This individual study guide draws directly from Craig Groeschel's sermon “Showcase - What Jesus Actually Said About Prayer” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
In-Depth Bible Study Guide
Talking With God: The Purpose, Posture, and Power of Prayer
Primary Text: Matthew 6:5–13
1. Introduction & Overview
In week one of the series How to Pray, Pastor Josh Wagner drew from Matthew 6:5–13 — Jesus's teaching on prayer from the Sermon on the Mount — to address one of the most universal struggles in the Christian life: we know prayer matters, but we often don't know why, and so we don't do it well. The sermon's central thesis, stated as a "sermon in a sentence," was this: the purpose of prayer is not to get something from God, but to be with him and become like him. From that foundation, three movements emerged — prayer requires your heart (not performance), prayer is relational (rooted in the Fatherhood of God), and prayer is formational (it shapes who you are becoming).
Key Passages: Matthew 6:5–13; Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Luke 9:18, 28
Study Objectives: By the end of this guide, you will be able to:
- Understand the literary and historical context of the Lord's Prayer within the Sermon on the Mount
- Explore the meaning of key Greek terms that reshape how we understand prayer
- Trace the theme of prayer across the biblical narrative
- Identify and correct common distortions in how we approach God in prayer
- Develop a theologically grounded and personally transformative prayer practice
Estimated Study Time: 2.5–3 hours
Why This Passage Matters: The Lord's Prayer is among the most quoted texts in Christian history, yet familiarity can breed superficiality. Engaging it with scholarly depth reveals that Jesus is not simply giving a liturgical formula — he is reorienting the entire framework by which human beings understand their relationship to God.
How This Guide Builds on the Sermon: Pastor Wagner's message opened the door. This guide walks through it — examining the Greek behind the key terms, the Sermon on the Mount's rhetorical structure, the Jewish prayer traditions Jesus was engaging, and the rich biblical theology of divine Fatherhood.
2. Exegetical Analysis
Literary Structure and Genre
Matthew 6:5–13 belongs to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), which is widely recognized as a unified discourse structured around the theme of greater righteousness (5:20). The sermon is organized around a series of antitheses ("You have heard it said... but I say to you") and three parallel examples of religious practice: almsgiving (6:1–4), prayer (6:5–15), and fasting (6:16–18). Each follows the same rhetorical pattern:
- A warning against doing the practice to be seen by others
- A positive instruction on how to do it rightly
- A promise of reward from "your Father who sees in secret"
This parallel structure is crucial: Jesus is not abolishing Jewish religious practice but reforming its motivation. The genre is didactic discourse with strong elements of wisdom literature — practical instruction shaped by a vision of human flourishing before God.
The Passage's Place in Matthew
Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, giving a new Torah from a mountain (cf. Exodus 19–20). The Lord's Prayer sits at the structural center of the Sermon on the Mount, which itself sits near the center of Matthew's five major discourse sections. This is not accidental — Matthew's literary artistry places prayer at the heart of what it means to live as a disciple.
Verse-by-Verse Analysis
Verse 5 — "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites..." The word when (Greek: hotan) is important — Jesus assumes prayer is already happening. He is not introducing prayer as a new concept but correcting its distortion. The hypocrites (Greek: hypokritai) love to pray "in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." The verb translated "to be seen" (theathenai) is the root of our word theater — these prayers are theatrical performances.
Verse 6 — "Go into your room and close the door..." The Greek word for "room" (tameion) refers to an inner storage room — the most private space in a first-century home. The contrast is stark: the hypocrite performs for the crowd; the disciple retreats to hiddenness. The Father who "sees in secret" (en tō kryptō) is the only audience that matters.
Verses 7–8 — "Do not keep babbling like the pagans..." The word translated "babbling" (battalogeō) is rare and likely onomatopoeic — it may mimic the sound of meaningless repetition. The pagans' error is not praying at length, but believing that volume and complexity produce divine response. Verse 8 delivers a stunning theological statement: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Prayer is not informing God; it is communion with a God who already knows.
