Attending Mass (Visiting Church #5) When I tell people we’re visiting Christian churches, they often assume Protestant and are surprised our plan includes Catholic gatherings. That’s where we head today, to our first Mass. The most noticeable...
Should We Pray “If It’s Your Will?” We can learn to pray by following Jesus’s example, as long as we don’t misapply it When it comes to praying, there is no better teacher than Jesus. Perhaps that’s why many of his followers memorize the prayer...
Do We Need to Rethink How We Pray? Whether we pray often or seldom, we have likely fallen into unexamined habits How do you begin your prayers? What is your common salutation? It might be “Heavenly Father . . .” or perhaps “Father God . . . ” or...
Last week I blogged about saying the Lord’s Prayer each Sunday in church as a kid and my apprehension for doing so. I cited my reason as the phrase “vain repetitions” (KJV) found in Jesus’s warning about how not to pray. The NIV is more colorful...
In my post Be Careful What You Pray I mention a line in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Different groups have different wording for this line. There are three I’ve run into: 1)...
When Jesus’ disciples asked him how to pray, he gave them a short little example. It’s commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer” (though some suggest “The Disciples’ Prayer” would be a more appropriate...
Did you know there are multiple versions of the Lord’s Prayer — the prayer Jesus used to teach his followers how to pray? Matthew records the most common version, which goes something like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed...
After prior discussions about adding to or taking away from the Bible, it gives one pause in considering footnotes in some translations, which effectively note that a certain phrase or verse is “not found in all manuscripts.” Consider...
Be Careful What You Pray When you pray, be careful what you pray—I’m serious, be very careful. In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples (also called “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father”), one part says...
