The Rooted Podcast

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You're listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society, a Christian organization that invites people to discover the life -giving power of the Bible. In each series, we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible and explore its message for us today. This is series one, Sermon on the Mount. Welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. This week, we're going to look at what Jesus says in chapter six of Matthew,

about prayer, fasting, and this challenge to us about being spiritually disciplined, but even more so the intentions behind those disciplines. And Mark is going to start us off reading from verse 5. Okay, this is the New International Version. So Jesus says,

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But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

So something that I found while I was reading this was an interesting commentary where someone was basically talking about how the Jewish people, they would pray three times a day, right? And these were set times in which they would go to pray. And they were basically saying that what Jesus is coming against when he says these first verses, five through seven, is that there would be some religious people or religious leaders who...

What they would do is when it was almost going to be the time to pray, they would leave their house and they would walk along the street and they would find themselves right at the moment where they were supposed to be praying at the busiest street corner and there they would, you know, say their prayers. And so Jesus is basically saying, don't organize your life in such a way that you are doing these things so that you can be seen for doing them. Rather do them with integrity, I guess. I thought that was interesting.

Yes, that is interesting, isn't it? And I was trying to think of how we might sort of update this for today's times. And I wondered how people felt about, for instance, saying grace in restaurants. Now, if you do that, you know, well, you know, fair enough. Some people do sometimes, some people don't. But are you doing it just because it's something that you do? You might do it at home before a meal. So why would it be any different?

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if you're out in a restaurant in public, are you doing it for that reason, or are you doing it to make a sort of public statement of some kind? You know, there are Christians here eating. You know, where does the line get drawn? Yeah, because I think that's what he's kind of referring to in verse 7 when he says, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do. Because I think another word is babbling. Yeah. And I guess when I think about that, I'm quite a fan of short prayers.

But also that aside, I think he's saying these kinds of prayers that you say where they're just words, like what you're saying, Mark. If you're saying a prayer in a restaurant, but you're just saying it to say words so that you look like you're praying. Or if you want to take maybe a political stance on it, there are times at certain political events where someone will come up and pray, right? And you think to yourself, oh, is this just for show? Like any time that maybe prayer is used.

And you could say that it's just babbling, that it's just idle speech because there's no heart behind it. Yeah, that that would be when the issue comes. But going back to your question about grace, Mark, I think I feel bad. You know, if I do normally try to say grace at home and then if I'm out in public and I think, oh, I won't say that here because people might think I'm weird, you know, that's also not great.

is it? You know, and I think obviously if you put on a really loud voice and said, oh, father, thank you so much for this food really loudly in the restaurant so tables for meters around you could hear and be like, oh, that would be one thing. But if it's just like a sort of normal conversational voice and the people at the table, you know, that's something they would do, then I guess, yeah, but it does come down, like you were saying, Noel, to the heart behind it. And

This bit, you know, don't be like the hypocrites. It does make me think in a modern sense of how we talk about virtue signaling in society. You know, just that idea that you would say things or do things performatively that you don't really care about. You don't necessarily even particularly believe it's just the approved thing to say or do, all to get the approval of onlookers.

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And in this case, we're meant to be praying to seek God, to honor God. So why are we thinking about other people and what they might be thinking of us? Oh, look at that person, they're so holy, they're so brilliant at praying or whatever. Yeah, I'm sure that's what lies underneath that, actually. I mean, the theme that runs through the whole of this passage, it seems to me, is just the kind of interiority.

of faith, you know, it's not about what other people think, it's not about what other people, you know, it's not about other people's opinions. It's your relationship with God and that is an entirely personal thing. Yeah. Well, well, I was just going to pick up as well on what you were saying about the passage that talks about, you know, don't babble like the pagans. And I think that's getting as well. If we deliberately pray in a sort of

flowery way, it sort of exposes something about what we believe about God. He doesn't listen to and answer our prayers because we made them impressive. As it says in the passage, He already knows what we're going to ask for before we even ask for it. So, that sort of leapt out to me actually when Mark was reading, and then reading the Lord's Prayer in that context, it was like,

you could see it as kind of teaching the disciples more about who God is than what to pray for. Do you see what I mean? It's saying, this is what God is like. This is what, you know, He protects you from evil. He forgives you. He gives you everything you need. He's your Father in heaven. So it's more about who God is than about what you ask Him for. It's, I think you're right Esther. It's as if,

to tell us more about who God is and what his kingdom is like. Yeah. And just following on from that, one of the commentaries I looked at suggested that the old translation is vain repetitions, you know, do not keep babbling like pagans. And one of the commentaries I looked at suggested that behind this was the idea that in a polytheist society where you believed in lots and lots of gods, you had to be sure that you were sort of hitting the right target, you know.

