Luke 11:4

The fourth petition requests God’s pardon. Luke used the simple word "sins" (Gr. hamartia) rather then the Jewish idiom "debts" (Gr. opheilemata) that Matthew employed. The believer in Jesus has already received forgiveness from the guilt of his or her sins (cf. Luke 5:20; Luke 7:47; Romans 5:1; Romans 8:1; Ephesians 1:7). Therefore the forgiveness Jesus spoke of here is the forgiveness that is necessary for the maintenance of fellowship with the Father (cf. 1 John 1:5-10). A person’s unwillingness to forgive others who have wronged him or her may indicate that he or she knows nothing of God’s forgiveness (cf. Luke 7:47). Conversely one’s willingness to forgive other people shows that one recognizes his or her own need for forgiveness.

The fifth petition requests divine protection. This request does not imply that God might entice us into sin (cf. James 1:1-15). Nevertheless God does allow people to undergo temptation (Gr. peirasmos) in the sense of the testing of their faithfulness (Luke 4:1-12; cf. Deuteronomy 6-8). This petition expresses the disciple’s awareness of his or her need for God’s help in avoiding excessive temptation and enduring all temptation. It is essentially a request for help in remaining faithful to God. The unusual reverse form of this petition is due to its being a figure of speech (i.e., litotes) in which the writer expressed a positive idea by stating its negative opposite. Luke made frequent use of litotes in the narrative portions of Acts (cf. Acts 12:18; Acts 15:2; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:12; Acts 19:24; Acts 27:20). This construction accentuates the contrast with the preceding fourth petition. [Note: See also Thomas L. Constable, "The Lord’s Prayer," in Giving Ourselves to Prayer, compiled by Dan R. Crawford (Terre Haute, Ind.: PrayerShop Publishing, 2005), pp. 70-75.]