Verse 9 — "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name..." The address "Our Father" (Pater hēmōn) is communal — this is not a private transaction but a community's prayer. "Hallowed be your name" is a petition in the passive voice (hagiasthētō), meaning "let your name be made holy" — a prayer that God himself would act to reveal his holiness in the world.
Verses 10–13 — The petitions The prayer divides into two movements: three "God-centered" petitions (your name, your kingdom, your will) followed by three "human-need" petitions (bread, forgiveness, deliverance). The structure itself is theologically instructive — God's glory precedes human need. Disciples are oriented first toward God's agenda before their own.
3. Historical & Cultural Context
The Jewish Practice of Prayer
First-century Judaism had a rich and structured prayer life. The Amidah (also called the Shemoneh Esreh, or "Eighteen Benedictions") was the central prayer of synagogue worship, recited three times daily. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–9) was recited morning and evening. Prayer was woven into the rhythms of daily life — not optional, but constitutive of Jewish identity.
Against this backdrop, Jesus's critique is not of Jewish prayer per se but of a specific distortion: prayer as social performance. The synagogue was a public gathering space, and street corners (plateia, wide public thoroughfares) were places of commerce and civic life. Praying loudly in these spaces was a way of advertising one's piety — a form of spiritual reputation management.
The Concept of "Hypocrite" in Greco-Roman Culture
As Pastor Wagner noted, the Greek word hypokritēs originally referred to a stage actor — someone who wore a mask (prosōpon) to play a role. In the broader Greco-Roman world, this word carried no inherent moral condemnation; acting was a respected profession. But Jesus repurposes the term to describe a spiritual danger: wearing a religious mask in public while the inner life remains unexamined. This would have landed with rhetorical force on a mixed audience of Jewish listeners familiar with theater culture in Hellenized Galilee.
Pagan Prayer Practices
The "babbling of the pagans" likely refers to Greco-Roman magical and religious practices that employed long lists of divine names, repetitive formulas, and elaborate incantations designed to compel or manipulate deities. This is well-documented in Greco-Roman magical papyri (the PGM, or Papyri Graecae Magicae), which contain lengthy invocations intended to force divine action. Jesus is drawing a clear contrast: the God of Israel is not a deity to be manipulated through technique — he is a Father who already knows and cares.
"Abba" and First-Century Jewish Understanding of God as Father
While the Lord's Prayer uses Pater (Greek for "Father"), Jesus elsewhere uses the Aramaic Abba (Mark 14:36), a term of familial intimacy. Joachim Jeremias, the influential German New Testament scholar, famously argued that Jesus's use of Abba in prayer was unprecedented in Jewish literature and represented a distinctive claim about his unique relationship with God. While later scholarship has moderated Jeremias's claim (noting that Abba appears in some Jewish texts), the frequency and centrality with which Jesus addresses God as Father remains distinctive. Paul picks up this language in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6, suggesting that through the Spirit, believers share in Jesus's own filial relationship with the Father.
4. Word Studies
"Hypocrites" (Greek: ὑποκριταί, hypokritai)
- Meaning: Stage actors; those who play a role or wear a mask; by extension, those whose outward behavior misrepresents their inner reality
- Etymology: From hypo ("under") + krinō ("to judge" or "to separate") — possibly referring to one who speaks from under a mask; the word entered Greek from theatrical vocabulary
- Biblical Usage: Jesus uses this term extensively in Matthew (6:2, 5, 16; 15:7; 22:18; 23:13–29), almost always in contexts of religious performance that conceals an unreformed heart. In Matthew 23, it becomes a sustained indictment of religious leaders whose external observance masks internal corruption.
- Theological Significance: The hypocrite's fundamental error is audience confusion — performing for human observers rather than living before the divine audience. Jesus is calling disciples to what might be called coram Deo living (a Reformation phrase meaning "before the face of God") — a life lived in conscious awareness of God's presence.
- Translation Considerations: Most English translations retain "hypocrites." The ESV, NIV, and NASB all use this term. The NLT occasionally uses "religious hypocrites" for clarity.
