Today is the 40th and final day in our prayer journey with Jesus.
I Howard Marshall (“Jesus—Example and Teacher of Prayer in the Synoptic Gospels,” in Into God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament Edited by Richard N. Longenecker (Eerdmans, 2002)) writes that what made Jesus’ prayers distinctive was the way in which they focused on God as “Father.”
He states that in the Old Testament, which is about three times the length of the New Testament, the word “father” is used over 1200 times. In the New Testament, “father” is used 415 times. These figures are about what we would expect–the book that is three times the length of the other has about three times as many references to “father.”
But if we count the number of times that “Father” is used with reference to God, then we find that only 40, or 3%, of the occurrences of the word in the Old Testament refer to God. In the New Testament 260, or 63%, of the occurrences refer to God as Father. There is a huge leap from the Old Testament to the New Testament in terms of speaking about God being “Father.”
How do we explain this leap? What happened from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
Marshall writes that what happened is this: Jesus. Jesus frequently referred to God as Father in his teaching. In addition, Jesus often spoke of God as “Father” in his prayers. While this was not necessarily novel, Jesus’ laser-like focus on God as “Father” in his teaching and in his prayers led to “Father” becoming the dominant way of understanding God in the New Testament.
Every time we pray, “Father, help me…” or “Father, please be with …” or “Our Father in heaven…” we have Jesus to thank.
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Thank you Jesus!
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