The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9–13
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:
“[The Lord’s Prayer] is not the final word in prayer, nor is it designed for verbatim repetition by the Saints in their private or public prayers. Rather the disciples were receiving from Jesus instruction in prayer in the same way that revelation comes in all fields; it was coming line upon line, precept upon precept, with the assurance that greater understanding and direction would be given as rapidly as the spiritual progression of the Saints permitted. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance, does not conclude in the name of Christ, as all complete and proper prayers should. Later Jesus was to command His disciples to pray in His name [see John 14:13–14; 15:16; 16:23], explaining that though they had ‘hitherto . . . asked nothing’ in His name, yet that should be the order from thenceforth (John 16:24).
“But this prayer was given as a sample or illustration of how Deity might appropriately be addressed in prayer, of the praise and adoration that should be extended to Him, and of the type and kind of petitions men should make to Him. As far as it goes it is one of the most concise, expressive, and beautiful statements found in the scriptures. It does not, however, reach the heights of one of Jesus’s later prayers among the Jews, the great Intercessory Prayer [see John 17], nor does it compare with some of the prayers He uttered among the Nephites [see 3 Nephi 19].”
(Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [1965–73], 1:235.)
