Is There Something More In The Lord’s Prayer We Are Missing?
I have been reading and re-reading C. F. Rehnborg's Jesus and the New Age of Faith. My apologies to him; I have been reading him too lightly all these years. Of course, he says "New Age of Faith," not "New Age Faith." Some people do not get the distinction. He is suggesting that two thousand years ago a Jewish nascent Messiah went off on a tangent we just don't get. As I keep reading what Rehnborg is saying, I keep going, "Oh. Oh. Oh." I’m underlining my underlines.
Rehnborg isolates what Jesus himself taught, whether it be by a human Jesus or the Gospel writers, sans all Pauline Mystery Christology. The only bit of Mystery he keeps is the Visitation of Jesus to Peter and the other disciples at Galilee after Jesus had been buried, dead dead dead, in Jerusalem. This visitation was of a psychic nature, but so convinced the disciples that they died martyrs swearing to it. God appears to people as Jesus? Okay. Not a problem to me.
Rehnborg goes on, though, with Jesus' teaching that the natural order is love, just as God's nature is love. The "Kingdom of God" and the "Rule of God" is the natural law, and nothing else. The law of nature, the nature we steep our toes in all day, is the Manifestation of God, who is Love, Source, Cause, Creator, Provider, and Father. It is "beneficent."
"Well," you say, "Life just don't work that way."
That's the point! It does work that way if we believe and ASK in faith. It only SEEMS to not work if we stay in our ignorance and doubt AND DON'T ASK. It is working all the time; we just aren't seeing with perception. Murphy's Law is the beneficence of God TRYING to turn us to a better way WITHOUT OUR LISTENING.
We may not be able to order God around, but we can in faith trust that he intends better for us. For which we turn to the Lord's Prayer as a statement of faith and confidence. Neville Goddard shared that Ferrar Fenton discovered the Lord's Prayer was badly translated because the Latin it was translated from could not express the original Greek text. (Though the original was obviously Aramaic, the language Jesus and all the disciples spoke.) The first half of the Lord's Prayer forms what Fenton likened to a Standing Order. I.e., it stands as an active commandment ALL OF THE TIME.
I wonder, though, if the rest of the prayer is not of the same nature as the first half. In the second half it switches grammatical form from standard subject-verb sentences to imperatives: give! forgive! lead!
The Lord's Prayer as Ferrar Fenton saw it:
"For your Father knows your necessities before you ask Him.
Consequently, you must pray in this way:
Our Father in the Heavens;
Your name must be being hallowed;
Your kingdom must be being restored;
Your will must be being done, both in Heaven and upon the Earth.
Give us to-day our to-morrow's bread;
And forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us,
For you would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil."
(Fenton, The Complete Bible in Modern English)
What if we applied the grammatical rule of the first sentences to the imperatives in the second half? The whole thing then becomes a statement of faith in God's rule over the natural order ALL OF THE TIME, the Standing Order of the Kingdom of God, his Rule on earth:
Our Father in the heavens (i.e., the Consciousness in our minds),
Your nature (“name”) must be being hallowed:
Your kingdom (divine power) must be being restored (in nature? in us? as the manner of our living?).
Your will must be being done, on earth as it is in heaven:
--Must be giving us today our tomorrow’s bread.
--Must be forgiving us our faults, as we forgive those offending us.
For you would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil.
This recognizes God's will is in effect! If God's will must be being done in the natural order, then it must give, must forgive, must lead, and must deliver, ALL OF THE TIME. Jesus said it IS!! He said of prayer, “Believe ye receive.”
Let's agree, and honor God by ASKING, SEEKING, and KNOCKING in this new age of faith.
See: Abbreviated A Standing Order by Neville Goddard and The Lord's Prayer from Fenton's Translation.
Rehnborg isolates what Jesus himself taught, whether it be by a human Jesus or the Gospel writers, sans all Pauline Mystery Christology. The only bit of Mystery he keeps is the Visitation of Jesus to Peter and the other disciples at Galilee after Jesus had been buried, dead dead dead, in Jerusalem. This visitation was of a psychic nature, but so convinced the disciples that they died martyrs swearing to it. God appears to people as Jesus? Okay. Not a problem to me.
Rehnborg goes on, though, with Jesus' teaching that the natural order is love, just as God's nature is love. The "Kingdom of God" and the "Rule of God" is the natural law, and nothing else. The law of nature, the nature we steep our toes in all day, is the Manifestation of God, who is Love, Source, Cause, Creator, Provider, and Father. It is "beneficent."
"Well," you say, "Life just don't work that way."
That's the point! It does work that way if we believe and ASK in faith. It only SEEMS to not work if we stay in our ignorance and doubt AND DON'T ASK. It is working all the time; we just aren't seeing with perception. Murphy's Law is the beneficence of God TRYING to turn us to a better way WITHOUT OUR LISTENING.
We may not be able to order God around, but we can in faith trust that he intends better for us. For which we turn to the Lord's Prayer as a statement of faith and confidence. Neville Goddard shared that Ferrar Fenton discovered the Lord's Prayer was badly translated because the Latin it was translated from could not express the original Greek text. (Though the original was obviously Aramaic, the language Jesus and all the disciples spoke.) The first half of the Lord's Prayer forms what Fenton likened to a Standing Order. I.e., it stands as an active commandment ALL OF THE TIME.
I wonder, though, if the rest of the prayer is not of the same nature as the first half. In the second half it switches grammatical form from standard subject-verb sentences to imperatives: give! forgive! lead!
The Lord's Prayer as Ferrar Fenton saw it:
"For your Father knows your necessities before you ask Him.
Consequently, you must pray in this way:
Our Father in the Heavens;
Your name must be being hallowed;
Your kingdom must be being restored;
Your will must be being done, both in Heaven and upon the Earth.
Give us to-day our to-morrow's bread;
And forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us,
For you would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil."
(Fenton, The Complete Bible in Modern English)
What if we applied the grammatical rule of the first sentences to the imperatives in the second half? The whole thing then becomes a statement of faith in God's rule over the natural order ALL OF THE TIME, the Standing Order of the Kingdom of God, his Rule on earth:
Our Father in the heavens (i.e., the Consciousness in our minds),
Your nature (“name”) must be being hallowed:
Your kingdom (divine power) must be being restored (in nature? in us? as the manner of our living?).
Your will must be being done, on earth as it is in heaven:
--Must be giving us today our tomorrow’s bread.
--Must be forgiving us our faults, as we forgive those offending us.
For you would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil.
This recognizes God's will is in effect! If God's will must be being done in the natural order, then it must give, must forgive, must lead, and must deliver, ALL OF THE TIME. Jesus said it IS!! He said of prayer, “Believe ye receive.”
Let's agree, and honor God by ASKING, SEEKING, and KNOCKING in this new age of faith.
See: Abbreviated A Standing Order by Neville Goddard and The Lord's Prayer from Fenton's Translation.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
12:31 AM
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