- we ask God that his will be done, as if alternatives to his will could be done instead;
No, there IS no alternative. It is my belief this is a submissive acknowledgment to God sovereign will. We are requesting God's will be done in our lives. It is not a hope that God's will, will be done.
I don't have a problem with this. We are to forgive others just as our father has forgiven us. This is spoken to many times in scripture. Our salvation does not rest on our failure to keep this-only our rewards.
God does not tempt us. However it is presumptuous of us when we go off on our own and not follow the leading of the Lord. (Yes, we can run off-think of Jonah.) We should remind ourselves that God is perfectly capable of withholding His grace and mercies from us.
"Evil" here is meant in the general sense of being relieved of trouble, disease, bad neighbors, and, yes, Satan. God wants us to pray for help-that is one of the purpose of prayer. If we are NOT liberated from a disease does that mean that God failed? You and I both know that's not the case. You would say that God answered "No" to your prayer. I would say that God has told me that my affliction is the best thing for me in refining me for His kingdom.
I have no problem interpreting any of this as a Reformer.
- "Thy will be done", you acknowledge, is a meaningless petition.
- "Forgive us our sins", you say, is so that we get rewards. What rewards? What if our sins are not forgiven, -- do we still end up in heaven? Hello?
- "Do not lead us into temptation", you again say that it does not happen, so it is a meaningless petition.
- "Deliver us from evil" -- according to you we should not pray it because the "evil" here is annoyances of life that are really good for us. But that would have been covered under "temptations" would it not?
While the Doury-Rheims translates it "supersubstantial" there is nothing in the Greek that would indicate this is anything other than daily sustenance. I think Jerome got a bit excited.
"epiousion" is exactly "supersubstantial". "Sufficient" is a possible meaning (emeran, daily, is a separate word in both gospels), but "supersubstantial" is the precise meaning. If the evangelists wanted to stick to the simple "daily", they would not have added this rather extravagant epithet.
No, it doesn't. The Greek word used is a nominative form ponerou and means the evil one, the satan; it certanly does not stand for "trouble and disease."
The same is evident from Slavonic version: "но избави нас от лукаваго"(but rescue us from the evil one)
I don't have a problem with this. We are to forgive others just as our father has forgiven us
Not quite. It asks for forgiveness from the Father as we have forgiven others. Through the Lord's prayer, we place a condition on Gods forgiveness - that His forgiveness be as we forgive others. Unless we are merciful to others, God will not be merciful to us.