Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary

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Luke 11

1When he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”

2He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

3Give us day by day our daily bread.

4Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”

5He said to them, “Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,

6for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’

7and he from within will answer and say, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you’?

8I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs.

9“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.

10For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

11“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

12Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he?

13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

14He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.

15But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons.”

16Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.

17But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. A house divided against itself falls.

18If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.

19But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

20But if I by God’s finger cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come to you.

21“When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his goods are safe.

22But when someone stronger attacks him and overcomes him, he takes from him his whole armor in which he trusted, and divides his plunder.

23“He who is not with me is against me. He who doesn’t gather with me scatters.

24The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’

25When he returns, he finds it swept and put in order.

26Then he goes and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

27It came to pass, as he said these things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you!”

28But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”

29When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

30For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will also be to this generation.

31The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here.

32The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, one greater than Jonah is here.

33“No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, that those who come in may see the light.

34The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness.

35Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn’t darkness.

36If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light.”

37Now as he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. He went in and sat at the table.

38When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed himself before dinner.

39The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.

40You foolish ones, didn’t he who made the outside make the inside also?

41But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

42But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

43Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces.

44Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”

45One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying this you insult us also.”

46He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won’t even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.

47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

48So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build their tombs.

49Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute,

50that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation,

51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

52Woe to you lawyers! For you took away the key of knowledge. You didn’t enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in, you hindered.”

53As he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be terribly angry, and to draw many things out of him,

54lying in wait for him, and seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might accuse him.

Early Christian commentary

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

Our Father in Heaven. It deserves a somewhat careful observation of the so-called Old Testament to discover whether it is possible to find anywhere in it a prayer of one who addresses God as Father. For though I have made examination to the best of my ability, I have up to the present failed to find one. I do not say that God is not spoken of as Father or that accounted believers in God are not called sons of God, but that I have not yet found in prayer that confidence in calling God Father which the Savior has proclaimed.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XIII: Our Father in Heaven · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

Hallowed be Thy name. Although this may represent either that the object of prayer has not yet come to pass, or after its attainment, that it is not permanent in which case the request is for its retention; the language in this instance makes it plain that it is with the implication that the name of the Father has not yet been hallowed, that we are bidden—according to Matthew and Luke, that is—to say "Hallowed be Thy Name." Then how, one might say, should a man request the hallowing of God's name as though not hallowed? Let us understand what the Father's name, and what the hallowing of it, means. A name is a summary designation descriptive of the peculiar character of the thing named.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XIV: Hallowed be Thy name · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

Thy Kingdom Come. According to the word of our Lord and Savior, the Kingdom of God does not come observably, nor shall men say 'Lo it is here', or 'Lo is it there', but the Kingdom of God is within us; for the utterance is exceedingly near in our mouth and in our heart. It is therefore plain that he who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God prays with good reason for rising and fruit bearing and perfecting of God's kingdom within him.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XV: Thy Kingdom Come · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

Give us today our Needful Bread, or as Luke has it, Give us daily our Needful Bread. Seeing that some suppose that it is meant that we should pray for material bread, their erroneous opinion deserves to be done away with and the truth about the needful bread set forth, in the following manner. We may put the question to them—how can it be that He, who says that heavenly and great things ought to be asked for as if, on their view, He has forgotten His teaching now enjoins the offering of intercession to the Father for an earthly and little thing, since neither is the bread which is assimilated into our flesh a heavenly thing nor is it asking a great thing to request it?

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XVII: Give us today our Needful Bread · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

For he who prays today to God, who is from infiniti to infiniti, not only for today but also in a sense for that which is daily shall be enabled to receive from Him who hath power to bestow exceedingly above what we ask or think even things—to use extreme language—which transcend those that eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard and that have not gone up into the heart of man. These considerations seem to me to have been very necessary for the understanding of both the expressions today and daily when we are praying that the needful bread be given us from His Father.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XVII: Give us today our Needful Bread · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

And forgive us our Debts as we also have forgiven our Debtors, or as Luke has it, And forgive us our Sins, for we also ourselves forgive everyone in Debt to us. Concerning debts the Apostle also says: Pay your debts to all—to whom you owe tribute, tribute, to whom fear, fear, to whom taxes, taxes, to whom honor, honor: owe no man anything save mutual love. We owe therefore in having certain duties not only in giving but also in kind speech and corresponding actions, and indeed we owe a certain disposition towards one another. Owing these things, we either pay them through discharging the commands of the divine law, or failing to pay them, in contempt of the salutary word, we remain in debt. The like reflection applies to debts toward brothers, to those who in the religious sense have been born again with us in Christ, as well as to those who have a common mother or father with us.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XVIII: Forgive us our Debts · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

We also have a certain debt toward fellow citizens, and another toward all men in common, in particular toward guests and toward men at the age of fatherhood, and another toward such as it is right that we should honor as sons or as brothers. He, therefore, who does not do what is a debt to be discharged to brothers remains a debtor for what he has not done. So, too, should we fail in what falls, at the prompting of the charitable spirit of wisdom, to human beings also at our hands, our indebtedness becomes the greater. Indeed, we also have debt in personal concerns—to use the body in a certain way, so as not to wear out the flesh of the body through love of pleasure, and on the other hand to treat the soul with a certain care, and to take forethought for the keenness of the mind, and for our speech that it be without sting and helpful and not trifling. Whenever we fail to perform what we owe, even to ourselves, the heavier does our debt become.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XVIII: Forgive us our Debts · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

It is when a man succumbs in the moment of tempting, I take it, that he enters into temptation, being held in its nets. Into those nets the Savior entered for the sake of those who had already been caught in them, and in the words of the Song of Songs, looking out through the meshwork makes answer to those who have been already caught by them and have entered into temptation, and says to those who form His bride: Arise, my dear one, my fair one, my dove. To bring home the fact that every time is one of temptation on earth, I will add that even he who meditates upon the law of God day and night and makes a practice of carrying out the saying, A righteous man's mouth shall meditate on wisdom, has no release from being tempted. How many in their devotion to the examination of the divine Scriptures have, through misunderstanding the messages contained in Law and Prophets, devoted themselves to godless and impious or to foolish and ridiculous opinions?

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XIX: Bring us not into Temptation · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

We ought therefore to pray, not that we be not tempted—that is impossible—but that we be not encompassed by temptation, the fate of those who are open to it and are overcome. Now since, outside of the Lord's Prayer, it is written Pray that you enter not into temptation, the force of which may perhaps be clear from what has already been said, whereas in the Lord's prayer we ought to say to God our Father, Bring us not into Temptation, it is worth seeing in what sense we ought to think of God as leading one who does not pray or is not heard into temptation. If entering into temptation means being overcome, it is manifestly out of the question to think that God leads anyone into temptation as though He delivered him to be overcome.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XIX: Bring us not into Temptation · Original source

c. 233–234 AD | Origen of Alexandria

In the words Bring us not into Temptation Luke seems to me to have virtually taught Deliver us from Evil also. In any case it is natural that the Lord should have addressed the briefer form to the disciple as he had already been helped, but the more explicit to the many who were in need of clearer teaching. God delivers us from Evil, not when the enemy does not engage us at all in conflict through any of his own wiles or those of the ministers of his will, but when we make a manful stand against contingencies and are victorious.

Commentary · On Prayer, Chapter XIX: Bring us not into Temptation · Original source