O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

Lord’s Prayer, as 7:1-5 teaches on judging others. Thus the fifth petition of thePrayer is covered.d) Matthew 7:6 elaborates the sixth and seventh petition as both passages,according to Bornkamm, relate to apostasy.e) Matthew 7:7-11 teaches about answered prayer and is used by Matthew toconclude the ‘larger section’ on Prayer (p.325).Guelich is not alone in his approach. Like Guelich, Hendrickx (1984:129) viewsMatthew 6:19-34 as a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer. Hendrickx believes that theseeking God’s Kingdom command of Matthew 6:33 is the “climax” of Matthew 6:19-34 and thus puts the text in the “context of the Lord’s Prayer.” Hendrickx argues thatboth 6:33 and the Lord’s Prayer promote the disciple submitting in all things to God’ssovereign rule.The approach of Guelich and Hendrickx carries several problems; Firstly, while thereare parallel verses in Luke suggesting that the sayings of 6:19-24, 6:25-34, 7:1-5,7:6, 7:11 and 7:12 are units of tradition it is possible that Jesus may have used thesame material in different contexts. A habit of using almost exact words and phrasesin different sermons is not necessarily uncommon for an itinerant preacher (Lioy2004:93).Thus one cannot say for certain that, for example, the sayings of 6:19-24 and 6:25-34 are separate sources that were redacted in Matthew in order to be a commentaryon the Lord’s Prayer. They might well have been preached alongside one another,perhaps even word for word by Jesus.Secondly, the thematic links between the Lord’s Prayer and the elaborations of 6:19-7:12 do not always fit. To view 6:19-7:12 as an elaboration on the Lord’s Prayer is toignore the themes promoted by 6:19-7:12’s own context. For example, Allison(1987:425) argues that Bornkamms link of 7:6 which Bornkamm believes talks aboutapostasy and 6:7 which contains the “lead us not into temptation” petition of theLord’s Prayer is not clear. Allison’s point being that while it is possible that 6:7 maymeant to be a prayer to lead one out of the temptation (which we can’t know asMatthew did not define what temptation he is speaking of) of apostasy, Bornkamm29