"Hallowed" (Greek: ἁγιασθήτω, hagiasthētō)
- Meaning: Let it be made holy; let it be treated as sacred; let it be reverenced as set apart
- Etymology: From hagios ("holy, set apart") — the same root as hagiazō ("to sanctify") and hagiasmos ("sanctification"). The form here is an aorist passive imperative — a command calling for a divine action.
- Biblical Usage: The concept of God's name being "hallowed" or "sanctified" has deep Old Testament roots. Ezekiel 36:23 is particularly striking: "I will show the holiness of my great name... the nations will know that I am the LORD." Isaiah 29:23 similarly speaks of God's people hallowing his name. The petition in the Lord's Prayer is thus eschatological — it is praying for the full revelation of God's glory that the prophets anticipated.
- Theological Significance: This is not a statement ("your name is holy") but a petition ("may your name be treated as holy"). Disciples are praying for God to act in history in ways that reveal his true character — and committing themselves to be participants in that revelation through their lives.
- Translation Considerations: "Hallowed" is an archaic English word largely preserved in Bible translation. Modern equivalents include "may your name be honored as holy" (NLT) or simply "holy is your name."
"Father" (Greek: Πατήρ, Patēr; Aramaic: אַבָּא, Abba)
- Meaning: Father; the one who begets, provides for, and exercises authority over a family
- Etymology: Patēr is the standard Greek word for father, cognate with Latin pater and Sanskrit pitar. The Aramaic Abba is a form used by children to address their fathers — intimate but not childish; adults used it as well.
- Biblical Usage: God is called Father relatively rarely in the Old Testament (Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Psalm 89:26; Jeremiah 3:19), usually in corporate or covenantal contexts. In the New Testament, Jesus uses "Father" for God more than 170 times in the Gospels — a dramatic shift in frequency and intimacy. Romans 8:15 states that believers receive "the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.'"
- Theological Significance: As Pastor Wagner powerfully observed, Jesus had access to the full range of Old Testament divine names — Elohim, El Shaddai, Yahweh, Adonai — and chose Father as his primary address. This is not sentimentality but theology: it locates prayer within a relationship rather than a transaction. The doctrine of adoption (huiothesia, Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5) means that believers genuinely share in the Son's relationship to the Father.
- Translation Considerations: Most translations render this straightforwardly as "Father." The intimacy of the original is sometimes captured in translations that include "Abba, Father" (as Paul does in Romans and Galatians).
"Babbling" (Greek: βατταλογήσητε, battalogēsēte)
- Meaning: To speak repetitively and meaninglessly; to babble; to heap up empty phrases
- Etymology: The word is rare and its origin debated. It may be onomatopoeic (mimicking the sound of repetitive speech), or it may derive from a proper name. It appears only here in the New Testament.
- Biblical Usage: Because this word appears only in Matthew 6:7, its meaning must be inferred from context. The parallel phrase "many words" (polulogia) clarifies the concept — the error is not length of prayer but magical thinking that believes divine response is generated by verbal volume or complexity.
- Theological Significance: This word protects against two errors simultaneously: (1) the idea that prayer is a technique to be mastered, and (2) the idea that God must be persuaded or worn down. Jesus's correction in verse 8 — "your Father knows what you need before you ask" — grounds prayer in divine omniscience and parental care rather than human verbal performance.
5. Cross-References & Biblical Theology
Parallel Passages
Luke 11:1–4 — Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer, given in a different context (after a disciple observes Jesus praying), and slightly shorter. The variation between Matthew and Luke suggests Jesus taught this prayer as a model rather than a fixed liturgy.
Luke 5:16 — "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." The Greek word for "withdrew" (hypochōreō) suggests deliberate retreat. Jesus's prayer life was not occasional but habitual.
Luke 6:12 — "Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." This occurred before choosing the Twelve — major decisions were preceded by extended prayer.
