The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord's Prayer Book

Every Sunday, the Lord’s Prayer echoes in churches around the world.

It is an indisputable principle of Christian faith. It is the way Jesus taught his followers to pray and distills the most essential beliefs required of every one of the world’s 2.5 billion Christians. In The Greatest Prayer, our foremost Jesus scholar explores this foundational prayer line by line for the richest and fullest understanding of a prayer every Christian knows by heart.

An expert on the historical Jesus, Crossan provides just the right amount of history, scholarship, and detail for us to rediscover why this seemingly simple prayer sparked a revolution. Addressing issues of God’s will for us and our response, our responsibilities to one another and to the earth, the theology of our daily bread, the moral responsibilities that come with money, our nation-states, and God’s kingdom, Crossan reveals the enduring meaning and universal significance of the only prayer Jesus ever taught.

Publishers Weekly

No prayer is better known in the Christian world than the Lord's Prayer, taught by Jesus to His disciples as they listened to Him preach about the Kingdom of God. Crossan, co-founder of The Jesus Seminar and acclaimed author of many works on the life and mission of Jesus Christ, writes to answer the question, "How can we who live today hear the words of the Lord's Prayer in ways that reflect the concerns of His immediate hearers and impact our lives 2,000 years later?" Delving deeply into the story of the Jewish nation in Jesus' time, Crossan shows how Jesus, couched in the words of this prayer, advises His followers to reject violent methods of resisting their Roman captors, and instead work for the coming of the Kingdom of God, the only way to achieve true freedom. The theme of nonviolence permeates this book and becomes the foundation for Crossan's understanding, not only of the Lord's Prayer, but also of a variety of extra-biblical sources he references to support his thesis. A fine effort by a fine scholar.
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