33 The Lord's Prayer: What Does 'Daily Bread' Mean (Matthew 6:11)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 33rd talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew, and today we're gonna study Matthew 6 verse 11. You'll find lecture notes for today's talk on the link below the podcast. The lecture notes contain links for everything mentioned in the talk and an outline of the main points. You can also find those lecture notes directly by going to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 3 3. You can find all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com, as your podcast feed may not carry them all. Thank you so much for joining me today. Glad to have you along. Well, we are continuing our study on the Lord's Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew. This prayer falls in the third major section of the Sermon on the Mount. So far, this sermon has really been about one point, and we can state that point in a variety of ways. We could summarize it as what does genuine saving faith look like, which we talked about a lot in the Beatitudes section, or we could summarize it as who will inherit eternal life or what characterizes the children of God. This third section we're in approaches the same question from another angle. Jesus began this third section by saying in Matthew six one, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Jesus then gave three parallel examples of what he meant by not practicing your righteousness before other people. Each of his examples are traditional Jewish religious practices, giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. In each case, Jesus describes how the hypocrites perform these practices, and also in each case he says, Truly I say to you, they have received their reward in full. They already have what they're looking for. They're looking for the approval of others, they're not looking for something from God, and they already have that reward. In the middle of this section, in his second example, Jesus breaks away to talk more about prayer, then he goes on to his third example, which is fasting. And in this section on prayer, he gives us the Lord's Prayer, which we have been talking about over the last couple of podcasts. Let me read the entire section on prayer, although we're really only going to tackle one issue today. But let me read you the whole section from Matthew six verse five to verse fifteen. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. As we talked about in previous podcasts, Jesus sets up the Lord's prayer by warning about two very common perversions of prayer. One is using prayer as a tool to gain the worldly approval of others rather than seeking the approval of God. That's what the Pharisees are doing, whom he calls the hypocrites. The other is using prayer as a tool to manipulate God into giving you worldly gain in this life, and that's what the Gentiles are doing. As I argued in the last podcast, it was common at the time for rabbis to teach their disciples a prayer that encapsulated their main teaching, and that's what I think the disciples are getting here. Jesus criticizes the way the hypocrites and the Gentiles view prayer, then he gives a counterexample, a prayer that models and embodies the right way of thinking about prayer and one that captures his main teaching. And I argued in the last podcast that the Lord's prayer is a prayer for one thing and one thing only, and that is asking God to establish his kingdom. We saw that each request comes in pairs, and each pair asks for a different aspect of the same thing, which is basically thy kingdom come. That's the main point, and that's echoed in each line. The point of this prayer is asking God to usher in his kingdom and to make us completely righteous once and for all. And because this language is so familiar to so many of us, I'm giving you a very wooden, very kind of literal translation, and my goal in doing that is to make you stop and think about the parallelism and the meaning. In the last podcast we looked at the first three petitions. Each petition involves an act of God, and the first three focus on God bringing his holiness to the whole world. So those were let it be holy, thy name, let it come thy kingdom, let it be done, thy will on earth as it is in heaven. And I argued that all of those are praying for one thing, for the kingdom of God to come, for God to bring the day when no one dismisses or curses or reviles or mocks him anymore, that's making his name holy. That's the first request for God to bring the day when everyone recognizes that God is holy, and then for God to establish his promised kingdom through the Messiah ruling over all the earth, and for God to bring the day when all evil is vanquished and this world finally reflects God's commitment to holiness, righteousness, and justice. That's the request of this prayer. Please bring that. May we see the day when your name is vindicated as holy, when your kingdom is established through the Messiah, and when your will is truly implemented over all the earth. The second three petitions focus on God giving holiness to believers. Like the first three, I believe there's still requests for God to act, but this time the action is taking place in individual believers' lives as opposed to in all the world and creation. So those requests are give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now in the last podcast we covered up to Matthew 6 11, give us this day our daily bread, and that's where we're going to spend