Luke 11:1–13
11 Now Jesus1 was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,2
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone 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, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and 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’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence3 he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for4 a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or 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!”
1 Greek he 2 Or our bread for tomorrow 3 Or persistence 4 Some manuscripts insert bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for
Section Overview
Disciples of Jesus love their neighbors (Luke 10:25–37), listen to the Lord’s word (10:38–42), and pray (11:1–13). On this occasion the disciples ask for instruction in prayer when they see Jesus praying (11:1), and so he gives them a simple pattern for prayer (vv. 2–4), focusing on the coming of the kingdom, the need for daily provision, the importance of forgiving others, and protection from apostasy. Jesus follows this with a parable of a guest at midnight (vv. 5–8), in which even the most churlish of hosts will assist a friend who implores his help when that friend is outside and will not go away. The parable is then applied: believers too should persist in prayer, precisely because God as a kind Father is so willing to give (v. 13)! And the most amazing gift of all is the Holy Spirit (v. 13).
Section Outline
IV. Galilee to Jerusalem: Discipleship (9:51–19:27)
A. The Journey Begins (9:51–13:21) . . .
2. Living as a Disciple (10:25–11:13) . . .
c. Jesus Teaches on Prayer (11:1–13)
Response
When we pray we begin with God, focusing on his supremacy, praying for his glory to be proclaimed throughout the earth. We pray for God to be seen for what he is: infinitely wise, just, loving, and powerful. The most important thing in life is the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). We pray for God’s kingdom to be manifested in the way we respond to stress, in our speech, in our families, in our government, in our schools, and in the corporate world. As we drive to work in the morning, or stay home to work or be with children, we can breathe this prayer: “Lord, let your kingdom advance in me, may your will be done in my life today.”
The daily intake of food reminds us of our daily need of God. We will not make it in life apart from him. We give thanks before meals because we acknowledge that all our food is a gift of God’s grace (cf. Deut. 8:18). We learn from this text that prayer is often the means by which God gives us what we need. God is a God of means and ends. For example, God has ordained to save the elect, but the means he uses is preaching the gospel. Similarly, God has ordained prayer as one of the means by which he gives us what we need. As James says, we do not have because we do not ask! Prayer reminds us that we need everything from God and that God is our dear Father who loves us. If we as his children desire something, then we ask him.
Asking him may mean we keep seeking and keep knocking. Paul asked three times for the thorn in the flesh to be removed from him (2 Cor. 12:7–10). He prayed for some time for the thorn to be removed. Of course, God said no, as he sometimes does. But we are called upon to ask, to seek, to knock, to go to him with our requests. Of course, such requests should be shaped by our knowledge of the Bible and our growing knowledge of God.
Why does God invite us to pray, seek, and knock if he longs to give to us what we need? Some have wondered why we should pray if God knows what we need and loves us. Our persistent praying indicates what we really want in our hearts. As we continue to go to God in prayer, we reveal that we want him more than anything else in this world. Answers to prayer do not always come in the form we want or expect. But God is our wise Father. He knows what we need more than we do. What we need most of all is God himself—the Holy Spirit! When we keep asking, seeking, and knocking, we come to the end of ourselves and realize that our all in all is God himself.
Greek he
Or our bread for tomorrow
Or persistence
Some manuscripts insert bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for
11:1 We have seen that disciples love their neighbors (10:25–37) and listen to the Lord’s word (10:38–42). The Twelve observe Jesus praying, and we have seen Jesus praying at key moments in his ministry in Luke’s Gospel (3:21; 5:16; 6:12–16; 9:28–29; 22:32, 41, 44, 45). Their request for him to teach them to pray demonstrates that prayer is characteristic of his life. The location of this incident, as is so often the case in Luke’s travel narrative, is vague (“a certain place”). In any case, seeing Jesus pray provokes one of the disciples to ask Jesus to teach them to pray, just as the Baptist taught his disciples to pray.
11:2 In the ancient world it was common to view prayer as a formula with elaborate and drawn-out invocations soliciting divine help. The prayer Jesus teaches his disciples stands out for its simplicity and brevity. The wording of the prayer does not match the Matthean version (Matt. 6:9–13), which is longer. It is likely, however, that Jesus taught this prayer as an itinerant preacher on many occasions. Or possibly Luke abbreviates what Jesus said. In either case, the issue is not whether one uses these exact words every time one prays, for the prayer is a model and pattern, not a prescription for every occasion.
