Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Do you ever have one of those moments where something becomes a whole lot clearer than it was before, and has a different meaning than you thought it did? One of those "aha" moments where you geek out about it because you're thrilled to finally know the answer?

I had one of those moments recently. (Yes. I do geek out.)

There is a part of the Lord's prayer that has always confused me.

Matthew 6:9-13:

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, - This one's easy; we pray to God, and He sits upon the throne exalted in Heaven. Piece of cake to understand.

hallowed be your name. - Also easy. God is holy, and we should acknowledge that.

Your kingdom come, - Easy enough; we pray for God's kingdom to come, for His promises to be fulfilled...

your will be done, - God's will is the better one, and we should conform our will to His and our desires to His. Easy.

on earth as it is in heaven. - God's will is followed and praised perfectly in Heaven. Would that it were so here! Easy.

Give us this day our daily bread, - God is the provider of all things, so it makes sense that we would make requests of Him. He provides for our needs, and gives us the good things we ask for. Easy-peasy!

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors. - This one was a little more difficult, because if God forgave me only in the same way as I forgive others, I'd be doomed. But I think it's more of a promise; forgive us, Lord, as we ought to forgive (He has, from the moment we trust in Christ); and let us remember to forgive others as God has forgiven us. We have been forgiven so much; can we not forgive so little?

Now, here's the part that always confused me:

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. - The "deliver us from evil" part is as easy as the rest, because of course God does that. But what about "lead us not into temptation"? I never really got why that was included. I mean, God doesn't ever lead us into temptation. James 1:13 makes that clear. So why the prayer for something that would never occur? It confused me, so I used to spend very little time thinking about it. It got so I just left it alone, because I could not understand it. Every time I came across it I would think, "Lord, why is it even there??" But I never got an easily understandable answer.

Until now! *Cue happy ending music*

See, the problem was the English language. As much as I love it, it can be very confusing sometimes. Would that I knew Greek and Hebrew! Then I could have spared myself a lot of interpretation troubles.

Look here:

"The fifth petition, which sounds odd to English ears (the more so after reading James 1:13f.) involves several Hebraisms. To 'enter into temptation' means 'to yield to temptation' (cf. 4QFlor 1:8) and the negative ('...bring us not to enter into temptation') qualifies the idea of 'entry' or 'yielding to temptation'. The whole thus means 'cause us not-to-succumb to temptation' rather than 'do not cause us to succumb to temptation'." ("Teach us to Pray" - Chapter 4, Prayer in the Gospels and Acts, M. M. B. Turner)

It was definitely an "aha!" moment for me. It makes much more sense that "lead us not into temptation" would mean "prevent us from being tempted" or "enable us to overcome temptation". Which is awfully cool! (See? I'm still geeking out about it.)