| Part 7: Lead us not into temptation --Philip Foster | ||
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(All bible quotes from the NIV)
John 15:18-27 — If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: `No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no-one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: `They hated me without reason.'"When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. John 16:1-26 — "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, `In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and `Because I am going to the Father'?"They kept asking, "What does he mean by `a little while'? We don't understand what he is saying." Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, `In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me'? I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no-one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I cam from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God". "You believe at last!" Jesus answered. "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world". THIS phrase "Lead us not into temptation" in the Lord's Prayer is somewhat puzzling at first sight. Why should we pray that God should not lead us into temptation? After all does not James state firmly "God tempts no one"? James 1:13-16 — "When tempted, no one should say, `God is tempting me". For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers." The first thing that needs to be said is that the word for tempt PEIRASMOS is a very broad one and has several related meanings.
So firstly we need to decide which meaning is being employed where. Immediately it becomes clear that James is thinking in terms of meaning 2. rather than meaning 1. So therefore we conclude that since scripture does not contradict itself, that the temptation in the prayer must be either meaning 1. Trial or testing or perhaps meaning 3. Rebellion. Now that resolves some of the problem but even so we are left with a strange request: Do not lead us into testing. What kind of testing is this? If we slightly over compartmentalise the word tempt for the moment: then we can suggest we are talking much more about troubles, difficulties and persecutions rather than sins per se. In other words this phrase represents a plea for deliverance from trouble (as perhaps the next phrase: deliver us from evil echoes - by Hebrew parallelism). A plea to live where possible what the old Prayer Book described as a "quiet" life: something indeed the apostle touches on in Timothy: 1 Tim 2:1-2 — I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone —for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. However2 Tim 3:10-13 Paul balances this with another statement:You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings- what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Messiah Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Paul's life was hardly `quiet' in the modern understanding of the word. Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." _ John 16:33 That Christians will be persecuted is a fact: that we should not, however, go out and look for trouble is also plain: but, whether we like it or not, leading a godly life will, despite our best efforts as it were, stir up trouble if we are being faithful. For living a quiet life should not be an excuse for trying to be invisible!! Nor, and here comes the testing aspect of it which can also be tempting, should we compromise what we believe in the face of trouble: Acts 4:19-21 — "But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened." So we must see the temptation primarily as testings trials and trouble - possibly instigated by Satan (as was the case in Jesus' temptations in the wilderness.) Now here again we find something interesting: We are told in Matt 4:1 "That Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil." It is clear that God himself is not doing the tempting, but rather Satan is, but there would seem little doubt that God led Jesus into that situation. So whereas God does not lure us with evil as Satan does with evil intent (James' sense of temptation) - nor incidentally can we blame Satan for making us sin - James again makes it clear from whence comes sin! None the less we need to recognise that God does put us into testing situations: Deut 13:1-4 "If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him." Here God allows the false prophet and makes use of the situation to test us, whether we allow ourselves to go the easy way of following the false prophet or the harder way of resisting temptation and of following the Lord. God does not need to deliberately create false prophets - they create themselves! Without any difficulty it would seem. But granted what must be: God uses that to test His people: to prove them and refine them. But woe to them by whom these tests come! With all this behind us as it were, are we any nearer in understanding why we should ask not to be tested? Isn't that just a little weak kneed? If someone buys a car from a garage and just as he takes it out to drive it, the salesman says: "Oh please don't use it: it might break down!" We might be a little indignant. In that sense a car MUST be tested in actual use. Just so a believer must be tested `in use' as it were - for as James reminds us: James 2:2-4 _ "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." What does `lead us into' mean? The Greek word used here is interesting EISAGO. It is a compound verb made up of a verb AGO and the preposition EIS = into or to. And it does literally mean in a physical sense: Drive, lead, conduct or bring (AGO) something or someone into (EIS) somewhere. An example of secular use of this word might prove illuminating. It was used when taxes in kind were brought into the tax office, e.g. sacks of grain or baths of oil etc. You would bring the goods into (EISAGO) the tax office. Now in those days there were not such things as tax rebates (they are rare enough today!!). Once you had brought it in that was that: it stayed there and you could not take it out again. Now this begins to make sense of the phrase: lead us not into temptation or Do not bring us lead us into testing/trial AND LEAVE US THERE! Forgive the somewhat flippant use of language but one could perhaps paraphrase: "please do not drop us in the soup!" Or if we reverse the negative it might read: please take us THROUGH trials and temptations: that we must be tested is inevitable, but we want God's help to come out the other side rather than to succumb to the test and fail! Is this allowable as an interpretation? Have we any other biblical grounds for taking this line? I believe we have:1 Corinthians 10:11-13 — "These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." Here again the same word PEIRASMOS for temptation is being used. Note what Paul is saying: not that God won't let you be tested or tempted - as we have seen this is a default situation: it's bound to happen - indeed it happens to all, but that God won't let us down IN the TESTING and will take us out of it again! The way out is an egress - perhaps a mountain seen as it were in the distance from the dark valley below. It has echoes of the Exodus - which remember did not mean spiriting the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land without their feet touching the ground, but rather they had to go through Egypt and the Red Sea and the wilderness. They had the egress the ‘way out’ ahead of them - which they had to co-operate with God to make use of. So this prayer asks God to help us through trials and temptations that daily beset us and further that when the really big ones come along - as they surely will - then we are prepared to trust God to keep us in these things: Remember the disciples in the Garden: “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation” - which indeed they did - but then they had not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit - the Comforter - rather Strengthener: as Jesus said in the scripture from John 16:7 “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you”.  [ TOP ] ... [ Part 1 ] ... [ Part 2 ] ... [ Part 3 ] ... [ Part 4 ] ... [ Part 5 ] ... [ Part 6 ] ... [ Part 8 ] ... [ BACK ]Appeared in Vanguard Issue 15 June 2002 |
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