Old Testament Background
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (The Shema) — The foundational Jewish prayer and confession. Jesus's Lord's Prayer stands in continuity with this tradition of addressing God as the one Lord who calls for wholehearted devotion.
Psalm 103:13 — "As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him." The metaphor of divine fatherhood in the Psalms provides the soil in which Jesus's teaching grows.
Isaiah 64:8 — "Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." Isaiah's use of Father in a context of desperate need anticipates the intimacy Jesus makes available to all disciples.
Ezekiel 36:23 — "I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations." The petition "hallowed be your name" is a direct echo of Ezekiel's eschatological hope.
New Testament Development
Romans 8:15–16 — "The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" Paul grounds prayer in pneumatology and adoption — the Spirit enables believers to address God as Jesus did.
Galatians 4:6 — "Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'" The Trinitarian structure of prayer: we pray to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
Hebrews 4:16 — "Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." The access to God in prayer is grounded in the high priestly work of Christ.
James 5:16 — "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." Prayer is not performative magic but relational power rooted in right relationship.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 — "Pray continually." Paul's injunction echoes Jesus's own prayer habits — prayer as an ongoing posture, not a scheduled event.
6. Interpretive Considerations
Is the Lord's Prayer a Liturgy or a Model?
One of the most significant interpretive questions about Matthew 6:9–13 is whether Jesus intends this prayer to be recited verbatim or used as a structural model. Several considerations bear on this:
- Luke's different version (Luke 11:2–4) is shorter and introduced with "when you pray, say..." — language that could support liturgical recitation
- Matthew's introduction ("pray like this," or "in this manner" — Greek: houtōs) leans toward modeling rather than mandating
- Early church practice (attested in the Didache, a first-century Christian document) included the Lord's Prayer recited three times daily — suggesting early Christians understood it as a fixed prayer
Most scholars conclude that both uses are legitimate: the prayer can be recited as a liturgy and used as a structural template for free prayer. Pastor Wagner's sermon correctly emphasized the model function — the prayer teaches us what to pray about — while the liturgical tradition honors its text as a gift to the church.
What Does "Hallowed Be Your Name" Actually Petition?
Some interpreters read this as purely doxological — simply praising God's holiness. But the imperative passive form (hagiasthētō) makes it a petition, not a declaration. N.T. Wright, in The Lord and His Prayer, argues that this petition is fundamentally eschatological — it is praying for God to act in history to vindicate his name, as the prophets anticipated. This connects the Lord's Prayer to the coming of the Kingdom (the very next petition) and gives it a world-transforming rather than merely devotional character.
"Lead Us Not Into Temptation" — A Difficult Petition
This phrase (mē eisenenkēs hēmas eis peirasmon) has generated significant debate. Does it suggest God might lead people into temptation — which seems to contradict James 1:13 ("God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone")? Most interpreters understand this as a petition for protection from testing beyond one's strength (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13) rather than a request that God refrain from doing something he might otherwise do. The word peirasmos can mean both "temptation" (enticement to sin) and "trial" (difficult testing) — the petition likely encompasses both.
Common Misapplication: Repetition as Forbidden
Some have read Jesus's warning against "babbling" as a prohibition against any repeated prayer. This misreads the text. Jesus himself prayed the same words three times in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:44). The warning is against meaningless repetition driven by magical thinking — not against returning to God with the same genuine need.
7. Theological Implications
The Doctrine of Divine Fatherhood
Jesus's choice of "Father" as the primary address for God is not merely warm language — it is a theological claim with profound doctrinal implications. The Fatherhood of God in the New Testament is not a universal natural relationship (God as creator of all) but a covenantal and adoptive relationship made possible through union with Christ. As J.I. Packer writes in Knowing God, "If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father."
Prayer and the Trinity
The Lord's Prayer is implicitly Trinitarian in structure. Believers pray to the Father, through the mediation of the Son (who teaches us to pray and intercedes for us — Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25), and by the enabling of the Spirit (Romans 8:26–27 — "the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans"). Prayer is thus participation in the inner life of the Trinity — not a human technique for accessing divine power, but the creature being drawn into divine communion.
