The Pope has a problem with the sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer. Folks at church asked for my opinion on Sunday and my answer was pretty simple - why would we mess with Jesus' words. An examination of the Greek (see Gene Veith's blog for a fine analysis) shows that "and lead us not into temptation" is a correct translation. So, what does this petition mean? Martin Luther reminds us:
God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.
