s Prayer verbatim. However, we just need to make sure there is sincere and honest intent behind it.
We may never have a final answer on the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer. However, we can be sure that we have a loving God who sent his son to die for our sins. And that is pretty awesome.