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praying to the right God and in the right way as well. So there were all sorts of adjectives and titles associated with these gods and goddesses as well. So the smart thing to do was just to name as many of them as you possibly could. So just to make sure you didn't leave any of them out. But that goes back to what you were saying, Esther, about it teaching us about God, you know, because there is one God and you pray to that one God. That's so good.

Yeah. Something else that struck me is how there's kind of communal language used in the prayer. It's, our Father in heaven, give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts and lead us not into temptation. And I was just, I wanted to ask Mark actually, because being a pastor, how do you or how have you used the Lord's Prayer in church?

and how do you kind of use it as an individual? Yeah, I think it has both applications really, both strands. Certainly, if I'm leading a service now, I would always have the Lord's Prayer as part of that service. I'm a Baptist and so, you know, our services don't have a set liturgy. You can more or less do what you like. But I think it is important to have a structure and, you know, a pathway through a service, as it were.

And I would always include the Lord's Prayer as part of that because that's how Jesus taught us to pray. And I think we should know the Lord's Prayer really well. We should know it off by heart and we should know what it means. And I think that just repeating that Sunday by Sunday is a really good way of getting that into our minds. But it just becomes part of your mental furniture really, part of your spiritual furniture. Yeah, that's good. I was thinking about it as I was reading this that...

It's interesting that Jesus taught them that this was the way to pray, but we don't see it repeated anywhere else in Scripture. Never again throughout the Gospels or in any of Paul's letters. Even when Paul is teaching about communion and things that you would think this would be used in, it's never mentioned. It's as if he taught them to pray this and then they didn't, which I don't think is the case. One thing, too.

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maybe put in here is that the prayer itself is unique, as you were saying, you know, it appears here and that's that. But the different lines, the different ideas which are found in this prayer are not anything in themselves particularly unusual. There's one commentator, for instance, who has sort of collated a version of the Lord's Prayer.

from contemporary Jewish writings. I thought it might be helpful if I actually read it so you can see the similarities. So, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your exalted name in the world which you created according to your will. May your kingdom and your lordship come speedily and be acknowledged by all the world that your name may be praised in all eternity.

May your will be done in heaven and also on earth. Give tranquillity of spirit to those who fear you, yet in all things do what seems good to you. Let us enjoy the bread daily apportioned to us. Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned. Forgive also all who have done us injury, even as we also forgive all. And lead us not into temptation, but keep us far from all evil. So,

You hear the Lord's Prayer in that, don't you? Absolutely. All of those different sentences actually appeared in writings of contemporary Jewish writers. So, isn't that interesting? Yeah. I think the significant thing here is how Jesus selects everything that He chooses to put in the Lord's Prayer. And He's got this vast sort of treasure trove of spiritual resources to draw on.

out of his Jewish culture, out of his Jewish background. But this is what he says is really important. This is how you're to pray. Yeah, that's really good. So it's that prayer of acknowledging that God is sovereign. He's worthy of all of our worship and our praise, hallowed be His name. But then we want to see that here, in our reality, in our realm.

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as well. Yeah, I think the Kingdom of God is just as you say, really, it's the place where God's will is done perfectly. And again, I think most people know it's not a geographical thing, it doesn't equate to the church or anything like that. But we're supposed to be signs of the kingdom, I think. In one translation, it talks about us being a colony of heaven. So, I guess it's reminding us as we pray, isn't it, that

we're invited to be part of God's work in the world. We're meant to be sharing His image everywhere, glorifying Him here so that others can see that and worship Him too. I think that's one of the reasons why sin in the church, like, you know, the terrible abuse scandals that we've seen recently, is such a serious thing, because we are meant to be something holy. And when we're not, that is just a terrible, terrible indictment.

of the church, of the people of God, you know, it's just not how it's meant to be. Well, we're dishonoring God, aren't we, in other people's eyes when we behave like that, so say, in His name. Yeah. The next bit is really interesting as well, actually. Give us today our daily bread. And I did do a bit of digging into this. And the expression daily bread is a very, very uncommon one. I think it just, I think it appears...

just once in ancient literature, and that's here, but I think it's in an accounts book or something like that. The word is epiusios. And I looked at Jesus through Middle Eastern eyes by Kenneth Bailey, and he talks about daily bread and just sort of, you know, speculates on what it might be. And he was a real expert on ancient versions of the Bible.

he refers back to one of the first translations of the New Testament from Greek into another language, and that was in the second century, so really early, and it was into Old Syriac. And the word for daily is related to the word for amen. It's got the same root. And so he speculates as to whether this might mean lasting or never ceasing.

