Luke 11:1-13

Butler's Comments

SECTION 1

Puerility (Luke 11:1-13)

11He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. 2And he said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 3Give us each day our daily bread; 4and forgive every one who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.

5 And he said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, -Friend, lend me three loaves; 6for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him-'; 7and he will answer from within, -Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything-'? 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Luke 11:1-4 Request for Form: On the surface, the request of these disciples does not appear puerile and childish. However, they apparently asked out of some sense of jealousy or feeling of having been cheated. It was a usual practice among the more famous rabbis to give prayer-formulas to their pupils. We have no record of John the Baptist's teaching on prayer. This statement indicates John's teaching was distinctive enough that these disciples of Jesus wanted their Master to teach them some form of prayer so they might be recognized as His disciples.

Saying prayer was a very significant part of Jewish life. It was highly formalized among the rabbis of the first century A.D. Jesus dealt with this tendency to formalize and ritualize prayer (Matthew 6:5-14) heaping up vain words and repetitious phrases. It seems that in general there were three times daily when the Jews of the first century made formal prayers (cf. Acts 10:9). It was customary then that the Jew must wear his tallith (prayer-shawl) and his tephillin (phylactery). The Jew always turned toward Jerusalem to pray; if he were in Jerusalem and in the Temple, he turned toward the Holy of Holies to pray. Generally speaking he did not kneel but bowed his head as low as possible while lifting up his hands toward heaven, (cf. Luke 18:9-14). There were a number of other formalities observed during certain prayers such as beating one's breast, tearing one's clothes or casting dust or ashes into the air or upon one's head. The gospel records indicate Jesus-' prayers to be uniquely non-traditional and unritualistic. This is probably what seemed so shocking to these disciples. They were not really hostile toward Jesus, just spiritually immature. They still thought of the essence of prayer as something that had to be formally taught by a rabbi, rather than something originating from faith and best expressed without public ritual.

Prayer is essentially an attitude. Jesus deals with attitudes, not form, in His answer.

a.

Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. The attitude sought here is adoration, worship, surrender to His Lordship and placing His kingdom as first priority in one's life.

b.

Give us each day our daily bread; What Jesus wants is an attitude of complete, daily trust for physical sustenance and an attitude of thankfulness which recognizes one's blessings as gifts from God.

c.

and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us; We must live in God's presence every day with an attitude of repentance, acknowledging that we sin and seeking God's forgiveness on the basis of our faith in the blood of Jesus. Our faith in His blood leads us to let His life be lived out in us so that we forgive like He forgave.

d.

and lead us not into temptation. This is the expression of one's desire to have God's help in resisting sin. With that attitude, we will daily long for His guidance, (which may be found in His word) through life's temptations and trials.

God is interested in what we pray about, because the content of our prayers manifests the attitude of our hearts. But there may be times when we do not even know how to pray or what to pray for as we should (cf. Romans 8:26-27). It may be there will be times when all we can do is groan in our hearts. If our attitude is right, our motives pure and our faith strong, God's Spirit will make intercession on our behalf with words which we are unable to find. What a loving Fatherable to anticipate and even articulate prayers for us which we cannot, with our limitations, make.

Luke 11:5-13 Reply Concerning Faith: This is not a lesson that persistence will change God's mind. It is a lesson that faith in the goodness of God will drive us to knock on His door at any time we need His help to do His will. This is a story about a man who had unexpected company very late at night. His cupboard was bare. In those days and in that culture any act of inhospitableness was a serious social offense. A host was expected to always offer something to eat just before bedtime. This nervous host ran next door to a neighbor's house and banged on his door to borrow bread. The irritated, sleepy-eyed neighbor at first yelled, Go away and quit bothering me. But the unprepared host, continuing to call out to his sleepy neighbor, finally received what he needed. It might have seemed to the importuning host that his grouchy, sleepy-headed neighbor was never going to answer his knockbut he finally did. It may seem to us that God is never going to answer prayerbut He will. How eagerly a good God awaits our slightest knock so He may supply our greatest needs out of His vast storehouse! If fallible and weak human fathers are concerned enough to give the best they are able to their sons, have faith that your heavenly Father will give good and perfect gifts to His children. Before you give up on God and lose your faith in Him, remind yourself of what mothers and fathers go through to give the best they have for their boys and girls.

Persistence in prayer is not to change God's mind. He has always wanted to give man everything good and withhold from man everything bad. Faith, expressed through persistence, puts man in the right attitude to receive what God has to give with thanksgiving and to put what God gives to its intended use. Faith causes man to use God's answers according to God's will. Persistence, or faith, in prayer is imperative for:

a.

It shows who God is. If our answer does not come immediately, this does not prove God's indifference or His impotence. It proves His power! He is our Fathernot a slave or genie to be manipulated at our convenience. God's delays are our education in humility and dependence. The lesson that God always knows best and we do not takes us a long time to learn.

b.