our time today because this is where the problems arise. Christians have been reciting this verse, this prayer for thousands of years now, and we all think we know what this verse means. Typically we think it means something like feed us, give us the basics that we need to sustain our lives. Yet when you start studying this verse, it very quickly becomes apparent that this verse is actually quite difficult to understand and to translate. The word translated daily is the problem. This particular word appears nowhere else in the Greek language. It only appears here in Matthew and in the parallel account in Luke. Now, the way we discover what a word means is to examine the way it's used throughout the language. But we don't have any other usage than this verse here in the Lord's Prayer. So typically to do a word study, first we'd go look at all the other places the author uses the word, we don't have any. Then we'd expand to the rest of scripture, we don't have any. And if we needed still more information, we might delve into classical Greek literature, which we don't have any uses there either, and then we'd draw some conclusions. So when you go to one of the big Greek lexicons to look up the meaning of a word, you're looking at the results of someone's word study. Someone sat down and studied every use of the word that we have in all the Greek texts that exist and came to some conclusions about its range of meaning. Well our problem is we have this verse which appears in two Gospels and nothing else. And that is a real problem when you're trying to translate a word. We don't have any other uses to compare this with. If the word happens to appear only once in the entire history of Koine Greek, then we don't have any way of knowing how it was used. Origen was one of the early church fathers, he lived in the third century in Alexandria, Egypt, which was one of the centers of Greek learning in the ancient world. And writing on this verse, Origen concluded that Luke must have made this word up because he could not find it used anywhere. Well that's discouraging because if even Origen, living as much closer to the time when this word was actually being used and spoken, if he didn't know the meaning of the word, that doesn't bode well for the rest of us today. Okay, so what's our next best approach? If we have no word usage? Well, we could look at etymology. Etymology is looking at the literal meaning of the word according to its parts or its origin. Essentially we analyze its component parts. So if you take a word like microscope, its etymology is from micro and scope, and we know that micro is a preposition meaning small or tiny, and scope is a noun that has a range of meaning like view, outlook, the extent, peering intently at something, the range you can see, something like that. So knowing those two words, knowing what micro means and what scope means, we could make a pretty good guess at what the term microscope means. Etymology can be helpful, but you don't have to think long to realize that etymology doesn't always work. Take a word like butterfly. Analyzing the parts butter and fly is going to send you in the wrong direction. So normally word usage always trumps etymology, even in the best of cases, and arguments from etymology are always weaker arguments, but that's where we have to start from etymology. Well in this case, everyone agrees we have the preposition epi, which has a wide range of meaning, including on, to, against, towards, upon, but then we have this word usias and no one knows quite what that is. And there are different theories about what this word comes from and what it means. Some think it's related to usia, which means being or substance. Others think it's related to epiusai, which means next. Others think it comes from the word epiani, which means tomorrow. And I could go on, there's a few variations on that. So now we're in a situation where arguments from etymology are weak by their very nature. And to make matters worse, in this particular case, we can't even say for sure what the etymology is. It's like having the term microscope, only we have no clue what the word scope means or where it comes from. Now what do we do? What's our next step? Well, the next step is to look at how this word got translated into other languages and draw conclusions from what we know about those words. Absent other evidence from the Greek language, we have to look at how early translators translated this Greek word into other languages. To make a long story short, broadly speaking, that gives us two solutions to the mystery, and each of the two solutions has a couple of main variations. Now I am generalizing these options into like categories. It can actually get much more complicated than this and have more nuances. So at the risk of oversimplifying, which I might be doing, but I'm trying to group the options into like categories, I'm going to call these options 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B. Option one, both A and B, argue that this word refers to time. But what kind of time exactly? Well that's a little bit debated. The early church fathers were split on this. 1A would argue this word refers to today. Give us this day the bread of today. Hence our daily bread, which is the option that has survived to the present day. And this option very quickly became tradition. Although as I was reading around on the topic, very few people today argue for daily as the best translation. But it's such a long standing tradition and has been recited