Led Toward Righteousness

While I have used and read the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible for most of my adult years, there are times when my mind carries me back to the King James Version which was the only one in town when I was growing up in years and into my faith.  Such a moment came as I made it to the 13th verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew which contains one of the lines in the Lord's Prayer.  The NRSV reads, "And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one."  Somehow those words just do not do for me what the KJV does as it says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

 

I reckon I have just prayed the Lord 's Prayer too many times using the older words to ever want to try to change them.  At first read, it seems like a strange word to read.  Is it saying to us that God, the good Father, might actually take us to a place where we are likely to stumble and lose our soul?  Surely, it is no more saying such a thing than it is for us to think that the father who shared in the moment of our creation would deliberately set us up for failure and pain.  A good father is one who only seeks good things for his children and if our earthly father would do such a thing, how much more would our heavenly Father do so as well.  Of course, we can credit Jesus with this logic!

 

What is required as we read the Words of this prayer and what is required as we pray it is sensible thinking that opens up windows of possibilities for us.  Jesus was certainly not telling us to seek the luring power of temptation, but to avoid putting ourselves in a position to be adversely affected by it.  It is better not to stand in the presence of the power of the evil one than to think that we can stand in such a place and not stumble.  It is better to pray for a road that takes us far away from the power of the evil one who desires to under mine our journey of faith.  Perhaps, these words of the prayer invite us to pray that we might be led in the paths of righteousness as the 23rd Psalm would suggest.