The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9–13
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:
“[The Lord’s Prayer] is not the final word in prayer, nor is it designed for verbatim repetition by the Saints in their private or public prayers. Rather the disciples were receiving from Jesus instruction in prayer in the same way that revelation comes in all fields; it was coming line upon line, precept upon precept, with the assurance that greater understanding and direction would be given as rapidly as the spiritual progression of the Saints permitted. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance, does not conclude in the name of Christ, as all complete and proper prayers should. Later Jesus was to command His disciples to pray in His name [see John 14:13–14; 15:16; 16:23], explaining that though they had ‘hitherto . . . asked nothing’ in His name, yet that should be the order from thenceforth (John 16:24).
“But this prayer was given as a sample or illustration of how Deity might appropriately be addressed in prayer, of the praise and adoration that should be extended to Him, and of the type and kind of petitions men should make to Him. As far as it goes it is one of the most concise, expressive, and beautiful statements found in the scriptures. It does not, however, reach the heights of one of Jesus’s later prayers among the Jews, the great Intercessory Prayer [see John 17], nor does it compare with some of the prayers He uttered among the Nephites [see 3 Nephi 19].”
(Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [1965–73], 1:235.)
Randal S. Chase spent his childhood years in Nephi, Utah, where his father was a dry land wheat farmer and a businessman. In 1959 their family moved to Salt Lake City and settled in the Holladay area. He served a full-time mission in the Central British (England Central) Mission from 1968 to 1970. He returned home and married Deborah Johnsen in 1971. They are the parents of six children—two daughters and four sons—and an ever-expanding number of grandchildren.
He was called to serve as a bishop at the age of 27 in the Sandy Crescent South Stake area of the Salt Lake Valley. He served six years in that capacity, and has since served as a high councilor, a stake executive secretary and clerk, and in many other stake and ward callings. Regardless of whatever other callings he has received over the years, one was nearly constant: He has taught Gospel Doctrine classes in every ward he has ever lived in as an adult—a total of 35 years.
Dr. Chase was a well-known media personality on Salt Lake City radio stations in the 1970s. He left on-air broadcasting in 1978 to develop and market a computer-based management, sales, and music programming system to radio and television stations in the United States, Canada, South America, and Australia. After the business was sold in 1984, he supported his family as a media and business consultant in the Salt Lake City area.
Having a great desire to teach young people of college age, he determined in the late 1980s to pursue his doctorate, and received his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Utah in 1997. He has taught communication courses at that institution as well as at Salt Lake Community College and Dixie State University for 21 years. He served as Communication Department chair and is currently a full-time professor at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah.
Concurrently with his academic career, Brother Chase has served as a volunteer LDS Institute and Adult Education instructor in the CES system since 1994, both in Salt Lake City and St. George, where he currently teaches a weekly Adult Education class for three stakes in the Washington area. He has also conducted multiple Church History tours and seminars. During these years of gospel teaching, he has developed an extensive library of lesson plans and handouts which are the predecessors to these study guides.
Dr. Chase previously published a thirteen-volume series of study guides on the Book of Mormon, Church History, the Old Testament, and the New Testament. The series, titled Making Precious Things Plain, along with four smaller study guides on Isaiah, Jeremiah, the story of the Nativity, and the final week of our Lord’s atoning sacrifice, are designed to assist teachers and students of the gospel, as well as those who simply want to study on their own. Several of these books are also available in the Spanish language.