for so many years, it seems that even modern translators who argue against this option will still translate this word as daily. So option one is time, option one A is today, option one B is tomorrow. Give us today the bread of tomorrow, or the bread of the coming day. Now that could be give us what we need to survive in the next day, or it could be the bread of tomorrow, i.e. the bread we will eat with the Messiah in the promised great banquet of all believers at the end of history. So with either option, if you think it's today or you think it's tomorrow, we still have to decide is Jesus speaking literally of physical bread made from flour, or is he speaking metaphorically where bread is a metaphor for something that gives us life, like eating physical bread sustains us. So even though it's not often translated as anything other than daily, from my reading, the tomorrow metaphorical option is growing in its popularity among scholars today, and we'll talk more about what that means in a minute. Now again, I'm generalizing like categories into these options. So option one refers to time, and broadly speaking, that time is either today or tomorrow. And with either today or tomorrow, the bread could either be literal physical bread or it could be metaphorical bread. Option two would argue this word has nothing to do with time at all, but refers to amount or a necessary amount. So the request is for some necessary amount of bread. And of course the amount is debated. Again, broadly and categorically speaking, people who lean toward amount also tend to lean toward the literal interpretation. So option two A, which is amount, thinks the amount is subsistence. So we're praying for just enough bread to stay alive, just keep us alive, the bread of subsistence. Origin, who I mentioned earlier, opted for this interpretation. Option two B understands the amount to be whatever we need. The idea is give us what we need to keep us alive. So some might need an entire loaf, others might need one slice. A variation would be give us more than we need, give us abundance, and there are people who argue for abundance. So 2A is subsistence, 2B is some greater amount, which varies from a little more than we need to abundance. And again, as with the time option, we still have to decide is Jesus speaking of literal bread made from flour or is he speaking of metaphorical bread? So whatever option we land on, we have to decide if Jesus is referring to literal bread made from flour, water, salt, and yeast, or is he referring to metaphorical bread as in the bread of life or the bread of the coming kingdom? So if you start thinking about that, you can see how this debate could get very complicated and very nuanced. The judgment of the translator makes a big difference here. It has to, because we don't have much information to go on. If you're translating, if you're teaching this verse, if you're interpreting it, you have to pick an option, and the way you pick is you use your best judgment. Every translator, every author, every teacher, every scholar is going to give you various linguistic, theological, and maybe technical arguments to support whatever conclusion he or she reached. And I'm gonna do the exact same thing. I'm gonna give you my best guess. But you have to realize that every Bible student reads and investigates, and when we do that, we weigh the different pieces of evidence differently. Some of us find one piece of evidence very persuasive, and others think that piece of evidence is just minimal, it's not important. And this is why the judgment of the translator makes a big difference. And partly what I mean by judgment is where the translator is coming from, what worldview they are approaching the scriptures with. For example, I read a Catholic author who argued that we should understand this as supernatural bread. As a Catholic, it just seemed obvious to him that supernatural bread could only refer to the Eucharist or the bread we eat when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. So he and I looked at the same evidence and we came to different conclusions, mostly because we started from a different theological place, and that's to be expected. Now I'm gonna do the exact same thing as everybody else. I have reached certain conclusions about the context, which I've been trying to explain to you as we studied this already, and because I see the context surrounding this prayer going in a certain direction, I'm going to find any evidence that supports that direction more persuasive and give it more weight. If I'm wrong about the context, then I'm probably wrong about my understanding of this verse. Now, before I explain my conclusion, let me wander down a tangent for a moment. When we come to situations like this in the Bible, it can be very discouraging and we can be tempted to despair. This is an important prayer. This is a prayer from the Messiah himself teaching us how to pray. We can't understand a key word in a central verse. What are we to do? How can we have any confidence that we understand the prayer when there's just so much disagreement out there about what this verse means? When I was a new Christian and I was just starting to study the Bible, running into this kind of situation would send me into a tailspin. It just made me extremely anxious and upset. Especially if I was in a place where there were two teachers that I admired and respected and they disagreed with each other, that just I could hardly stand it. And it led to this anxiety over how can