Month: September 2024

How does the familiar Lord’s Prayer begin? Although they seem almost exclusive, two elements merge beautifully in the preface, or invocation, of the Lord’s prayer in the first part of Matthew 6:9. They are the majesty of the King of heaven and the loving concern of your Father.

“We should not miss the balance in this opening to the prayer. We address God intimately as Father, but we immediately recognize his infinite greatness with the addition in heaven.”

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 144

Your Father is in heaven. Learn how to pray. Christ gave you this prayer as a model. Jesus gave this prayer (in slightly different language) in response to his disciples’ request that he teach them to pray, Luke 11:1-4. The language Jesus uses in Luke 11:2 suggests that these words be used, while the introduction in Matthew 6:9 implies a model. Those are not contradictory. Use the prayer, but don’t let it become an empty form. Remember the summary which the Lord’s Prayer presents. The invocation is followed by six comprehensive petitions. The first three deal with God’s name, reign, and will. The final three deal with our bread, debts, and foe.

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The Tenth Commandment forms a fitting conclusion to the law that God spoke at Sinai. It also shows you something about your relationship with God, as the apostle points out in 1 John 1:8–10.

Don’t claim to be without sin. God is light. The Word revealed this. Rather than quoting a specific saying of Jesus, John seems to be reflecting Jesus’ teaching about the Father. He sums it up in one sentence: “God is light.” Jesus, as the eternal Word, not only describes God as light, he is light, cf. John 1:4, 9, 14, 18; 8:12. God reveals himself as light. Light describes God’s character. This is one of a number of John’s brief statements about God: “God is love,” 1 John 4:8, 16; “God is Spirit,” John 4:24. “God is light” is not a comprehensive, exhaustive, definition of God (He is greater than our words or concepts), but is one of the ways that God describes himself. Why “light” to describe God? Light was the result of God’s first creative word. The shekinah cloud of glory led Israel through the desert. God clothes himself in light, Psalm 104:2. The promised Messiah would rise as the “sun of righteousness,” Malachi 4:2. Jesus proclaims himself “the light of the world,” John 8:12. God “lives in unapproachable light,” 1 Timothy 6:16. Because he is light, in him there is no darkness at all. God’s holiness is unqualified.

Continue reading “The Heart of the Matter”

The Ninth Commandment calls you to love and speak the truth, both in judicial settings and in the rest of life. Paul reflects that in Ephesians 4:25–32.

Do not lie. Do justice. God’s law outlines basic principles of justice: judges and public trials were established, Deuteronomy 16:18. Justice was not to be swayed by outside considerations, Exodus 23:1–9. The duty of witnesses was important. There were to be a plurality of witnesses, Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15, and they were to be participants in the judgment, Deuteronomy 17:7. Maliciously false witnesses were to be punished, Deuteronomy 19:16–21. True witness is impossible without the fear of God. Nothing but the truth must be spoken in testimony. Justice needs God’s law, 2 Chronicles 19:6,7. In an age when the name of God has become an expletive, is it any wonder that the truthfulness, even of sworn testimony, is often in doubt?

“[S]lander is often praised under the pretext of zeal and conscientiousness. Hence it happens that this vice insinuates itself even among the saints, creeping in under the name of virtue.”

John Calvin, Commentary on the Pentateuch, at Exodus 20:16

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