In Matthew 6, the disciples request Jesus to teach them how to pray. Jesus offers them something entirely unexpected to their old covenant way of thinking. He constructs a short prayer that serves as a pattern for all our conversations with God. While the prayer contains all the elements one might expect, Jesus addresses God using a personal name utterly foreign to the Jewish theological mind. Much like the worship objects of their pagan neighbors, the Jews worshiped a very distant, remote, and even fearful being. Jesus offers them a much more affectionate, personal, and familial approach: “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).

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