In response Jesus, recognizing that there is more to life than physical hunger, quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. The first of these temptations is the challenge that, if Jesus really is the Son of God, he should turn stones into bread (4:3). By this point in Matthew the reader has encountered the threefold temptation of Jesus. Bread serves a variety of purposes in the Gospels: it not only refers to physical bread that assuages physical hunger (and this is what we legitimately pray for in the Lord’s Prayer) but also points to spiritual realities. Perhaps the fourth petition is pointing us in a Christological direction as well.
And the plural “our” reminds us that we are part of a global community of believers, whose needs we should give attention to in addition to our own.Īnd yet, in addition to this prayer for physical provision, the history of exegesis encourages us to consider whether there may be more here than we might notice at first. We are reminded that if our Father cares for the sparrows, he will care for us, since we are of more value than the many sparrows (Matt. To begin, we should recognize that the fourth petition is indeed rather straightforward by praying for our daily bread, we are asking our heavenly Father to provide for our daily necessities.
Whereas the first three petitions were given in the second person (“your”), in the fourth petition we find the first of the “we” petitions. With the fourth petition we come to the turning point in the Lord’s Prayer.
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