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never ending, which might say, give us today the bread that doesn't run out. Yeah. So, and he suggests that the prayer is really about being delivered from the fear of not having enough. So, it's all about being delivered from fear of the future. I think it's just a brilliant insight, to be honest. Well, I agree. And as you were speaking, it

really made me think about the Israelites in the wilderness after they'd left Egypt and how they complained to God, oh, you know, we're starving out here, you've brought us out into the wilderness to die. We were better off in Egypt, we had food to eat basically. And then obviously he provides daily bread, manna. And you also even see that.

struggle that they still have to kind of trust God for that daily provision in that they collect more manna than they were supposed to just in case it doesn't appear the next day even though they've been told there will be more tomorrow. And that's a great insight about the manna and that made me think about was it Elijah and the widow of Zarephath? Do you remember that story where he asks, it's a famine and he asks for

food and she says I've got some oil and some flour and that's that we're going to eat it and die and then the story is that they didn't run out. Yeah they go out and collect as many jars as they can yeah that's right yeah yeah yeah until the famine was over. Yeah that's a good one.

Yeah, and then we've got, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us. Mine says from evil, but Mark, yours said from the evil one. Yeah, mine says the evil one as well. I think the point is that there is, I think sometimes there is a quality of evil about things that...

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we experience, which is just more than things just going wrong in our lives. I mean, I had cancer a couple of years ago, for instance, but I'm not going to say that was evil. It was difficult, but it wasn't evil. But sometimes people do things that are genuinely evil. Sometimes people are targeted in ways which you can describe as evil.

And I think that's what Jesus is getting at here. It's a sort of personal malevolence, I would say. Well, and we do, in Ephesians, it talks, doesn't it, about a spiritual battle that's going on for us to be aware of that and to stand firm. So there is that sense of, you know, there are evil forces. Yeah. But something I find interesting is that...

You might think that that would be the most serious part of this prayer, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one. But then you get to verses 14 and 15, which are incredibly blunt and quite scary, and go back to this idea about forgiveness. 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. Am I the only one that finds that?

quite terrifying. Genuinely though, because I do struggle with forgiveness. It really popped into my mind about a particular struggle that I have in this area. I grew up doing elite sports and I don't want to be too specific because even now my heart is beating faster. I kind of feel

terrified about sharing this story. That's the power it still has over me. But one of the elite sports that I did, my coach was incredibly abusive to me and to the other children, children on my team. I was nine when I joined that team. And the emotional, verbal abuse, obviously it's elite sport. We were training 25 to 30 hours a week. And even if there's not

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physical punishment in the sense of somebody hitting you. If you're training hard, that can be a kind of physical punishment. We were shamed. We were, you know, even my face was wrong. I was told off for having certain facial expressions that I couldn't control them. And I really struggled to forgive that coach.

I really do because it still hurts and I know how it shaped my life from that point onwards and future situations that I got myself into because my self -esteem had been so destroyed. I really struggled to forgive this woman. So when I read these verses and they're telling me Jesus is saying, look, unforgiveness is serious.

That really challenges me.

Yeah. It makes me think of, it's in Matthew 18 verses 21 to 35, it's the parable of the unforgiving servant. He goes into this parable saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And this is one servant who owes him 10 ,000 bags of gold, which I'm guessing translating that, that's just like an insurmountable debt that this servant would never be able to repay.

