Beyond private prayer, Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer. It demonstrates how we should pray as a group. Jesus begins: “when ye [plural] pray.” Several early Christian texts document the use of sacred group prayers, with the participants standing in a circle around Jesus at the center. The Lord’s Prayer was undoubtedly intended as a pattern or model for group prayers. Jesus probably taught something like it on several occasions and fluidly modified it somewhat each time, as reflected in the fact that no two texts of the prayer are quite the same (see Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4; and 3 Nephi 13:9–13; Didache 8 offers yet a fourth independent version). The early church father Origen understood the Lord’s Prayer to be only a model or outline, and the rabbis similarly expressed strong prohibitions against reciting a fixed prayer, recommending that in saying a set personal prayer one should vary it a little each time.
It is possible, in the early church, that the person leading the prayer may have said, “Our Father which art in Heaven,” and then the group may have responded antiphonally, “Hallowed be thy name.” The pattern for that prayer was thought to be one of the holy things that should not be cast before the dogs.
In the Sermon at the Temple, the words “give us this day our daily bread” are not found in the Book of Mormon version, but they are in the Joseph Smith Translation. Why might that be not here in the situation in Bountiful? The word “daily” is an untranslatable word in the Greek. The word is epiousion, and a literal translation might be, “Give us this day our bread that is beyond being.” The roots of epiousion are ousion, a form of eimi, which is “to be.” The epi means “above” and “upon.” How did it become “daily bread”? Well, the Jerome translation into Latin rendered this as “daily.” And indeed, we eat bread daily, and should give thanks daily. However, the Greek may have been saying something more like “Give us this day our heavenly bread,” or that which is “above” nature or “super” natural. Jesus is that bread, or the new heavenly manna, as he said, “I am that bread of life” (John 6:48).
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Is the Lord’s Prayer Different in 3 Nephi? (3 Nephi 13:9) KnoWhy 204 (October 7, 2016).
John W. Welch, Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 79–82, 206–208.
John W. Welch, “The Lord’s Prayers,” Ensign, January, 1976.