The chapter opens with Jesus praying in "a certain place" and being asked by one of his disciples to teach them to pray, as John the Baptist had taught his disciples.[3] The place is not named but the context is within Jesus' "journey to Jerusalem" which he has commenced, with his disciples, in Luke 9:51. Frederic Farrar suggests that Luke "did not possess a ... definite note of place or of time".[4]
The form of prayer taught by John the Baptist has perished.[4]
In reply, Jesus taught his disciples the "model prayer",[5] known generally as the Lord's Prayer. Some writers looking at Matthew's account (Matthew 6:9–13) alongside Luke's account have argued that the disciple was probably a later recruit to Jesus' entourage and therefore not present at the Sermon on the Mount.[6] Eric Franklin notes the "appropriate" connection between this section and the end of chapter 10, where Mary's listening to Jesus has been commended rather than Martha's activism.[7]: 942
And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'?"[8]
For Luke, the Lord's Prayer has a strongly eschatological focus: it prays for the coming of the Kingdom of God and maintaining that until such coming, Jesus' disciples "should live under its shadow and out of its strength". So Luke follows on from the prayer with a parable which speaks of the need for urgent and insistent prayer, portrayed through "a determined petition for bread". The parable indicates that God is not indifferent during this time of waiting, and Franklin observes that any suggestion to the contrary "arises out of a misreading of the signs of the times".[7]: 943
Farrar adds an allegorical reading in his assessment of this story:
Allegorically we may see here the unsatisfied hunger of the soul, which wakens in the midnight of a sinful life.[4]
Keep asking, seeking, knocking
So I say to you, "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you".[9]
The text here:
Greek: αιτειτε και δοθησεται υμιν ζητειτε και ευρησετε κρουετε και ανοιγησεται υμιν,[10] (aiteite kai dothēsetai hymin zēteite kai eurēsete krouete kai anoigēsetai hymin)
(δίδοτε καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν, didote kai dothēsetai hymin)
God's responsiveness to persistent prayer can be understood in the light of the parable of the friend at midnight and the persistence in seeking help which it represents.
Verses 11-12 maintain the theme of asking:
11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?[11]
Luke gives three examples of possible requests, two matching Matthew's account, asking for a loaf, and for a fish,[12] and a third of his own, requesting an egg. Codex Bezae omits the first example.[13] Meyer sees in this passage an example of the literary technique known as anacoluthon, an unexpected discontinuity in the expression of ideas.[6]
He who does not gather with me scatters
The Latin text of Luke 10:41-11:5 in Codex Claromontanus V, from 4th or 5th century.
Baptist theologian John Gill suggests that "the allusion [in verse 23b] is either to the gathering of the sheep into the fold, and the scattering of them by the wolf; or to the gathering of the wheat, and binding it in sheaves, and bringing it home in harvest; and to the scattering of the wheat loose in the field, whereby it is lost".[14]
Verses 37-54 enumerate a number of criticisms raised by Jesus against scribes (lawyers) and Pharisees, which are also recorded in Matthew 23:1–39.[15]Mark 12:35–40 and Luke 20:45–47 also include warnings about scribes.
^Gill, J. (1746–48), Gill's Exposition on Luke 11, accessed 17 June 2018
^Kupfer, Marcia Ann, ed. (2008). The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 223–224. ISBN978-0-271-03307-5. OCLC180190788.
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