And the king forgives him the debt, doesn't throw him in debtors' prison, doesn't expect him to pay it back. But then this guy leaves there and somebody owes him a tiny amount of money. And he demands that he be paid back. He's going to get him thrown into jail for not paying it. And when the king hears about this, he said, you wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

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In his anger, the Master handed him over to the jails to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed. And Jesus says, this is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you give your brother or sister from your heart. So I guess the thing I'm supposed to think about is how much I've been forgiven for. You know, the weight of my sins that have been forgiven. So in light of that, how can I not forgive this person?

but it still doesn't make it easy. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Esther. I think something that's interesting about what you've just said and this passage is that I don't think it's supposed to point us to thinking about God as an unforgiving person, right? As someone that if we don't forgive, then God is just like angry and he's not going to forgive you. I think it's really interesting that Jesus here, this isn't actually a command. So Jesus isn't saying you should forgive.

or else God won't forgive you. He's actually saying, this is the way that it is. This is the reality of the situation. It's as if he's just stating a fact of reality. If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. And that's just the way that it is by God, right? But I actually think that kind of a more hopeful way of looking at it and not looking at it as God is an unforgiving Father is that I think a lot of the time,

The way in which discipline comes from God is that I reap the consequences of what I sow. It's actually natural. It's more natural than God has to do something. He has to not forgive me because I didn't forgive. I don't think it's like that. I think what Jesus is more saying is, if you live a life of unforgiveness, you will experience a life of unforgiveness. And I think this goes for a lot of things. If you live a life of violence, you'll experience a life of violence.

It's like when Jesus says, if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. If I live a life of deceit, I'll experience a life of deceit. I think that's more how I read it, of Jesus is saying, listen, the way that you act on the earth, you will create like what comes, basically. And I'm not saying anything along the lines of karma. I don't believe that. I'm not talking about karma. But I think that's more kind of what Jesus is saying here, that you'll kind of reap what you sow in this situation.

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I think that's true. I think that's a really good insight actually, Noel. Something that occurred to me was that Peter says, how often should I forgive my brother who sins against me? So, if he talks about a brother, there is an element of equality there. Right. So, this is somebody who has hurt him, but it's not his superior.

it's somebody who is his equal, his brother. And that throws the whole question about forgiveness onto a different level because there isn't a power imbalance there, whereas in some cases there is very definitely a power imbalance. And I don't think that we should be encouraging people who have been abused in any way to forgive their abuser. That's a...

pathway, that's a process, that's something which they might find their way to eventually after a period of prayer and discernment and so on and so forth. But it's not up to anybody to say to anybody, you have to forgive somebody who's done something absolutely dreadful to you. That's something which is, you know, that's personal. We become spiritual abusers, actually, if we place that weight upon people.

I mean, thank you both for the way you've responded to what I've shared. That's really, it's given me things to think about. No, that's good. Really good points. We're going to take a break now. When we come back, we're going to talk a bit about fasting, storing up treasure, lots of good stuff in the next passage. So we'll be right back. Okay, we're back and we're going to now look at verses 16 through 24. Esther, do you want to go ahead and read for us? Yeah, happy to.

When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they've received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others that you're fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where three thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy,

So I guess looking at this passage, the first part about fasting.

It's very similar, isn't it, to what we just read about prayer? It seems to kind of strike the same chord in the sense that Jesus is saying the same thing of when you're doing these sort of religious disciplines or practices, don't do them to get praise from people, but do them out of love in your heart for the Lord. So I feel like that's being repeated here by Jesus just in a different way, really. Yeah.

I mean, I had a little, I suppose there is a question over, you kind of said, oh, fasting is a spiritual practice or a spiritual discipline. And I can kind of, yeah, that could be a regular thing that you do. It's about self -control. It's about discipline. But I did spend a little bit of time looking at when people fasted, kind of in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. They seem to be like quite extreme situations.

where you're repenting, mourning, you're in dire circumstances seeking direction and help from God, preparing yourself for a spiritual battle of some kind. So I think it makes it seem even more disgusting really. The idea of being hypocritical in that sense, you know, of fasting for show when this is what it's maybe, this is more what it's meant to be about. Go on, Mark.

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I think in New Testament times, fasting was fairly routine. I mean, there are the biblical examples, obviously, which seem to be for particular reasons. Yeah. But in New Testament times, fasting was just part of an ordinary spiritual discipline. Right. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a story about our Prime Minister who is a Hindu, and apparently he fasts once a week, and that's just a routine practice for him.

