The Manna Motif in The Lord’s Prayer In Matthew 6: 11 And Luke 11: 3

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew had the Jewish Christian community as his target readers. This paper draws on this basic fact to advance the hypothesis that the author had in mind the provision of daily sustenance to the Israelites in the desert, while on their journey to Canaan. Using the exegetical methods, the paper discusses why the form of this petition is different in the two gospels (Matthew and Luke) in which the payer is recorded; and also why the presentation of the same request is different in a way. The paper looks also at similar statements in the gospel of John and other synoptic writers and other comments in the gospel of Matthew to draw the conclusion that Matthew’s Jesus was talking of the manner in which the children of God were fed in the wilderness. The findings are that firstly, Matthew was talking as a Jew to a Jewish community, while Luke wrote as a Gentile to a wider audience made up essentially of Gentile Christians like Theophilus who had already been schooled about Jesus, reminding in both instances that there is a God/Father whose character is to provide the needs of his children daily and always. Secondly, the recordings of the prayer were synthesized through the ethnocentric lenses of the two gospel writers.

Keywords

• prayer
• daily bread
• the gospels (matthew
• luke
• john)
• give
• always.