Jesus’ Model Prayer - Part 4
●Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, (trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us). ●And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
●For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:11-15)
THE ALPINE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STILL GRIPS ME TODAY. This is the Alpine Public School where I learned John 3:16 and the “Lord’s” Prayer. In our learning this prayer, instead of saying “forgive us our debts,” we said: “forgive us our trespasses.” Instead of saying “as we forgive our debtors, we said: “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
I STILL SAY "TRESPASS." But notice: after “Amen,” the translators use “trespasses” three times. So, whoever “doctored up” the verse to let us little kids say “trespass” and “trespasses” all the way through the seven verses, did no harm to the text (in my opinion).
I MUST DIGRESS ONE MORE TIME TO ALPINE SCHOOL. Leaning against the wall under the two windows (5th & 6th grade room) during lunch hour, (during my 2nd grade) I learned how to chew tobacco and how to break the habit of chewing tobacco in one, 30-minute lunch period, ‘nuff said. To the right of the porch, there is another, identical structure like the one you see. (Each had two rooms and two grades in each room. (Grades 1-8) The workmanship in that building is outstanding! It is now 80 years old. When I took this picture, a couple had bought the building and was renovating it as their dwelling.
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WAS A FEW HUNDRED YARDS AWAY from a large limestone high school building (steam heat). When the high school was vacated after the war, the roof was neglected and fell in. The floor of the nice, big auditorium then rotted out. It became a ghost building until it was all torn down and sowed in grass. The high school was built first. During the Depression, few people ever made it to high school, much less through high school. (My mother had to live with her uncle at Livingston to finish the 8th grade.)
THE HIGH SCHOOL WAS ELABORATE WITH A SHOP, A WPA GYMNASIUM, a home for boarding students, and a dairy farm built in to supply milk for the boarding dormitory. The school complex was preceded by a Bible camp on Alpine Mountain, above the school. The Bible camp drew people in during the summer for special revival meetings. The camp was responsible for beginning the whole thing. Google has some pictures of the mountain and the Alpine community.
A PRESBYTERIAN GROUP IN NEW YORK FINANCED THE BUILDING of the high school building, which also housed the elementary school until the building above was built. Alpine was considered an area of dire poverty and attracted the attention of the church group in New York. A beautiful Presbyterian Church building was built between the high school and the elementary school. Before the church building was ever used, some oily rags caught fire and burned the new building. The stone walls remained, and it was rebuilt. A residential house was built near the elementary school to house the church pastor. Basically, it was a Presbyterian project, but the elementary school building was a WPA project. My brother graduated from the high school in 1942.
ALPINE WAS THE PLACE TO BE IN THOSE DAYS IF YOU WANTED YOUR CHILDREN to get a good education. I didn’t know about any of this background when I started to school there. I started writing all of this to simply say: I learned John 3:16 and the Lord’s Prayer there. I also had some of the best opportunity to learn reading and writing and the fundamentals of education from two good teachers, and a good start in music. It is a wonderful place to remember! Outdoor toilet. Sack/bucket lunch from home. We finally got a soup-lunch program going.
THE BOYS IN ANY GRADE COULD GO DOWN TO THE OUTSIDE TOILET AND SMOKE during lunch if they had written permission from their parents. Well, the written permission thing was a good idea, but no one paid any attention to it. I think that takes care of Alpine for now. I love to go back and visit the campus, although there is no school there now. The church still has services.
THE "LORD'S PRAYER" (Some Bible Students Prefer to call it: The Disciples’ Prayer or the “Model Prayer.”) was occasioned by a request of one of His disciples. And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. (Luke 11:1) It’s obvious that the disciple was asking Jesus to teach them “how to pray,” and not necessarily how to get in the habit of praying or how to discipline them selves to pray or if they should always kneel when they prayed. It was: “how to pray,” it seems.
IN MATTHEW'S 7 VERSES OF THE "LORD'S PRAYER," there was a priority: The Person of God, His name, His kingdom and His will on earth. Then, He gets to the first concern of the one doing the praying: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Laborer’s were paid daily so they could take their meager earning for the day and buy food for himself or for the family. That was the first “human thing” to pray for: bread, food. In that day, there were no entitlement programs, no food stamps. Bread! “Give us this day our daily bread.”
THE NEXT THING AFTER BREAD WAS TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE KINKS IN human relationships. The next thing in praying was forgiving everything that needed forgiving. They were taught not to let the sun go down on their wrath. Get the anger, the disputes settled before sunset. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: (Ephesians 4:26) In learning to pray, right after bread comes being at peace with one another.
Read Through the Bible in a YEAR
AUGUST 16, 2018 – THURSDAY
A.M. Psalms 105-106 P.M. Romans 15:1-20
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)
A Good Verse to Memorize:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalm 19:1) (Write verse on scrap of paper and put in your pocket to memorize.)
Song for Today:
Keep on the Firing Line (2:42) (Singing Men of Calvary Mem.Church.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2wSORRwBzA
You may need to adjust your volume.
Health Hint:
(Holding this over one day so you can be sure and look it over.) The new kid on the health block is the role our gut plays in our health. The anti-biotics are playing havoc with our overall health. Specialists from Duke University, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Mayo Clinic explain why it is so important to maintain a healthy balance of bacteria in our gut.
Today, I reviewed the 6-7 videos put together by Health Reporter: Lorie Johnson. Follow this link to download the streaming videos to your computer. (They may have withdrawn the offer of the printed book. They have had over a hundred thousand requests for it and are running behind.) You MAY be able to stream it on your smart phone. Follow http://www.cbn.com/special/buildabettergut/ to access the streaming videos to your computer.
I urge you to download and view the streaming videos. Doctors from Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University Hospital, and others. Put together by health journalist: Lorie Johnson. Follow this link to her site within CBN: https://www1.cbn.com/node/256801 There are at least a dozen top-notch videos on health. I regard her as one of the best medical reporters in America today. Search her web site to learn a lot of good things.
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