There are a lot of people who don’t know about the Lord’s Prayer and the people who do know about the Lord’s Prayer have a lot of questions about it. For example, why do we pray a formal memorized prayer in the first place. It is not entirely clear that Jesus was giving the disciple a set prayer that the disciples and followers of Jesus were to use, word for word. He might simply have been giving them an example of how to pray, using simple and direct language, in contrast to flowery and complicated language used in prayers in formal Temple worship or in prayers by people who wanted to impress everyone with their religiousness and brilliant theology. Jesus may have been saying, “keep it simple” rather than prescribing a particular prayer. The Mormons do not use the Lord’s Prayer in worship because they interpret Jesus’ words in this way. Read more…
