Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
11Give to us today our daily bread.
When I first embarked on studying this verse, I didn’t think there would be much to find in such a simple request. However, now I fear it is so pregnant with truth, I doubt if I can do it justice. I will try. One of the best commentators on these verses is Matthew Henry. He obviously thought deeply about the verse and had lived it.
Where do we begin? Jesus has just taught us in vv. 9,10 to acknowledge God as our Father, to pray for Him to be glorified, and to express our submission to His rule. Having said that, what will come next? You would think we’d go straight to “forgive us our debts…” However, where does He go? “Give us this day our daily bread.” He teaches us, after attributing glory to God, to ask Him for bread. This simple truth leads in about a million directions. I’ll try to express at least the most important lessons I think I’m seeing.
I fear that our natural understanding of faith is an example of where the Lord says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.” And that is precisely why we must study the Bible. It alone teaches us how to see our lives through the Lord’s eyes. Our natural understanding of life and faith is that our basic needs “don’t count.” In other words, we think all that matters, really, is the spiritual issues in our lives and in our world. Our very basic needs are a sort of a natural evil that “take up time and only get in the way of what really matters.”
I once heard a pastor say from the pulpit, “Your job is just the way you make money.” What he was saying was that people’s jobs are no more than a necessary evil that they should dispense with, then get on to the “important” things – especially showing up at the church building to report for duty. If jobs are so unimportant, I wonder why the Lord Himself says they are the one place where we can “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things?" (Titus 2:9,10). Adorn.
That pastor was reflecting what I believe is perhaps a very subtle error that weaves its way through modern Christianity. It is actually a form of asceticism – despising and minimizing the importance of our basic needs, supposedly to allow us to focus on what “really matters."
How does all of that square with this simple request, taught us by the very mouth of Jesus? “Give us this day our daily bread.” As usual, the Lord is way smarter than us and doesn’t have His head filled with illogical and frankly stupid ideas. He knows that when He formed Adam, He “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). God gave Adam a body and breathed into him a spirit. Adam had a body. Within that body, God placed his spirit, but it was, in fact, in a body.
The fact is, in order to exist in this world, you and I have to live in a body. What happens when this body dies? Our spirit leaves this world and goes to be with the Lord (II Corin. 5:8). That means our opportunity to do good in this world is over. Done. Past tense. We humans must live in bodies in order to even have spiritual influence in this world. If I don’t have a body here, I can’t do anyone any good. If I want to do good, I need to keep this body as healthy as I can.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” If I don’t eat, I will eventually die. In the meantime, I think we all know how hard it is to concentrate, to do anything at all, when I’m hungry. I need to eat. Is that “unspiritual?” Is it a “necessary evil” to be dispensed with as quickly as possible so we can get on with the “important” stuff? Or would the Lord have us to acknowledge the importance of this body He gave us, keep it as well fed and healthy as we can, and see all of that as part of the life we live before Him? He says to pray about it.
And note again the order. After teaching us to pray about God’s glory, His very next line is “Give us this day our daily bread.” Even before we address the issue of our sins (“debts”), He addresses our most basic physical needs. So then, how should you and I think about those “physical needs?” Are they important or not? Are they just “necessary evils?” Does God care about them? Should we?
For me personally, I remember when I first became a Christian. I was a runner. Immediately, I had to address whether that was a good thing or not. I remember feeling it was not, that I should rather be spending my time doing “spiritual” things. Running takes time. As I thought about it, I realized that it makes me much healthier. I realized, if I want to do any good in this world, I need to be as healthy as I can. I realized, to whatever extent I was not healthy, I couldn’t do anyone any good. I of course had no Bible to back that up at the time. It just made sense to me. So I kept running.
The result is that now, nearly fifty years later, I’m not overweight. I basically have no major physical conditions. At 68 years old, I am still working full time. One of my delights has been our interns at work. I love young people and am very glad to still be able to interact with them. Hopefully I’m able to be a positive presence in their lives. Looking back over the years, running has given me the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with all three of my children, as they wanted to run also. In addition, I have been able to spend time with other men, running together (and discussing God, the universe, and other subjects!). Even with the ladies, just the fact that I was a runner gave me a common interest with them and often has given me a subject to discuss with them and hopefully establish a relationship.
Obviously, not everyone can be a runner. My point is simply that I can clearly see the advantages I have gained by trying (my best) to be healthy. It was not “a waste of time.” It was not a “necessary evil.” To be as healthy as I could be has afforded me many opportunities to build relationships and to hopefully see the Lord use those relationships in some way to do them good, to draw them to Himself.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Bread.
A basic need.
What does our Lord think about that? What should we?
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