Tertullian Prayer Analysis

Interpretation in Cultural Context As the authenticity of the prayer has been established and a likely original version produced, we transition to the reception of the Lord’s Prayer as taught by the Great Teacher to his audience in the first century. Tertullian believes the Lord’s Prayer to be a summary of Jesus’ faith and moral teachings, or an “abridgement of the entire Gospel” (Luz 325). The new covenant brings about the need for a new form of prayer, one in which God’s created beings can speak to Him directly and personally. Thus, this prayer becomes central in Christian dogmatic texts. Its widespread usage means that the Lord’s Prayer had a strong effect in areas like “piety, worship, instruction, and dogmatics.” This prayer is also “presented to baptized persons as the essence of new truth in which they live,” another testament to its usefulness in understanding the relationship between believer and God (312). Once thought to be “un-Jewish” until new knowledge of Judaism became possible, the Lord’s Prayer was rediscovered as a primitive Jewish prayer simply because in Judaism they also refer to God as “Father.” This is now understood to be a basic ethical text, a “guidance to the sublime life” according to Gregory of Nyssa, and a summary of the Christian message. The openness and ambiguity of the prayer’s petitions and wording …show more content…
Luz explains that God desires to “encourage us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are truly his children” so that “we may approach him boldly and confidently in prayer, even as beloved children approach their dear father” (315). The brief and general wording permits one to think about their own personal actions and of God’s action and ability to provide and work in human lives. Despite the directness, the petitions still remain a