we have any confidence in our understanding. Well, at this point, I don't get that kind of anxiety or despair when two scholars disagree, even when When I find myself disagreeing with both of them, I don't despair now because of how I've come to understand the place of Scripture in our lives. Let me give you an analogy to explain. Suppose I have an instruction manual for how to fix an appliance, and the manual says, don't touch the blaggle or you'll be electrocuted. Well, in that situation, it is very important that I figure out what a blaggle is. My life depends on it. If I touch it, I'm dead. And some people think the Bible is that kind of instruction manual. And if the Bible were that kind of instruction manual and we didn't know what some of the words meant, that would be a very serious situation and cause for anxiety. But I would argue the Bible is not that kind of an instruction manual. I don't think the Bible ever presents us with that kind of dilemma. The Bible gives us a collection of historical narrative, of poetry, prophecy, letters, and gospels. Some of it is relatively easy to understand, some of it is challenging to understand, and there's a very small portion of it, like this verse, that we will probably never be a hundred percent certain that we understand. But we can make progress in understanding. The vast majority of scripture can be understood. The main points, the main themes come up repeatedly over and over again in many different passages. In fact, I get worried about repeating myself too much on these podcasts because the same themes come up over and over again in different letters and different parts of Scripture. The Bible is very clear about the stuff that we must know to be saved. Yes, sometimes we have to ponder it, we have to work at it, we have to reflect and meditate on it, we have to pray that the Holy Spirit give us understanding. Understanding the Bible does require some effort, but it is written in normal human language that God expects us to understand. It is not so strange and complex that none of it makes any sense. We can and do understand it with a little thought and a little reflection. We are just not in a situation where it's crucial to understand every last word precisely. We are in a situation where we need to understand the main themes, and those themes are repeated, obvious, and clear. All right, so coming back to this particular case, we have, in my opinion, two main interpretive options. Both of them are good options. One takes this verse literally, and one takes this verse metaphorically. Both of the arguments have merit, both of them use good methodology, both of them teach something that is taught elsewhere in Scripture, and in that sense, both of them are true. In this life, we may never know for certain which of these two options Jesus had in mind. Now maybe one day an archaeologist will uncover something that sheds a whole new light on this issue and then we'll know, but we may never know. Having two good, solid, true options is not a problem. I can affirm the truth that both of them teach. Now I lean toward one, but I realize I may be wrong. This is a conclusion I hold very lightly. That said, I'm going to give you both options and I'll tell you which one persuades me and just realize this is my good for nothing best guess. It is the one that persuades me. Like everyone else, I'm going to present the evidence that persuades me to land where I land, and like everyone else, I'm going to ignore or minimize the evidence that didn't persuade me. And like everyone else, I may be right or I may be wrong. Because our evidence is so sparse, I hold my conclusions more lightly than usual. So I'm going to argue for the metaphorical understanding translated as bread of tomorrow, and I'll explain that in a minute. First, let me try to give you some understanding of the literal argument. And again, I think this is a good interpretive option. Many scholars understand this to mean literal bread as in the food we need for this life. So either literal bread for today or literal bread for tomorrow. Sometimes they might see it as a subsistence level, sometimes as an abundance. Different scholars will argue for slightly different nuances within this literal understanding. For my purposes, I'm going to organize them all into one option with the common denominator being that they understand Jesus to be urging us to pray for the physical necessities that sustain our lives. Now without getting into the linguistics and the technicalities, scholars can make a reasonably good case that we should understand this word as today or bread for the coming day. If you pray this prayer in the morning, you are talking about today, the next twenty four hours. Sustain our lives today, the day I am about to live. If you pray this prayer in the evening, you are talking about tomorrow, the next day you are about to live. Either way, you're talking about the day immediately in front of you, whether you have just woken up or are about to go to sleep. And within this view, you'll find scholars arguing for taking this word as 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, but the conclusion they draw is some amount of literal bread for each day. And scholars who argue for this view will point back to the Exodus, where God gave the children of Israel manna in the wilderness. You'll recall that in the Exodus story God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt. As they were traveling through the wilderness, they complained that they