A member of the congregation recently asked me why there are different versions of the Lord’s Prayer. Of course, the words of the Lord’s Prayer are Jesus’ words from the Bible, found in Matthew 6:9-13, and Luke 11:2-4.
This means that the traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer is the Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke), translated into Greek in the New Testament. Martin Luther, the ‘founder’ of the Reformation tradition – to which our denomination belongs – taught that the correct version of the words of the Bible is always, the language of the people, that is most readily understood by them – i.e., the vernacular.
Luther instigated the translation of the Bible from Latin (which most of the population couldn’t read) into German, so that God’s Word could be read by everybody. This coincided with the invention of the printing press, which then facilitated the distribution of the Bible to as many people as possible – certainly a ‘God-moment’ in history!
God’s purpose in giving the Bible is to communicate its message to every member of the human race so that they come to faith and repentance. That is why we have continually new translations of the Bible and the Lord’s Prayer.
Grace and cheers, Jonathan.