Prayer and Formation
Pastor Wagner's third point — that prayer is formational — has deep roots in Christian spirituality. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes prayer as "the raising of one's mind and heart to God." Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, argues that prayer is not primarily about getting things from God but about transformation of the person who prays. The petition "hallowed be your name" is simultaneously a prayer and a commitment — as we pray it, we become people who hallow God's name in how we live.
God's Omniscience and the Purpose of Prayer
Verse 8 raises a profound theological question: if "your Father knows what you need before you ask him," why pray at all? Augustine addressed this in his Letters (Letter 130): prayer is not for God's information but for our formation. It aligns our desires with God's purposes, cultivates dependence, and deepens relationship. Prayer changes the one who prays — and through the mysterious interplay of divine sovereignty and human agency, it also changes circumstances.
8. Practical Application
From Performance to Presence
The deepest shift the sermon calls for is moving from performing prayer to practicing presence. This has concrete implications: Where do you pray? When no one is watching, do you pray? The practice of a consistent private prayer life — what the Puritan tradition called the "secret place" — is the antidote to performative religion.
Correcting Your View of God
Pastor Wagner rightly identified that how we view God shapes how we pray. This is not merely psychological — it is theological. If you view God as a cosmic vending machine, you will approach prayer transactionally. If you view him as a distant judge, you will approach prayer fearfully. The Lord's Prayer begins by correcting our theology before addressing our methodology. A practical step: spend time meditating on the names of God (Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, El Shaddai) as a way of expanding your vision of who you are talking to.
The 21-Day Commitment
Pastor Wagner invited the congregation to commit to 21 days of daily prayer. This is spiritually and neurologically sound — research consistently suggests that new habits form through consistent repetition over several weeks. More importantly, it reflects the biblical pattern of sustained seeking (Daniel's 21-day fast in Daniel 10; Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness). Consider structuring these 21 days around the Lord's Prayer itself — spending time each day with one of its petitions.
Structural Prayer Using the Lord's Prayer
Use the Lord's Prayer as a daily framework:
- "Our Father in heaven" — Begin by remembering who you're talking to. Spend time in adoration.
- "Hallowed be your name" — Meditate on one of God's names or attributes.
- "Your kingdom come, your will be done" — Surrender your agenda; intercede for God's purposes in your community and world.
- "Give us today our daily bread" — Bring your practical needs with childlike trust.
- "Forgive us our debts" — Practice honest confession and receive forgiveness.
- "Lead us not into temptation" — Pray specifically about areas of vulnerability.
9. Discussion Questions
Observational
Read Matthew 6:5–13 carefully. What specific behaviors does Jesus identify as examples of how not to pray? What motivations does he attribute to those behaviors?
Look at the structure of the Lord's Prayer itself (vv. 9–13). How many petitions are focused on God's agenda versus human needs? What does this structural priority suggest about the nature of prayer?
In Luke 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, and 9:28, what patterns do you notice about when and where Jesus prayed? What circumstances preceded his times of extended prayer?
Interpretive
Pastor Wagner defined prayer as "talking with God" rather than "talking to God." What is the significance of that distinction? How does Matthew 6:8 ("your Father knows what you need before you ask him") support or complicate this definition?
The word hypokritai (hypocrites) originally referred to stage actors. How does that original meaning deepen Jesus's critique in Matthew 6:5? In what ways can religious practice become "theatrical" even when it's not done in public?
Jesus warns against "babbling like the pagans" who think their many words will be heard. Yet elsewhere Scripture commends persistent, even repeated prayer (Luke 18:1–8). How do you reconcile these two teachings? What is the actual difference Jesus is drawing?
Theological
The Lord's Prayer begins with "Our Father" — a communal address. What are the implications of this for how we understand prayer? Is prayer fundamentally a private or a communal practice? What does it mean that even private prayer is addressed to "our" Father?
