Word of Encouragement (3/22/2021)

Let’s continue our reflection on the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as a guide for what we should pray for. Today, we will reflect on the fourth petition: “Give us this day our daily bread...” (Matt. 6:11),

It seems obvious what this petition is about: “our daily bread.” We are grateful that, after teaching us to pray for God’s name and kingdom and will, Jesus also teaches us to command for our temporal needs as well. God made us both body and spirit. He knows that, even though we do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:3), we still need bread to live. Jesus affirms this later in the chapter: “your heavenly Father knows that you need them all [i.e., the things to eat, drink, and wear, etc.]” (Matt. 6:32).

Interestingly, though, those words were preceded by, “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things...” (Matt. 6:31-32) and followed by, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). Jesus seems to be saying that we should not seek what the Gentiles seek, or pray, but seek rather the kingdom of God and His righteousness. There seems to be a contradiction between what Jesus teaches here and what Jesus teaches in the fourth petition.

Add to this the unusual word that Jesus uses in the fourth petition: “daily” (epiousion). This is not a typical Greek word used for daily; it is used only in the Lord’s Prayer. What is more, in the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Supper, the word used is “tomorrow.” This is significant because Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic. And the Aramaic word for “tomorrow” is not a typical word for the next day; it came to take on “an eschatological dimension to mean the age to come” (Johachim Jeremias). So, if you look at the marginal note in your Bibles, you will see that other options are offered as viable translations of the word, which is translated as “daily” in most Bibles: “our needful bread” or “our bread for the coming day.” So, it is possible to translate the fourth petition as “Give us this day our bread for the coming day,” or “our bread for tomorrow.”

We may dismiss this option, thinking, “What a strange prayer!” But I believe that there is intriguing and powerful evidence for this translation: the giving of manna in the wilderness, particularly in the double portion of manna given on the sixth day. As you remember, the bread of the seventh day was given on the sixth day for Sabbath-keeping. So then, from the perspective of the sixth day, the bread of the next day (tomorrow) was given to Israel on the sixth day (“this day”).

Through the fourth petition, the Lord is declaring to His disciples that the sixth day in the redemptive calendar of God, the sixth day in the week of redemptive history, has arrived.

What is the significance of this sixth day? It is the day before the seventh day. From the beginning, the seventh day was a special day set apart from the other days of the week: “on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…” (Gen. 2:2-3). Many have observed that only the seventh day of creation does not have the refrain of “there was evening and there was morning” attached at the end. It is as though God had entered into His eternal rest.

Even though the daily manna given to Israel was supernatural, the manna given on the sixth day was even more supernatural: whereas the manna of the other days lasted only one day, the manna on the sixth day lasted two days into the seventh day! We can say that the seventh day represents the age to come; the sixth day represents the end of this present age. Jesus is teaching us that we are living in the last days and we should be praying for the Bread of tomorrow, which is Jesus Christ Himself! This is why Jesus later on commands us not to lay up treasures on earth but in heaven (Matt. 6:19-20). So then, let us “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-3). As we do so, God will add all things to us because He knows what we need.