God desires that we really know what we are praying about. God may want persistence in prayer to give us time to see that some things we are praying for are wrong. Hindsight may reveal to us that we should be grateful God did not give us some things we prayed for.

c.

Praying with endurance is God's way of crystallizing our commitments. God wants us to ask, seek and knock with dedication. He wants us to be single-minded and passionate-hearted to seek His will and His blessings. A flippant, half-hearted relationship is unacceptable to God. God does not wish to hear that which we do not care whether He hears or not.

The true focus of prayer is not our will, but God and His will. The true aim of prayer is not to make God change His will, but to lead us to change our will. In this position we let God work in us, for us and through us. He cannot do that until we are fully yielded to Him. Consider the following analysis of prayer:

1.

God wants to bless all men. This is what we should pray for!

2.

God answering prayer involves at least three agencies:

a.

His propositionally revealed (written) word.

b.

His providential actions upon things and creatures.

c.

Through the free actions of free men, created with free wills and freedom to act as they choose. God often blesses mankind through this agency (even though the actions of men are sometimes evilGod can use that evil to bless others).

3.

HOW God blesses in His Word, we know, or can know if we read it and appropriate it through faith and obedience.

4.

HOW God blesses through the actions of free men depends upon the actions of free men and how we interpret the record of God's use of such actions in the past.

5.

HOW God blesses through His own actions, providentially, upon things and creaturesWE DO NOT KNOW. How He does this is according to His sovereign will.

If, in His divine wisdom, blessing comes through death or healing we cannot know. Our only recourse is to pray that He will bless and then leave it with Himnot doubting that He will bless. But He certainly acts when we pray. After all, He is a Father who knows, loves, wills, and does. We must always be surrendered to His sovereignty.

His ways are sometimes difficult for us to understand, or to accept. Often, His ways hurt, temporarily. One thing we must trust inHe will act when we call. We do not know how He will always act, but we do know He will act in our best interests, for our salvation and growth.

This is what Jesus is teaching His disciples. R.C. Trench said, Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His highest willingness. Prayer is no cure-all. It is not an escape. Sickness will still visit the members of a praying family. Hardship (even untimely death) will not pass their door. Temptation and trial will still beat a path to their house. Paul prayed three times for his thorn to be removed; each time God answered, No! (2 Corinthians 12:1-10)

Prayer and praying must be for strength (even if that strength and endurance must be acquired through more trial) so we may be adequate in overcoming temptation. Christ prayedand was temptedand suffered. Pray not that we be exempted from trial. God is able to do for us and through us more than we can imagine or think (Ephesians 3:20). Our faith is in God, not in prayer.

There have been many attempts to circumvent the very plain statement of Jesus in Luke 11:13, Some had said Luke is using the figure of speech known as metonymy in reporting what Jesus said there. A metonymy is when the name of someone or something is used for the action of the person or thing. In Matthew 7:11 Jesus said the Father gives good things to those who ask Him. Since it is the Holy Spirit through whom God gives good things what Luke is doing here, so the argument goes, is using the name, Holy Spirit, as a metonymy for good things. Others insist Jesus is using predictive present in this promise that the Holy Spirit will be given to those who ask from God. Their argument is that John wrote, ... for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified, (John 7:39), therefore, Jesus-' promise in Luke 11:13 had to wait for its fulfillment until after the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1 ff. However, there seems to be good reason to believe God's Holy Spirit dwelt in obedient saints in the Old Testament (cf. Isaiah 63:11, our comments there, Isaiah, Vol. III, College Press, pg. 450-453). David did pray that God not take His Holy Spirit from him (Psalms 51:11; Psalms 143:10). It is necessary that the Spirit of God be in anyone who is to be resurrected from the dead (Romans 8:9-17). Surely God will raise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from the dead.

We prefer to take the words of Jesus here recorded in Luke 11:13 at face value, in context. To everyone who has the attitude of believing prayer, as described by Jesus, God will give His Holy Spirit. Christ or God dwells in us through faith and obedience (John 14:21-23; John 15:1-11; Acts 5:32; Ephesians 3:17; 1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:24, etc.). We believe it is proper to conclude that God's Spirit dwelt in any saint who, by faith and obedience to God's covenant terms, asked God's Spirit to dwell in him, in whatever dispensation of God's grace one lived. God's promise has always been appropriated by faith and obedience to the covenant terms of one's particular dispensation.

Applebury's Comments

Teach Us to Pray
Scripture

Luke 11:1-13 And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Father, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation.

5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; 7 and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him as many as he needeth. 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Comments

as he was praying.The prayer life of Jesus must have made a profound impression on His disciples. Many strange, unscriptural, and sometimes fanatical things have been taught about prayer with the result that it has been almost completely discredited by many people. But what Jesus taught about prayer is sensible, understandable, and entirely practical. There is no better way to learn what prayer really means than to give attention to what Jesus said on the subject and to follow the example He set in His own prayer life.

