'Lead us not into temptation' - eh??

[springydaffs]

This confuses me - is it a misquote? Does anybody know the original hebrew/greek/whatever

It can't be the original meaning - God doesn't lead people into temptation! He'd be a pretty horrible God if he did. No wonder people think he's horrible if they recite this endlessly and it's etched into everyone's mind if they're 30 or over...

here

Might it be a recognition that sometimes we'd love to go along the path right NEXT to temptation, so we can sigh over it a bit, not to DO anything, you understand, oh, but it does look sooo nice, and not nearly so bad from up close, actually, it's probably quite ok really, oops, here I am off the path and having, mmm, a great time!

And therefore saying, "God! Keep me RIGHT AWAY from that! I can't do it by myself!"

The Christian Spiritualist version of this line is:

"When in temptation leave us not" or "Leave us not when in temptation".

Meaning, don't leave us at times when we are tempted to stray from the right path. Don't know if that helps. However, I don't pretend to have a clue about the original Hebrew or Greek.

This is quite interesting: www.thenazareneway.com/lords_prayer.htm

This site gives various versions, including Latin and Greek (at the end). Can't read Greek, but the Latin does translate pretty literally as 'lead us not'...

I like to think of it as meaning 'Don't let me be tempted', but I don't know if that's philologically sustainable or just more comfortable as a reading!

If one does not believe in a Devil, and one does believe in a God with some influence (I definitely don't think God is all-powerful) then God has some responsibility for contexts in which one is tempted to behave badly.

My own pet examples involve self-deception-- carefully not seeing, for the sake of amour-propre, what anyone else wd notice about a situation with half an eye. So my current version of "Lead us not" might be "Please help me to see clearly whether the clear picture suits my vanity or not".

Lead us not into temptation means to lead us away from temptation, to steer us well clear of temptation.

Temptation is important though, like building a muscle using resistance. I'm not saying we welcome temptation with open arms but it's a necessary evil, if you like. If you didn't get any you'd get flabby. So I don't think God would steer us well clear of it OR lead us into it. He would be capricious if he did (and lots of people think he is )

Interesting.

The biblical passages about temptation that we remember so well are the accounts in the Garden of Eden and of Jesus in the wilderness.

Adam and Eve were told to eat from any tree they liked, except for the tree of knowledge of life. So, basically, with encouragement from the serpent, they made a bee-line for it. When Jesus was in the wilderness, he used scripture to resist temptation.

I think we see examples of this in our everyday lives. Mentioning something forbidden encourages us to want it, and we use scripture to bring some sense into the situation. Our children are perfect at demonstrating the wanting of something forgiven ("don't touch...").

I think that we are tremendously tempted by the ways of the world (the flesh, the unholy trinity, or whatever) and it does take prayer to resist these temptations. It is impossible to do it under our own steam, imo. I am very grateful that God has taken away from my heart the want to conform to the ways of the world. I do slip rather often though, but keep myself in check - just!

I tend to think it isn't worth it tbh ie to give into 'temptation'. eg I can't drink, I'm allergic to it (or something), makes me terribly ill. For a while I was 'tempted' to have a glass but the fallout was so horrific, the temptation lost its sheen. It simply wasn't worth it.

I think the thing about temptation is that you think you may be able to get away with it 'this time': you cross your fingers and hope there won't be some major consequence, tell yourself it isn't so bad and anyway, so what, nobody's perfect etc etc. I honestly don't think it's worth it though, I'm thoroughly convinced that what God says will work really does work, and to do it another way (and hope for the best) is just mad. why bother, when his ways work so beautifully.

u-oh, sounding holy. Just experience I guess.

Brilliant post by honisoit - I agree that it is Lead us away from temptation - in my own flesh, I am not capable, but if the Spirit is at work in me, then I start to seek God's will and think in the way you describe.

The idea is that you can be tempted beyond your power to resist - think Tolkien did a good job of portraying this with the One Ring. I've never been unfaithful, but I've never wanted to be, so it's not me that's virtuous

Lovely Freudian slip in HoniSoit's post: forgiven instead of forbidden??!!