Romans 8:26–27 teaches that the Spirit "intercedes for us through wordless groans" when we don't know what to pray. How does this Trinitarian understanding of prayer (Father, Son, Spirit all involved) reshape your understanding of what happens when you pray?
Applicational
Pastor Wagner observed that our view of God directly shapes how we pray — and shared how his own view of his earthly father unconsciously shaped his relationship with God. What distorted views of God (vending machine, distant judge, cosmic policeman) do you recognize in your own prayer life? How might meditating on the phrase "Our Father" begin to correct those distortions?
The sermon's central thesis was: "The purpose of prayer is not to get something from God, but to be with him and become like him." How does this reframe what "answered prayer" means? Can you think of a time when prayer changed you rather than your circumstances — and what that reveals about the purpose of prayer?
Pastor Wagner invited a 21-day prayer commitment. What specific, concrete plan would make this realistic for your actual life? What has prevented consistent prayer in the past, and how might understanding prayer as relational rather than obligatory address those obstacles?
Investigative
- The Didache (an early Christian document, likely late first century) prescribed reciting the Lord's Prayer three times daily. Research the Didache chapter 8 and consider: What does this early practice reveal about how the first Christians understood the Lord's Prayer — as a liturgy, a model, or both? How should early church practice inform our own?
10. Recommended Resources
Accessible (For Motivated Lay Readers)
J.I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press) One of the most important books on the character of God ever written for a general audience. Chapters on the Fatherhood of God are essential background for understanding the Lord's Prayer. Packer's accessible writing makes deep theology available to any motivated reader.
N.T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer (Eerdmans) A brief but profound exposition of the Lord's Prayer by one of the most important New Testament scholars of our era. Wright reads each petition in its eschatological context — showing how the prayer is about the transformation of the world, not just the individual. Highly recommended as a direct companion to this sermon series.
Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (HarperOne) Willard's foundational work on spiritual formation includes a powerful treatment of prayer as a discipline that transforms the one who prays. His concept of prayer as "intentional conversation with God about mutual concerns" (quoted in the sermon) is developed here at length.
Intermediate (For Those Comfortable with Theological Terms)
Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (InterVarsity Press) An invaluable resource for understanding the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural background of every New Testament passage. Keener's notes on Matthew 6:5–13 illuminate the first-century prayer practices Jesus was engaging and correcting.
D.A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount: An Evangelical Exposition (Baker Academic) Carson's careful exegetical work on Matthew 5–7 provides verse-by-verse analysis of the Lord's Prayer in its literary context. Carson is a reliable guide through interpretive debates, and his treatment of "hallowed be your name" as an eschatological petition is particularly valuable.
Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount (Story of God Bible Commentary, Zondervan) A more recent commentary that integrates careful exegesis with attention to how the Sermon on the Mount functions within the whole biblical narrative. McKnight's treatment of the Lord's Prayer is both scholarly and devotionally rich.
Advanced (For Seminary-Level Engagement)
Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Fortress Press) Jeremias's classic scholarly work on Jesus's use of Abba and the distinctiveness of his prayer life. While some of his conclusions have been refined by subsequent scholarship, this remains a foundational text for understanding the historical background of the Lord's Prayer.
W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (International Critical Commentary, T&T Clark) The most comprehensive technical commentary on Matthew in English. The treatment of Matthew 6:5–13 is exhaustive, covering textual variants, Greek grammar, Jewish parallels, and interpretive history. For those who want to go as deep as the text allows.
The Didache (Various editions; available free at EarlyChristianWritings.com) The first-century Christian document that provides the earliest evidence of how the Lord's Prayer was used in early church worship. Chapter 8 is directly relevant. Reading this primary source connects the modern reader to the living tradition of Christian prayer across two millennia.
This guide was developed to deepen and expand the teaching delivered in week one of the "How to Pray" series. The scholarship here is intended not to replace the sermon's pastoral warmth but to serve it — because the more clearly we see who God is and what prayer actually is, the more we will want to do what Pastor Wagner invited: talk to our Father, every day, as the relational, formational, life-giving practice Jesus modeled and taught.