11th September 2026

THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY ARE YOURS.

These words which conclude the Lord’s Prayer as provided by Matthew have much occupied scholars because they do not appear either in the most ancient texts, nor in Luke’s transcription of this prayer. These words are in fact a summary of King David’s valedictory prayer in 1 Chronicles 29: ‘Yours Lord is the greatness and the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty… yours Lord is the sovereignty… might and power is of your disposing’. It is not surprising that their grand perspective was adopted very widely in the scriptures in circulation in the early church.

My problem is rather different – it concerns the way in which the main body of the prayer addresses the problems of being a disciple in a broken world, a world where sins need to be forgiven, and where the sinners are also the sinned-against, a world where disciples have to confront manifold temptations to do wrong, and then to be delivered from evil; a world too where for many living with famine the prayer for daily bread seems unanswered; all in all a world in which the Devil seems pretty active.

Contrasted with this is the affirmation of divine sovereignty which is not simply descriptive of a future heavenly estate, because modern translations deploy the language of ‘now and for ever’ rather than ‘for ever and ever’.

The truth is that our discipleship has to be worked out in a world of parallel jurisdictions: the temporary illegitimacy of the Devil’s work whatever form it may take and however dire its consequences; and the underlying truth that this is God’s world in which he is sovereign and duteously and lovingly cares for his own.

John Briggs