Trespasses, Sins, or Debts?
Depending on which gospel we are reading from the Lord's prayer says forgive us our sins, debts or trespasses. Let's look into these differences.
The Lord's prayer which was likely spoken by Jesus in the common Jewish language of Aramaic and used the generic word for sin. Jews understood this general word for sin as being based on obedience to the law vs. disobedience to the law being sin or a debt owed to God.
- So Matthew who was a Jew when he translates the Lord's Prayer into Greek would use words that have the idea of owing a debt.
- While Luke with his Gentile background translates into Greek from his background and used the most common Greek word for sin which was the idea of missing a mark or not being perfect.
- But we also see the word trespasses coming from Matthew 6:14. Here the word trespasses has the idea of the blunder, a false step or in the wrong place.
We know God authored these passages and we can see how these three ideas come together. We can all see our need to believe in Jesus as our Savior.
Topics:
Debts, Lord's Prayer, Sin, Trespasses