If you’re looking for a detailed exegetical commentary on The Lord’s Prayer, then you won’t find it here. On the other hand if you want a personal guide to take you through each of the components of the prayer, highlighting what to look out for as you go and explaining things that may be familiar and yet not well known or understood, then you won’t do much better than to entrust yourself to R C Sproul.
Sproul begins by pointing out that of all the things Jesus’ disciples must have seen and witnessed in their Master’s ministry, the one thing they asked him to teach them about was prayer, such was the impression that his own prayer life must have made on them. In response, Christ starts by warning them about the sort of praying that is not acceptable to his and their Father in heaven, before going on to share the model for prayer that we know so well.
There is much here that will bring this most familiar part of Scripture to the reader with fresh insight and inspiration. Sproul also adds two closing chapters where he deals with some other issues surrounding the practice of prayer and the Lord’s
Prayer in particular. In the first of these he address such issues as the relationship between prayer and providence, prayers expressing complaint or anger and the balance between reverence and intimacy. In the second he seeks to answer the question, `If God is sovereign, why pray?’
Anything Sproul writes is biblical, pastoral and spiritually profitable and this is no exception.
For the purpose of review, I received a complimentary copy of the book from the Publishers. I was under no obligation to write a positive review.
Reformation Trust (17 April 2009) Review written in 2011