Lord’s Prayer: Part 6 Lead Us

The next line in the Lord’s Prayer asks God to leads us away from temptation and evil.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

I have found this line to be grammatically odd. I understand how we want God to lead us away from temptation. However, why the word ‘but’? As though the opposite to leading us away from temptation is delivering us from evil. Shouldn’t it be ‘and’?

Another issue is why would God lead us into temptation in the first place? We know God does not tempt us.

James 1 v 13

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

The Greek word for temptation in the Lord’s Prayer is peirasmos. This word can also be translated as a trial or a test. If we substitute the word ‘temptation’ for trial, I think it makes more sense.

Therefore, we pray that God does not lead us into trials or times of testing, but if He does, then we ask Him to delivers us from this evil.

Every age has its temptations and trials. For the early Church, it was the pressure to burn offerings to the Emperor. This was an expected practice by everyone in the Empire, with only Jews having a religious exemption. When Christians were asked to make their offering, unless they could prove they were Jewish or were married to a Jewish husband, then they would be fined, imprisoned or even executed.

The Lord’s Prayer would have been a comfort and an encouragement when resisting this time of testing. When asked to sacrifice to anyone but God, they would have prayed to the will to resist the temptation to disavow Him.

Today, our trials are different. Whereas they were persecuted for not making pagan sacrifices, now Western Christians are persecuted for not having politically acceptable opinions. As life in the West has become more and more political, Christians have been dismissed from work for wearing crosses. Publicly praying Christians have been arrested. Christians who preach in the streets have been removed. And Christian leaders who express non-progressive viewpoints have lost their positions.

Fortunately, no Christians have lost their life in the West because of their faith. However, in other countries, we do see this. This makes Christianity the most persecuted religion in history, but strangely it has the most adherents. You’d think persecution would have put people off, but it seems to have made it more attractive.

I think persecution comes because Christians do not conform to the state and its belief system. They see the state isn’t the ‘be all and end all’. It is ultimately subservient to God, even if the state is atheist and doesn’t believe in Him.

A totalising state finds Christianity a problem, which it can’t control. And therefore seeks to remove it through persecution. But as Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, the chairman of Stalin’s League of the Militant Godless said,

Christianity is like a nail. The harder you strike it the deeper it goes

Modern attempts to remove Christianity from the public sphere is generally through subtly changing its doctrines. But unless Bible translations are removed and replaced by a state sanctioned version, then it is unlikely to work in the long term. As Christians will generally seek to attend churches which preach a Gospel untainted by state ideology.

With regard to temptation, the Modern Western world is drenched with it. The technological focus on meeting the physical needs of humanity over the spiritual has resulted in almost any human need, no matter how perverse, can be met. The Internet has made all this available with a click of a mouse and the capitalist system has found ways to fund it.

We are at the stage in our culture where the Seven Deadly Sins our now the Seven Virtues. Pride, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony and Sloth are now acceptable. While the old virtues of chastity, temperance and humility are largely forgotten.

In this environment, with temptation around every corner with a click of a search engine, we can choose to exercise self control. Whereas our Christian forebears did not have to struggle with this world full of carnal temptations, we do. Though it can be hard, it means we have great opportunities to grow in our walk with God. The Internet does provide great tools to help us too. Instant access to Bible translation, hours and hours of quality Christian content online and numerous discussion forums on and off social media.

So when we prayer for God to deliver us from evil, we ask Him to keep us strong. For Him to provide a way out of the trial and help us to trust Him more deeply than we have ever done before. Through these trials and resisting temptations, we grow up.

Romans 5 v 3-5

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us