didn't have enough food to eat, and God supernaturally provided food for them. Every morning when they woke up, they gathered manna off the ground, which they formed into loaves and ate. It was there every day, the amount they needed was there every day, and for many years God provided exactly the amount of manna they needed to get through the day. On the day before the Sabbath, he gave them a double portion because nothing fell on the Sabbath. Now we human beings tend to find security and accumulation. The more stuff we can hoard and provide for the future, the more secure we feel. Part of the lesson God was teaching Israel with the manna is that we can have confidence for the future because God will provide. God will give you each day exactly what you need. You can be secure, not because you've hoarded, but because God has said He will provide for you. And scholars argue that this is what lies behind Jesus' request to meet our physical needs. We pray this way to recognize that our security lies not in the work of our hands, not in hoarding and abundance, but in the God who promised to provide and care for us. So we're saying, God, I acknowledge that you are the source of all good things, both in this life and the next. My physical needs will not be met unless you graciously provide. I am trusting in you, just as Israel trusted you with the manna in the wilderness. Now I think that argument has a lot of merit. You can understand it in a way that fits with the rest of the Lord's Prayer, and if this is your view, I'm not going to quarrel with you. As I said, in this particular debate, I think both the argument for a literal understanding and the argument for a metaphorical understanding are reasonable and defensible. Both of them have merit and neither of them are out of bounds. I personally find the metaphorical view a little more persuasive, and again, this is my personal opinion, which is worth absolutely nothing. As new evidence emerges, I reserve the right to change my mind. But my current understanding is that we should understand this phrase as bread of tomorrow and that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. And there are two things that tip the scales for me. First the context, which I'll talk about in a minute, and second, one piece of linguistic evidence. Now this linguistic evidence is not a knockdown drag out argument for my view. It is one piece of the puzzle. It fits my understanding of the context, so I tend to give it more weight. So my linguistic evidence is in the nineteenth century two copies of an ancient Syriac version of the gospels were discovered. And this old Syriac translation is probably one of the oldest and earliest translations from Greek into any language. Scholars who know these things tell me that Old Syriac and Aramaic are very closely related languages. Many of the words in one language are identical in the other language. So this Syriac translation is the closest we've got to Aramaic, which is the language Jesus actually spoke. Now scholars who read ancient Syriac claim that we know a little bit more about the word in Syriac used to translate this verse. And a wooden translation of this verse in the ancient Syriac is give us today the bread that doesn't run out. Well that piece of evidence, plus the context, tips the scales to me that this is a metaphorical use of bread as opposed to literal bread that we need to survive. That tips me into thinking he's saying, give us today the bread that doesn't run out. And that's a prayer for the metaphorical bread of life, the true bread from heaven, the bread that will sustain our souls as opposed to the bread that sustains our bodies. You add to that the context of thy kingdom come, plus the fact that rabbis tended to teach a prayer that encapsulated the main idea of their teaching, so we would expect one central theme, and all that together tips the scales for me. Everything else in this prayer concerns spiritual realities, the coming kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, being rescued from evil, and I just don't think praying for physical food or sustenance fits in a list like that. So my understanding of the context pushes me to look for a metaphorical usage. Now scholars who argue for this metaphorical conclusion often bring in John six, where Jesus used bread in just this metaphorical sense. Let me read John six verses twenty seven through thirty five. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, What must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he sent. So they said to him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And then skipping down a bit to John six forty eight to fifty one, I am the bread of life, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. So here's a very clear example of Jesus using bread metaphorically to represent a spiritual need that we have, and this passage even contrasts physical bread with spiritual bread. Physical bread sustains your physical life in this world. You eat physical bread and you will still die eventually. But Jesus is the metaphorical spiritual bread that can grant you eternal life. And notice he also hints here that he does this by dying for our sins. He says that his flesh is the bread that he will give for the life of the world, and most people understand that to be a reference to his death on the cross. And that understanding ticks all the boxes for me. It fits all the options. If we find evidence that this word refers to time, then that leads us to the coming day