Lord, teach us to pray.While it is natural for man to pray under certain circumstances, the fact remains that we must be taught to pray if we are to do so intelligently and in accord with the Scriptures. The Old Testament, particularly the Psalms, gives us many examples of prayer and shows us how to pray. Jesus-' instruction and examples of prayer show us that prayer is the privilege that God gives to His children to talk to Him about anything at any time anywhere. The prayers of the apostles and the early church which are given in the book of Acts add helpful information on the subject. A study of the prayers of Paul for the churchfor example, those in Ephesians and Colossians and Romanswill enlighten us on this very important phase of the Christian life. Paul reminds us that we do not know how to pray as we ought (Romans 8:26). He says that the Holy Spirit helps our weaknessthe separation from the immediate presence of God because of sinby making intercession for us. Christ is also our intercessor (Luke 8:34). The book of Revelation has much to say about prayer. One of the most significant prayers recorded in it is the closing words of John as he prayed, Come, Lord Jesus.

as John also taught his disciples.It seems strange that we have no recorded prayer of John the Baptist in the Bible. His disciples must have been greatly impressed by his prayers, for they said to Jesus, Teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. The account of his ministry stresses his stern warnings and harsh judgments on the very wicked men to whom he preached. He called on sinners to repent. His disciples reveal another side of John, for he also taught his disciples to pray.

John the Baptist was like Elijah in many ways. Elijah sternly rebuked king Ahab for his wicked ways, and ridiculed the nonsense of fanatical prophets of Baal for the demonstration of what they called prayer. But there is no greater example of prayer given in the Old Testament than the prayer of Elijah when he said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me that this people may know that thou, O Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back. 1 Kings 18:36-37. God answered that prayer, and the erring people said, The Lord, he is God.

When ye pray, say.Jesus told them how to address God. As children, they were to speak to the heavenly Father with respect that arises from love and reverence. They were to think of His kingdom first, for His rule must always have first places in the hearts of His people. Thy will be done explains the meaning of the kingdom in the heart of the individual. Paul admonished the church to let the peace of Christ rule in their hearts and the word of Christ dwell in them richly (Colossians 3:14-15). His kingdomthe churchthat came on the Day of Pentecost was to be made up of saints who really let Him rule in their lives. Every Christian should examine his own heart often to make sure that God does rule in every area of it.

Jesus taught them that God was concerned about their daily bread. In simple language they were to say, Give us day by day our daily bread. The heavenly Father constantly gives an abundant supply of food. Then why is it that so many people of the world go hungry all their lives? Can it be because men do not do His will on earth? There are economic, political, and social aspects to the problem. The only solution to them seems to be the transforming power of the rule of God in the hearts of men.

Jesus taught the disciples to pray for forgiveness as they had forgiven those indebted to them. See Matthew 18:21-35 for His instruction on the extent to which this principle is to be carried out. Many find it difficult to practice forgiveness. Too often, it is a matter of words and not heart. Forgiveness means to remember the offense no more (Hebrews 8:12). Unwillingness to actually forgive may come from our unwillingness to believe that God really forgives sins. The misery caused by an uneasy conscience may often be expressed in aggressive and hostile attitudes toward others, with or without provocation. But Jesus makes it clear that if you do not forgive, neither will the heavenly Father forgive you.

The petition, And bring us not into temptation causes a problem since God does not tempt man. James 1:13. But Jesus and James say exactly the same thing. The prayer is for God to lead; His leading does not take us into temptation, it delivers us from evil. The providential leading of God will never lead one to sin. It may allow us to undergo trials which genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will enable us to endure. See James 1:2-4 and 1 Corinthians 10:12-13.

Which of you shall have a friend.The parable of the Friend at Midnight shows that God's children need not be ashamed to ask Him for help when in need. The parable of the Widow and the Judge teaches the lesson of persistency in prayer (Luke 18:1-8).

The word translated importunity really suggests that the man whose company came at midnight was not ashamed to tell his friend that he had nothing to set before them. It does not say that he kept pounding on the door until his friend, to stop the annoyance, got up and gave him what he wanted. Neither should we be ashamed to tell the heavenly Father just what our problem is, for He knows what it is before we ask Him.

Ask, seek, knock.The man of the parable did knock on the door of his friend; he did seek help; he did ask for the bread he needed. This is but the common sense thing to do. Apply the same principle in prayer, for God answers prayer.

And which of you that is a father.God knows how to answer prayer far better than any human father. No father gives a stone when his son asks for bread. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does God know how to answer the requests of His children?

give the Holy Spirit.According to Matthew 7:11, Jesus said that the Father gives good things to them that ask Him. The Holy Spirit is the agent through whom He gives the good things. Luke, by using a figure of speechmetonymystresses the agent, but Matthew emphasized the good things given through the Holy Spirit.