Hey everybody! Thank you for joining me in daily Bible reading as we seek to glorify Jesus, know Him more, and interpret the truth of His Word.
If this is your first time going through the Bible, I am incredibly excited to have you here. If this is your 5000th time, I am humbled that you are here and hope you grow in your relationship with Jesus along with me. May we all seek to know Him more and apply what we learn to further our mission of spreading the gospel. If you missed a day and want to catch up, you can visit the archives page HERE! But there is no shame if you start today! Today, we continue Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount! Day 56, Matthew 6:11 — The Sermon on the Mount Matthew 6:11 (NASB1995) “Give us this day our daily bread.” Review Jesus rebukes the religious leaders’ self-righteous public display of spirituality (6:5), explaining we should pray in private instead of boastfully in public (6:6). While it was common practice to pray publicly in a standing posture in ancient Israel, Jesus calls it hypocritical to take advantage of public platforms by seeking self-glorification and the acclaim of man. The isolated and intimate way of praying Jesus teaches contrasts the Pharisees, as they were driven to publicize their superior spirituality. Along with the Pharisees’ self-righteous spirituality, Jesus called out Gentiles for the worship of false gods. He instructs His followers to pray faithfully and trust that God hears our requests, rather than engaging in useless and repetitive chants, songs, and phrases like the Gentiles and followers of other religions. Jesus rebukes this kind of prayer, calling it battologéō, which means babbling or stammering in meaningless repetition (6:7). He then teaches us how to pray through the Petitions, or what we call the LORD’s Prayer. The first petition invites us into intimate communication with our Father and teaches us how His name is to be revered, honored, and glorified (6:9). Discussion Yesterday, we learned the second and third petitions, praying for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done (6:10). The “kingdom” references God’s glorious spiritual kingdom. We discussed how the Kingdom of Heaven is revealed in the past, present, and future. While He displays it through His church today, it will not be fully consummated until Jesus’ second coming at the end of time. Most church fathers, including Paul, believed the kingdom coming was future tense. Today, we read the first ascendant or human petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.” We might understand this ‘daily bread’ in a plethora of ways, depending on our background and presuppositions. Even scholars split on the correct interpretation of what our ‘daily bread’ entails. Is it daily in a temporal sense, as in the fresh food or water we need that eventually perishes or runs out? Is it daily in a spiritual sense regarding our spiritual needs found in communion with God? Is it obeying the Word of the LORD? Is it all the above? The debate is legitimate because the Greek word for daily used here is epioúsios. This word occurs nowhere else in all of Scripture except in the context of the LORD’s Prayer. The consensus of epioúsios’ meaning is ‘necessary for today’, ‘necessary for tomorrow’, or ‘sufficient.’ Some church fathers (e.g., Augustine, Jerome, and Erasmus) reject the literal interpretation of daily bread as food, rather holding to an interpretation meaning ‘communion bread’ or the ‘Word of God.’[1] While this is a common interpretation in our modern times, the LORD does not mean for us to avoid asking for basic needs. He promises to supply these needs, as we will read soon (6:25-34), but that does not mean we should avoid seeking spiritual bread, either. Another scholar differentiates the meaning of bread, saying, “We are not to pray for our greeds but for our needs, for every physical and material need.”[2] In Proverbs 30:8, Solomon asks the LORD to provide for him in multiple ways: “Keep deception and lies far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion.” The food Solomon speaks of is provisional food, or lekhem, in ancient Hebrew. His prayer is also petitionary, asking for the LORD to provide for his physical daily needs—not greed. Craig Keener says Matthew 6:11 “alludes to God’s provision of ‘daily bread’ (manna) for his people in the wilderness after he first redeemed them” as Jewish people throughout biblical history prayed for God to supply their basic daily needs, including bread and water (e.g., Solomon in Prov. 30:8).[3] In response to Eliphaz from Job 22, Job provides another example of food in the context of physical daily needs. In Job 23:12, Job replies, “I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” Job’s ‘necessary food’ is literal food, but Job treasures the Word of God more than this. Rather than choosing sides, this is where I agree with both interpretations. Praying for the LORD to accommodate our daily provisions (food) and our spiritual growth (Word) is right. However, I also agree the spiritual interpretation can lean into praying for over-spiritualized “greeds over needs” making our prayers more self-seeking than God-glorifying and petitionary, as these prayers are to be. Instead of praying for spiritual daily bread, as in extra-biblical revelation or ‘greed’, our prayers for spiritual daily bread should come from a place of teachability and obedience. In Job 22:22, Eliphaz tells Job to “receive instruction from His [God’s] mouth and establish His words in your heart.” As read above, Job desires to obey the Word of God more than his physical daily needs (Job 23:12). In Jeremiah 15:16, the prophet provides another spiritual interpretation saying, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.” While what we have studied so far today leans toward the literal food interpretation, Job and Jeremiah provide a look into the spiritual interpretation of praying for daily bread (Word). But, what is important to understand is this spiritual bread is not praying for something extra-biblical, or something that we want or desire. It is in obedience to the Word of God that we receive our spiritual daily bread. Job and Jeremiah sought after the Word of the LORD and repentance aligning with it, rather than praying for otherworldly spiritual interpretation. After studying this passage, I believe praying for daily bread means praying for our physical needs (food, water, etc.) and the Word of God that we adhere to (humility, obedience, etc.). It is not in our greed that we should seek our daily bread, but in our needs and in our obedience to His Word. We continue the Sermon on the Mount tomorrow. Application Praying for the LORD to provide our daily bread is an intimate prayer. While some pray for physical needs and some for spiritual growth, it is important to remember that both are important and necessary for Christians. As Job and Jeremiah do, I never connected the meaning of aligning with God’s revealed Word in obedience before writing this post. What a wonderful revelation. The LORD promises to provide our every physical need as we will read later in Matthew 6, so praying for food, clothing, and shelter is intrinsic to our lives. We must never overlook our daily needs and think of them as less important than our spiritual needs—both are important. More importantly, regarding our spiritual needs, we must refocus our prayers from what we desire and want to what the LORD desires and wants. It is in our obedience that we grow in the LORD and receive the spiritual daily bread we need. I pray we continue seeking the LORD and petitioning for His truth to be revealed and for us to be humble, repentant, and obedient to His call. I also pray for us to never feel too prideful to ask for God to provide for our physical daily needs, as those are what He seeks to provide for us. May we praise, worship, honor, and glorify Jesus every day in all that we do while continually pursuing righteousness, holiness, and forgiveness as He forgave us. Looking Ahead Thank you for joining today’s daily Bible reading! Tomorrow, we read Matthew 6:12-13. I hope you join me! I have made commenting available, so please feel free to discuss the reading and ask questions. If you do not want to discuss publicly, you can reach out to me privately. We are on this journey together. References [1] Doug O’Donnell, “Matthew: Preaching the Word Commentary.” [2] Ibid, (This means ‘in the same place’ as the previous citation). [3] Craig Keener, “IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Second Edition.”
1 Comment
Juanita Vianelle
7/23/2023 08:12:33 pm
I’ve read through the Bible maybe 4 times in the past. Each time I do I am reminded of watching movies I enjoyed a second time and noticing something of importance I overlooked.
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