aspect, the bread of tomorrow. If we find evidence that this word means a necessary amount, then that leads to the metaphorical understanding. Give us the bread that we truly need, the bread that will result in eternal life, not just physical life. Now critics of my understanding would say, well, that's all well and good, but the text says give us this day the bread of tomorrow. And Luke's version says, give us each day this coming bread. Well, how does that fit? Why would I pray every day for the coming bread of life? Well, scholars who take this view that I take respond to that objection by saying we're to understand this as I should pray for the bread that leads to eternal life every day. Here's another day, this is what I should ask for. This is what I should have my heart sent on. It pictures the spiritual resources for eternal life being doled out on this journey of faith every day. What should I be seeking in this life? I should be seeking the bread of life, the bread of tomorrow. Others argue for a nuance that he is saying, give us today a foretaste of the bread of tomorrow. So today, give us a glimpse, a taste of your kingdom. Give us something to sustain our hope. There's this spiritual bread, a kind of life we will have in your kingdom. Give us a taste for it or a love of it today. In that case, we're praying to experience now a little bit of the life and mercy and grace we'll experience in the kingdom. And that's also a possible understanding. Closely related to this idea of foretaste, others still say this is a prayer to be people of faith, and we would pray that prayer often. So give us today the true bread, the bread that we really need that will ultimately give us eternal life in your kingdom. In other words, make us the kind of people who have our hearts set on the bread of life. Make us the kind of people who pray thy kingdom come because that's what we most desire. Give us today the vision, the understanding of what life in your kingdom is like, so that we long for it and hope for it and trust you for it. This metaphorical understanding fits very well with the Bible as a whole, and I think it fits slightly better with the context of the two kinds of prayers he has just warned us against, and the larger context of beware of practicing your righteousness before other people. If I took this verse out of the prayer and just looked at all the other verses, I think the focus of this prayer is what have you set your heart on? And Jesus is urging us to have our hearts set on the kingdom of God. So I'm inclined to see this verse in light of having your heart set on the kingdom of God, and a verse that is focused on keep us alive today just doesn't fit as well. So I would translate this as the bread of tomorrow or the bread that we truly need, but the sense of it is not bread made out of flour, but the bread of life that we will find in the kingdom of God. So here's how I see the flow of thought. Jesus sets up this prayer by warning about two very common perversions of prayer. One, like the hypocritical Pharisees, is using prayer as a tool to gain the worldly approval of others rather than seeking the approval of God. The other, like the Gentiles, is using prayer as a tool to manipulate God into giving you worldly gain in this life. I don't think Jesus is telling us what to pray for, but he's teaching us the mindset we should have when we approach God in prayer. Don't be like the Pharisees who act religious to gain worldly approval, don't be like the Gentiles who seek to manipulate God into giving them prosperity now. Be the kind of people who want to find eternal life in the kingdom of God. In other words, I don't think he's answering the question what are the most important things to pray for? If he was answering that question, then literal bread seems to be an even less likely option to me, because it's just not that important, especially when compared to having our sins forgiven and the coming of God's kingdom. So I don't think he's answering the question, what are the most important things to pray for? I think he's answering the question, with what mindset should I approach God in prayer? This prayer tells me that I should approach God in prayer, agreeing with him that the kingdom of God is what I most need. I should agree with him I am a sinner who needs to be rescued from my sin. I agree with him that the world is broken and fallen and corrupt and it needs to be rescued from corruption and futility. I need his forgiveness. I need him to deliver me from my sins. I agree with him that his holiness and righteousness is what I need most and it's what the world needs most. The sense then is Father, give us each day the bread that we truly need, the bread that leads to eternal life. We acknowledge there's only one solution to our problem, the eternal life that God has promised in the gospel. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure that out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, no requests for donations, and no advertisements. It is all free for you to improve your study skills and your understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast and leave a positive rating and a written review wherever you listen to your podcast. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. And if you can, tell them where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and my favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can listen to his music and find his TVs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.