1 Chronicles 29:10-13 THE LORD’S PRAYER DOXOLOGY Our reading this morning is from 1 Chronicles 29 when David proclaims Solomon as king, tasks him with the building of the Temple and commits finance to build it. This reading is part of David’s prayer as he thanks God for the provision of the resources needed to build the Temple and worships Him 1 Chronicles 29:10 “Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honour come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name. TITLE PAGE > RED LETTERS Have you ever had a Red Letter Bible? The idea of it is that every word attributed to Jesus is highlighted in red so you could see what Jesus said. The principle is the same as red letter days – important days in the calendar which were marked in red, hence red letter days. These had their origins in the Christian calendar, but some bright spark promoted a red-letter Bible where all the important words – Jesus words – were marked in red. The danger of a red letter Bible is then that we don’t take the rest of the Bible as seriously – but the understanding is that all scripture is God-breathed. KJV RED LETTER BIBLE OF LORD’S PRAYER Here’s a few verses from a red letter online edition (most red-letter Bibles were Authorised King James versions). It indicates another weakness, this time of translation. As you can see, Matthew 6;13 in the KJV includes what is known as the Lord’s Prayer Doxology – the prayer’s ending which is portrayed in red. DOXOLOGY These words for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen are familiar to us the prayer’s climax and close it on a high note. DOXOLOGY: A GLORY SAYING You’ve heard the word doxology before and the word itself is basically a virtually untranslated Greek word which in rough English means “glory saying”. It’s a form of words, usually part of a formal liturgy which is used in worship, usually giving God high praise. They are used considerably in the Bible and in both Jewish and Christian worship. NOT IN THE EARLY MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT The problem is that these words do not appear in most modern translations of the New Testament. You’ve just seen how the KJV puts the verses and you are also familiar with this slide: BOTH VERSIONS OF THE LORD’S PRAYER Which is how the Lord’s Prayer is expressed by modern translations in both Matthew and Luke and the doxology appears in neither. Why? Because it’s absent in all the earliest manuscripts of the NT, which has led translators to the inevitable conclusion which is much to the disappointment I’m sure of red letter Bible publishers that the doxology is not the original words of Jesus. As a devout Jew and would have used doxologies as part of worship, but these words were not attributed to Him by Matthew or Luke. FIRST RECORDED IN THE FORM WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH IN THE DIDACHE As I mentioned in the first sermon that we had in the series, the doxology came into use in the latter part of the first century as Christians began to use the Lord’s Prayer in worship and a formal liturgy was arising and the first written version of it of any authority that we have is in a book of Christian teaching called the Didache which was probably written some time around when Revelation was written, so it’s really early. The Lord’s Prayer as it stands in Matthew and Luke does not have an ending – because it was a model prayer and the two different forms suggest that Jesus wanted us to use it to understand what we should pray about and why. But it was a taught prayer and the early Christians wanted to pray it by rote so it needed and ending that would tie it up and bring it to a close, hence the doxology. One of the things that later manuscripts of the NT show is that the doxology was added to Matthew’s Gospel and in many later manuscripts of Luke, the Matthew prayer was substituted for the one there; it was an attempt to “harmonise” scripture which actually concealed why the versions were different: because Jesus wanted our prayer to be something that was about our relationship with our heavenly Father, so understanding the words and using them was part of our personal prayers was what was actually what was intended, not using a set form as rote that then becomes a talisman, or a form of public worship which was definitely not intended if we remember the early part of Matthew 6 preceding the Lord’s Prayer. SHOULD WE USE IT IF JESUS DIDN’T TEACH IT? So if these aren’t in the originals of Matthew and Luke, should we use this form of words at all? I might add that they are in the KJV because the Greek Text it was translated from was based on a much more limited range of texts that are now available and we’re now much closer to knowing what was written in the original than they did 400 years ago. Actually, even back in the seventeenth century they were aware that there was a problem and I’ve seen the Matthew version of the Lord’s Prayer in the art of some Anglican churches minus the doxology. So is the doxology a set of valid words to use when we recite the Lord’s Prayer? If you get over the issue of whether it should be recited at all, then there is the issue of how it ends, as Jesus leaves it in space as it were in both gospels. In biblical times, prayer and significant statements were often ended or emphasised using a glory saying - a doxology – something worshipful after something significant. DOXOLOGES ARE COMMON IN BOTH TESTAMENTS If we consider the passage we read this morning then straight away we see some familiar words, uttered by David as he praises God for all that He had done thus far. VERSES 1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. That was early in David’s prayer. The same sentiments are found in Jude’s letter, this time at the end. Jude 1:25 to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forever more! Amen. You’ll notice that the same sentiments are expressed in relation to God – kingdom, power, glory. Right back into the old testament, these attributes were always associated with the absolute power of the monarch. Here’s an interesting contrast from Daniel where King Nebuchadnezzar says this of himself: Dan 4:30 Nebuchadnezzar said, "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" That was the nature of monarchy in Bible times and is still the nature of absolute monarchy, or absolute leadership today. The king had authority and power and he was to be revered and honoured. Monarchs in those days underlined their authority through prestige projects, like Nebuchadnezzar did. Modern absolute leaders do exactly the same; consider the Kim family in North Korea – spending vast quantities of money on prestige projects whilst their people starve in poverty. In both testaments the same reverence and praise is given to God, but with creation given as His statement of glory. It’s typical to find glory sayings in the Psalms: Psalm 115: 15 May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 16 The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man. 17 It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to silence; 18 it is we who extol the LORD, both now and forever more. Rev 5:12 In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!" The main difference between God and a human despot is also clear in the Bible; we have a God who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love (Psalm 148:5). He seeks to bless His people and not harm them. But He also judges those who rebel against Him. CHRISTIANS HAVE USED DOXOLOGIES DOWN THE AGES IN WORSHIP Needless to say, apart from the New Testament, doxologies are also common throughout Christian worship down the ages. Some are strongly Biblical, such as this one: DOXOLOGIES Gloria in excelsis deo Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests. (Luke 2:14) When they were not directly scriptural, they strongly resonate with what we find in scripture.