The prayer begins with the simple word “Father.” Jesus was not the only person to identify God as Father, but his use of the title Father for God was distinctive because of its frequency in his teaching. We tend to think of fatherhood in terms of love, and the word does convey God’s love and tenderness toward his children (Gal. 4:6; cf. Isa. 63:16). What we may miss from our own cultural landscape is that the word Father also designates God’s authority. We address God as our loving Lord, as the one who cares for us and rules over us.
The first petition is for God’s name to be honored, and thus the prayer has a God-centered character. God’s name stands for his nature and character, for who he is in all his excellence and beauty (cf. Luke 1:49). The importance of God’s name is evident in the OT, where, for example, the Lord will punish anyone who misuses his name (Ex. 20:7). The OT repeatedly speaks against profaning the Lord’s “holy name” (e.g., Lev. 20:3; 22:2; Ezek. 36:20). Believers are to glory in God’s name (1 Chron. 16:10): “give thanks to your holy name” (1 Chron. 16:35; cf. Ps. 30:4), “bless his holy name” (Ps. 103:1), and “trust in his holy name” (Ps. 33:21). Israel will also be redeemed for the sake of God’s “holy name” (Ezek. 20:41; 36:21–22; 39:25).
Believers pray as well for the coming of the kingdom. The kingdom has already come in Jesus Christ (Luke 17:20–21), inaugurated in his preaching, healings, and exorcisms (4:18–21; 7:18–23; 11:20), and its presence is evident in the parables of the mustard seed and leaven (13:18–21). Praying that the kingdom will come means that we pray that God’s kingdom will continue to advance during this present evil age—and where God’s kingdom advances, his name is honored as holy. At the same time, we pray for the Lord to consummate his kingdom, for the fullness of the kingdom to arrive, for God’s enemies to be defeated, and for righteousness to reign. Such promises will be realized when Jesus returns (17:22–37; 21:25–28). Both dimensions of the prayer (the emphases on God’s name and on the kingdom) in this verse are captured in Zechariah 14:9: “And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.”
11:3 The next petition relates to human need. Believers are to ask God to supply every day our daily bread. The term translated “daily” (Gk. epiousion) is disputed. It could be translated “daily,” “necessary,” or “tomorrow’s.” Some understand the petition to refer to the bread of life that believers need for today or tomorrow. Those who opt for such an interpretation forget what it was like for people who lived in Palestine in the first century, where life was precarious and famines could affect the quality of life dramatically. We are reminded of the Lord’s providing manna for Israel daily (Ex. 16:4). Elsewhere the Lord also instructs his disciples not to fear since he will provide what they need (Luke 12:22–24). Believers are to pray to the Lord, asking him to give what is necessary for life daily, since our lives depend upon him every day (Acts 17:25).
11:4 Believers are also to ask God regularly to forgive their sins, showing that we need the Lord both for material sustenance and for our spiritual lives. Augustine rightly appealed to this verse often in his debates with Pelagius, pointing out that Christians will never reach perfection in this life since the Lord teaches us to ask for forgiveness. In other words, no Christian ever reaches the point at which he does not need to ask for forgiveness of sins any longer. As long as we are on earth, we will still fail to obey in countless ways (James 3:2). Thus we are to confess our sins to the Lord, asking him to forgive us (1 John 1:9). Since the Lord forgives our sins, we are in turn to forgive those indebted to us. The language of debt stands here for sins. Believers have been forgiven by the Lord, and they in turn are to forgive others (Luke 6:37; Sir. 28:2).
Finally, believers are to pray that the Lord would not lead them into temptation. This petition might seem odd, since we are told elsewhere that God does not tempt anyone (James 1:13). But we must recognize two different realms of discourse here. What James has in mind is the notion of the Lord luring us into sin, laying a trap for us with the intention that we will sin. James clarifies that this will never happen, that all sin comes from our own desires and inclinations (James 1:14–15). Here Jesus exhorts us to pray, since God is the sovereign King, that we would be kept from situations in which we would sin, and especially that we would be guarded from committing apostasy, that the Lord would keep us from falling away from him (cf. Jude 1–2, 24–25). We recognize our great weakness; if we were placed in the right—or, perhaps better, wrong!—situation, we would deny the Lord (Matt. 10:33; 2 Tim. 2:12).
11:5–6 After providing a pattern for prayer (Luke 11:2–4), Jesus tells a parable about prayer (11:5–8), which he then applies to his disciples (11:9–13). Jesus paints a scenario in which a visitor arrives at midnight, perhaps traveling in the evening to avoid intense heat. Upon arrival, the host has nothing to give the visitor, but Middle Eastern hospitality requires that sustenance be provided. The host in response goes to a friend at midnight, asking him to give three loaves of bread since an emergency has arisen. The host has not anticipated the midnight situation and is in desperate need.