And, you know, for many Christians it is today. But for instance, the Pharisees, as well as the regular fasts, like the New Year fast, there was a fast for Yom Kippur, many Pharisees would fast on Mondays and Thursdays, and that was just a routine thing. They could, of course, go around looking very pale and miserable and, oh, I haven't eaten all day.

and everybody would know that that was because they were fasting. Or they could just go about as normal, basically, so nobody would know that they were fasting. And that's what Jesus is talking about, I think. He's saying, don't draw attention to yourself, just this is between you and God, it's not between you and anybody else. So, I think that's the point there, to be perfectly honest. But fasting is interesting, isn't it? And I think it's right that it is a spiritual discipline. And I've got to say that,

not being a very disciplined person myself in all sorts of ways, it has not really been part of my spiritual practice. I've done it once or twice, I suppose, when I've been in churches where we've fasted for particular reasons, but I haven't generally done it and maybe I should. It's a way of practicing self -control.

practicing self -discipline. And it's like a runner, for instance. And if you're a serious runner, you don't just run, you also weights as well, and you probably swim and you try and build up your muscle groups through doing different sorts of exercise. And if you can control your food intake, then that sort of builds your willpower, it builds your spiritual discipline. So you can say no,

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not just to food, but no to other things as well. No to staying in bed too long, no to sexual temptation, no to whatever it might be. So I think that's the idea behind fasting. But the point is that it's between you and God. Yeah, I think it does a lot to help with denying yourself really. If I'm actually in the habit of constantly denying myself food, for example, if I were to do it weekly, when someone denies me something, maybe I'll be more used to it by then.

Like maybe it won't be such a shock that I got denied something that I wanted because I'm used to being denied. I do it to myself. I think that is one of the biggest powers I found behind it. The next verse is here. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, your heart will also be. Do you think this is calling for us all to be minimalists?

Well, I think it follows on from the fasting bit, actually. If we make a parade of ourselves being terribly virtuous and terribly holy in order to be admired by other people, well, our reward is to be admired by other people. And so, we're sporing up treasures on earth. But if our motivation for fasting is just to draw closer to God,

then we are storing up treasure in heaven. So I think it relates directly back to the fasting, actually. It makes me think about the rich man who comes to Jesus and says, what do I need to do? I've done it, I've kept all of the laws and Jesus tells him to go and sell everything he has. And there's that terrifying line when you think about how rich we are in comparison to so many people across the world saying that it's harder for the rich to get into the kingdom of heaven than for a

Is it a camel through the eye of a needle? Yep. You know, what an image. It's about our priorities as well, isn't it? The things that we spend our time chasing after. Because if what we spend all of our time accumulating wealth and security or having certain things that we want, then how much of our time and effort is going into serving God? Yeah. Well, it's interesting here. It's another time where...

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He doesn't say you shouldn't serve to master, he says you can't, it's impossible, no one can do it. So I'm either serving God or I'm serving wealth and that's it. What about verses 22 and 23 though? Are they this sort of weird interjection in the middle of the bit about treasure and money? Or are they basically saying the same thing in a more abstract way? What does it mean when it talks about the eye being the lamp of the body?

Yeah, I think I've read another translation of this that says if your eye is single, your body will be flooded with light. So the idea that I'm looking at one thing, maybe if we think about verse 33 in this chapter, seeking first Jesus' kingdom and His righteousness, I guess that's how I thought about it. If I'm focused on one thing, I've got like my treasure that I'm set on that's in heaven, my body will be full of light. But otherwise, I've got many things that I'm looking at. Yeah.

I think that also relates to the end of our particular section, doesn't it? No one can serve two masters, hate the one, love the other, or devote it to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. So again, it's this question of what you look at and what your attention is focused on and what you really desire. And

what you desire is going to shape your priorities in life, it's going to shape how you live, it's going to shape your values. Everything really comes from where your attention is focused. It's kind of like another way of saying, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength, isn't it? It's saying be wholehearted, single -minded.

and pour everything into loving God, not into any of these other things that are basically rubbish in comparison. Things that can be destroyed by moths and vermin. Yeah, that's good. We're going to come to a close now. I think one of the things that's really stood out to me is just how much Jesus is encouraging us that this kind of relationship that we have with Jesus when we're following His way.

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It really has to do with us and our relationship with Him and not worrying so much about what people think about what that relationship looks like and not doing things for other people, but doing them unto the Lord. Thank you guys. Really good conversation again this week. And we're looking forward to coming back next week for another conversation on this. In the meantime, if you have questions about anything that we've said in this episode that you'd like to ask us, you can go to...

biblesociety .org .uk forward slash rooted questions and we will have a look through all of those questions for the last episode in this series in which we'll try to answer as many as we can. So thank you guys so much for listening and we'll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety .org .uk.