The Memorial Hall is packed for the Anzac Day service.  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” the crowd recites.  The brick hall with scuffed floorboards has poor acoustics at the best of times, and the words of the Lord’s Prayer are indistinct, mumbled quietly by voices not entirely in synch.  Sibilant hisses cut through the murmur as the congregation reaches, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  “Trespasses” is not a word in their everyday vocabulary but most don’t give a second thought to what this obscure term means because they’re only concentrating on recalling what line comes next.  The Lord alone knows how many of these voices are actually praying, and how many are simply reciting words.

Was the Lord’s Prayer intended to be recited word for word?  It certainly can be recited thoughtfully and meaningfully, and having it memorised word for word has the value of making it always accessible.  However, I believe that Jesus intended it as a guide rather than a formula to be recited by rote.  John MacArthur Jr. gives a number of reasons why the Lord’s Prayer is a guide rather than a formula. 

One, the prayer is given twice in Scripture in different forms.  “If the Lord was giving us a prayer to be memorized and recited He wouldn't have given us different words the two times He gave it, right?”  Two, Jesus disciples asked him to teach them to pray.  “They didn't say teach us a prayer. It's one thing to have a prayer book and open it and read a prayer - it's something else to know how to pray. The Lord was not giving them a prayer, He was teaching them to pray.”  Three, it would be incongruous for Jesus to give his hearers a prayer to recite directly after instructing them not to babble on like the pagans (this third point is debatable because reciting a short prayer and babbling on are not one and the same, but when the Lord’s Prayer is recited without thinking, John MacArthur has a valid point).  Four, “there is no occasion in the entire New Testament, Gospels, Acts or Epistles where this prayer is ever repeated by anybody. It is not a prayer to be made a ritual. It is a model for every prayer you ever pray about whatever you pray about.”