11:7–8 The man in the house wants nothing to do with the situation, saying that he cannot be bothered at this late hour. The door is shut and locked, so to speak, and the children are asleep. We can envision a one-room house in which young children wake up when there is commotion, and this is the last thing any parent wants to happen. Thus the man says he cannot help at this time. Still, the story is not over. Even though the man in the house will not come to the aid of his friend (the hassle is too great), he will grant what the friend needs because of “his impudence.” The word translated “impudence” (Gk. anaideia) is debated. The CSB understands it to be the “shameless boldness” of the friend outside the house. The HCSB (so also NASB, NRSV; “sheer persistence,” NET; “shameless persistence,” NLT) reflects a long interpretive tradition in taking it as “persistence.” Other translations render the term in various ways: “importunity” (KJV, RSV, ASV) or “shameless audacity” (NIV). Interpreters debate whether the reference is to the friend outside or to the man in the house. If it is the man in the house, he finally grants the request because of the shame that would fall upon him in the town if it became known that he had not helped a friend. Most agree now that the term anaideia is not best translated as “persistence.” Still, the reference may be to the friend outside the house and refer to his audacity, impertinence, or shamelessness.
Both interpretations are possible, but context supports a reference to the friend outside the house. Jesus immediately applies the parable to the need to be persistent in prayer (11:9–10). Some dismiss this reading since the word anaideia does not mean “persistence,” and they dispute the idea that we need to beg God again and again for what we want. However, although anaideia does not mean persistence, in context the audacity and impertinence and shamelessness of the man is manifested in his persistence (cf. 18:5). Thus we find the notion of persistence in the parable itself. The man in the house finally gives his friend what he needs because of his impertinence and audacity; he is not taking no for an answer. Still, we have to interpret the parable carefully, since God is contrasted with the man in the house. The Lord longs to give what is good to his children (11:11–12). As we shall see in 11:9–12, the point of the parable is this: we are to persist in prayer because the Lord longs to give what is good to us. The idea is not that we beg the Lord, as if he were reluctant to give, as if we must extract something from him he does not want to give. We are to persist in prayer because persistence reveals what we truly want.
11:9–10 Jesus applies the parable to his hearers. Just as the friend outside shamelessly asked for food at midnight, so disciples should ask, seek, and knock. The promises here are astonishing: the one asking receives, the one seeking finds, the door is opened to the one who knocks. This asking, seeking, and knocking are regular activities, not one-time occurrences. We see an escalation here from asking to seeking and from seeking to knocking. Such words must be read in context; we are to ask for what we need—and God determines what is needed. For example, James 1:5–8 is probably a reflection on these verses, as believers are to ask for wisdom in trials. In other words, believers ask, seek, and knock for what is clearly the will of God: wisdom! So too in Luke, believers ask for the Holy Spirit (11:13). In Mark 10:35–40 James and John ask to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand, but Jesus declines to grant the request. Not everything we ask for represents the will of God. God grants what we ask and seek if his Word remains in us (John 15:7), if we ask according to his will (1 John 5:14). The purpose of persistence is not to beg God or to say over and over again mindlessly or superstitiously the same things (Matt. 6:7). True persistence continues to seek God in prayer in a meaningful and thoughtful way and does not descend to thinking that repeating prayers is magical.
11:11–13 Luke 11:9–10 encourage persistence in prayer, and verses 11–13 provide the basis for such persistence. We are to continue to seek God in prayer because he longs as a kind Father to give us what we need. The argument is thus not that we are to seek God because he is stingy and we have to wheedle blessings from him. Just the opposite. We persist in prayer because of the greatness of God’s love. Some might think there would be no need for prayer at all if God were a kind Father, but prayer reveals what is in our hearts and clarifies whether we are truly seeking God.
We see God’s love for us when he is likened to a father whose son asks for a fish. No normal human father would give his son a serpent. So too, if a son asks for an egg, no loving father would give his son a scorpion. If human fathers love their sons like this—and the vast majority do—then even though we are evil, we can be assured of God’s great love for us. We can be assured that he longs to give us good gifts. Incidentally, the comment about human fathers as evil yet as giving good gifts to children testifies to common grace. Human beings are not as evil as they can possibly be; even sinful parents normally love their children and long to bless them with good things. God, however, is far wiser than human parents, for he gives us what we need most of all: he grants the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (24:49; Acts 1:8) so that we can live a life pleasing to God.