In Luke 11:1-4, one of Jesus’ disciples asked that He teach them to pray, and He gave basically the same prayer. Sadly, many have missed His point and recite the wording of this prayer with rote repetition—just as He said not to do.
When Jesus taught that we pray “in this manner” (Matthew 6:9) or said, “When you pray, say …” (Luke 11:2), He did not mean that we repeat verbatim His words that followed. Rather, he gave an example of the kind of things to say or an outline of categories to cover.
Looking at the structure, we see that He opens and closes with praise to God and places requests in between. Let’s note the progression:
