by Jen | Jul 1, 2025 | 5-15, DISO studies, Matthew 6
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Happy Independence Day to my U.S. readers! Amid the hot dogs, potato salad, and fireworks, let us all pause and thank God for the durability of this democracy. May we always strive to be one nation, under God indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Amen!
Last Week’s Work
MY PERSONAL TREASURE
This time, as I prayed over my huh?s and wow!s from last week, I was drawn to the prayer’s final request: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or the evil one]” (v13), and I recorded these three thoughts:
- This is the last of the requests. I’ve mentioned before the primacy and recency learning principles: material presented first and last should be the most important because it’s easier for learners to recall that information.
- The choice of verb, lead, seems strange: does God actually lead us to temptation? I thought that was Satan’s job.
- And didn’t Jesus already deliver us on the cross?
So, in this study, I intend to focus on the phrasing in Matthew 6:13.
WHO (FIVE CHARACTERS)
This passage is part of a larger discourse by a character referenced only as I (v5), but Matthew identified Him earlier (in context at 4:17) as Jesus. Jesus refers to His audience as you/your throughout the passage. And they also seem to be a least part of the group referred to as our (v9), us (vv11-13), and we (v12)—with Jesus, I assume.
He also used your, as well as who in vv9-10, to refer to the Father character (v6). I think it’s interesting Jesus didn’t call Him God in this passage.
The last characters I noticed were the two bad examples: the hypocrites/they/their in v5 and Gentiles/they/their/them in vv7-8.
WHERE (FIVE LOCATIONS)
Jesus begins his instruction on prayer with a discussion of where one should pray: not in the synagogues or at the street corners, but alone and in your room with the door shut (v5). He does have good reasons for that though, and we’ll explore them more this coming week!
The other two locations present two contrasts (more on that in two weeks!): the Father is in heaven, and that’s where His will is done (vv9-10). But on earth, where this discourse took place, the audience is enjoined to pray for God’s will to be done (v10).
WHEN (THREE TIMEFRAMES)
By repeating the phrase when you pray (vv5,6,7), Jesus infers that prayer is something the audience already does, and he explains three important prayer techniques: don’t grandstand like the hypocrites, pray in private, and don’t heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles.
The second timeframe I noticed was in v8: Jesus says God already knows what you need before you ask for it. And last, in v11, I discovered Jesus’s prayer is intended to ask for bread daily. That makes me think prayer should be a regular, daily occurrence.
Dig-In Challenges
Here’s my plan for this week:
- PRAY the prayer I wrote last week before I study.
- MINE: Look for repeated words or phrases like(hint hint) when you pray in this passage; and check for synonyms or pronouns that might refer to emphasized concepts, too.
- MINE: Locate any special statements (blessings, commands, curses, prayers, promises, requests, and/or warnings) in the passage.
- MINE: Note any lists (3 or more similar items) mentioned in Matthew 6:5-15.
Remember, you can download this printable summary of the DISO process for more specific instructions. I hope you’ll check in with me next week!
GO TO WEEK 4 >
by Jen | Jun 24, 2025 | 5-15, DISO studies, Matthew 6
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Hi there!
Welcome back! As I write this, geopolitical events in the Middle East make me wonder (again!) if this is the conflict to end all conflicts, but only God knows that for sure. Even so, time is running out. In our last online study we saw eternal life comes only from belief in Jesus as the son of God (John 3:16-18). My friend, if you are on the fence about Jesus, I encourage you to seek whatever information you need to decide in your heart that He is God’s Son who died for you. When we pass from this earthly existence, it will be too late to choose Him as Savior (Luke 16:26; Hebrews 9:27-28).
Know also, your decision for Christ doesn’t mean you have to join a church or even go to church. But this earthly walk is so much better when we find a place of sanctuary where we can be with other Christians, learning and teaching among them. Church is simply a place—like this study, really—where you can go to learn more about Jesus and talk with members of the family of God. He will draw you to the right place for you if you let Him. Now, let’s dig in!
Last Week’s Work
MY PRAYER
For this study, I’m praying:
Lord, thank You for another chance to study prayer, and specifically, the prayer You gave us. Open my eyes, heart, and mind so I can: see what Your Spirit—my Helper—wants me to see, understand it as Matthew and his audience did, and make a plan to align with the principle I’ll discover here. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen!
HUH? and WOW! MOMENTS
These are my questions and discoveries from surveying the passage:
HUH?s
- What does Matthew mean in v6, “… your Father who is in secret”?
- Do vv7-8 mean we shouldn’t pray long prayers?
- What does it mean to “hallow” the Father’s name (v9)?
- How do I know God’s will (v10)?
- Referencing the footnote to v13: “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen:” what’s the origin of that phrase? Why was it left out of some manuscripts?
WOW!s
- Don’t pray in public to be seen by others if you want God to grant something beyond people’s attention (v5).
- Hypocrites (v5) and Gentiles (v7) weren’t effective prayer warriors.
- Verses 9-10 indicate actual petition should come after “hallowing” God’s name and submitting to His will.
- The only physical request mentioned is for food (v11).
- We will be forgiven to the extent we forgive others (v12, vv14-15).
- The final request is to not be tempted, but “delivered” from evil (v13).
Dig-In Challenges
If you’re studying this passage with me, listen to the Spirit this week, and choose a personal Huh? or Wow! to dig more deeply into. Going forward, I’ll refer to this as your personal treasure. It can be something you noticed in your study, one of the items I’ve listed above, or anything else the Holy Spirit has laid upon your heart as you think about this passage. As we study, we’ll consider everything in the chapter, but we’ll gradually narrow our focus to the verses that talk about our treasure.
- PRAY for the Spirit to direct your focus for the remainder of this study. In your journal, record the personal treasure He identifies, along with any verse(s) relating to it from the study text.
- MINE: Read Matthew 6:5-15, focusing on the setting (who’s involved, and where and when the action took place). Note anything the Spirit emphasizes about the characters involved, any locations mentioned, and any timeframes discussed.
I hope you’ll check in next week to see what the Spirit is showing me.
GO TO WEEK 3 >
by Jen | Jun 17, 2025 | 5-15, DISO studies, Introduction, Matthew 6
Hi! Thanks for joining me in this Digging into Scripture Ourselves (DISO) study of Matthew 6:5-15. I can’t wait to see what the Holy Spirit will reveal to us here!
If it seems we’ve studied this passage before, we have. This is the fourth of seven studies I’m calling Restoration. I explored the Lord’s Prayer five years ago (!) in this blog using my original “20 Questions” version of DISO. Unfortunately, the online version of those posts was destroyed a few years ago. Late last year I felt called to bring back the studies of widely recognized passages like this one. Rather than simply republishing those old posts, though, I sensed the Spirit leading me to study those verses again, this time leaning more on Him as we walk through the five steps of Praying, Surveying, Mining, Refining, and Aligning.
Let’s Study Matthew 6:5-15!
This week, I’ll begin by praying and surveying Matthew 6:5-15. If you want to study on your own with me, here’s what I recommend you have ready:
- A copy of Matthew 6:5-15, plus access to the entire Gospel of Matthew.
I like to refer often to the text I’m studying and sometimes make notes on it, so I copy the passage from https://www.blueletterbible.org, paste it into a word processing program like Google docs or MS Word, change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a pdf of my Scripture study sheet with lots of room for doodles and notes.
- A study journal.
We’ll spend the next seven weeks immersed in and learning about Matthew 6:5-15. And the work we’ll do each week builds on what came before, so plan to record at least some highlights from your work over the coming weeks. I’m old-school and like the pen-and-paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to write out or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app, or recording audio files, instead.
Or, you may decide to just read the posts I publish here. That’s good, too, because you’ll become familiar with the process and see how the Spirit speaks to my situation. You may find that’s enough to make it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t dig into Matthew 6:5-15 yourself this time.
Dig-In Challenges
So, here’s how I’ll be studying this week:
- PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer with which I’ll start each of my weekly study sessions. If you’ve studied with me before, you know I usually just adapt a previous prayer. Though I’ve almost memorized the bones of my prayer, I still write it in my study journal to remind me to pray it each time I open the notebook.
- SURVEY: Then I’ll read Matthew 6:5-15, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and later ask the Spirit to direct me to the one I should dig deepest into right now.
If you’d like more information about these steps, check out this printable summary of the process I’ll be using over the next eight weeks. Or, you can always reach out to me with your questions through my contact page or at [email protected].
I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you, along with relevant snippets of my previous Lord’s Prayer study from 2020, so I hope you’ll keep checking in with me each week!
GO TO WEEK 2 >
by Jen | Jun 10, 2025 | 1-21, DISO studies, John 3
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back to the final post for our 2025 John 3:1-21 study!
Last Week’s Work
LESSON(S) LEARNED
As I went through my notes for this study, my attention landed on how it seems Jesus and Nicodemus are “talking past” each other: trading comments, but neither seems to pay much attention to what the other says.
Intellectually, I know that’s not so. Jesus, as God, loves Nicodemus. I can’t believe He’s purposefully trying to confuse or irritate him. In my review today, I noticed for the first time a subtle shift in their discussion at v7. Before, I just saw the declaration You must be born again as a summary of his statements in vv3 and 5. Now, though, I see he’s clarifying and personalizing the warning. As in, “you, Nicodemus, must be changed—transformed—to understand and be a part of God’s kingdom.” But there’s more to what He said there. In the English Standard Version of John 3:7, there’s a translation footnote indicating that word you is plural, so I think Jesus might have been referring to Nicodemus and other Pharisees, an elite group of Jewish religious leaders whom Jesus called out for hypocrisy (see Matthew 23). That also seems to be the case in vv11 and 12.
CONVICTION
Looking back over the last three studies I’ve done this year, I’m again convicted of wavering faith. In my Genesis 3 study, I resonated with Eve’s vulnerability to our enemy’s faith attacks, especially when I’m separated from God. And in Joshua 2, Rahab’s faith over her fear helped me see how my faith increases when I stay immersed in God’s Word (Romans 10:17). Now, as my husband and I inch closer to a deadline that won’t be met if God doesn’t move on our behalf, I am again reminded that “… faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not [yet] seen (Hebrews 11:1, emphasis mine).”
CORRECTION
In my cross-reference review of kingdom of God, the Spirit highlighted Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (emphasis mine).” That doesn’t necessarily mean God will do what we are asking of Him right now if we pass the “seek” test. If His answer to our prayer is “no,” it’s no. We’ll survive. We still pray “Lord, turn our fear to faith. May we always seek Your kingdom and Your righteousness above everything else in our lives. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”
ACTION PLAN
The interesting thing about this situation is that my husband and I have already stepped out in faith. We believed we were being called to something and have invested time and money for it; investments we won’t get back if the plan doesn’t work out. The only thing left to do is to wait for the Lord (Psalm 27:14). But that is proving easier said than done!
Our Next Study
Next week we’ll start another study in the “blast from the past” series: The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:5-15). I hope you’ll join me for that one, too!
by Jen | Jun 3, 2025 | 1-21, DISO studies, John 3
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back! I hope you’ve had a chance to dig a little deeper into this passage this week. Here’s what the Spirit has revealed to me:
Last Week’s Work
CROSS-REFERENCES
This week (as with my study in Joshua), the Spirit led me to look for other “sightings” of key terms in this passage from John:
- born. I found several references to this concept by the gospel writer himself. In John 1:12-13, he says belief in Jesus’s name enables one to be born of God. A similar requirement exists for eternal life (John 3:16). In his first letter, he expounds on what being born of God looks like: s/he practices righteousness (1 John 2:29), refrains from sinning (1 John 3:9), loves others (1 John 4:7), believes Jesus is the Christ and loves those born of the Father, has overcome the world, and is protected by Jesus from the evil one (1 John 5:1, 4, 18).
- Nicodemus. I wanted to see if the Bible indicates how this conversation impacted Nicodemus. In fact, John records he encouraged fellow Pharisees to give Jesus a chance to explain His actions (John 7:45-52). Of course, they did not. Instead, they fixated on where they thought Jesus had been born (Galilee)! After his death, Joseph of Arimathea sought permission and removed Jesus’s body from the cross. With Nicodemus, who contributed about 75 pounds of myrrh and other embalming spices, he prepared and entombed the body of Christ (John 19:38-42). From these two incidents it seems to me Nicodemus probably did finally see Jesus as the light (John 3:21).
- Kingdom of God. While looking into this term, I noticed a couple of instances where Jesus took on the Pharisees and “chief priests and elders” directly.
In Matthew 12:22-27, After they accuse Him of healing a demon-possessed man by the prince of demons, He responds by asking how their sons heal demon possession. If the healing comes from the Spirit of God, He told them, the kingdom of God has come upon you. This reminded me of Nicodemus’s acknowledgement in John 3:2, … no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
Later in Matthew, Jesus says, … the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John [the Baptist, who told them plainly Jesus was the Son of God] came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him (Matthew 21:31-32).
OTHER TRANSLATIONS
I compared the ESV, AMP, NIV, and Good News translations, but didn’t perceive any real differences among them. Because of that, I decided to have a look at a few commentaries, specifically about the kingdom of God and being born of water and the Spirit.
COMMENTARY
First, I noticed Calvin indicates the kingdom of God refers to the spiritual life which is begun [in this world] by faith. When we are born again God makes us altogether different… this is a renovation of [our] whole nature.
Calvin also mentions being born of water and the Spirit (v5) as a single process of being cleansed and made new by the Holy Spirit. I was eager to learn more about that.
Smith suggested born of water might correspond with our natural birth or being born of the flesh (v6), and we’re born of the Spirit and become a child of God when we acknowledge Jesus is the Christ and let the Spirit’s power govern our hearts and minds, not our own physical needs or wants.
And Barclay notes water is a symbol of cleansing (when Jesus takes possession of our hearts… the sins of the past are forgiven and forgotten), and the Spirit is a symbol of supernatural power that enables us to be and do what we could never be or do by ourselves.
Dig-In Challenges
This coming week, let’s wrap up our study of John 3:1-21 and align with what we’ve discovered in this passage:
- PRAY: Read the prayer created in Step 1.
- ALIGN: Review our study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what we’ve learned in this study.
- ALIGN: Then, considering those “lessons learned,” think about how the Spirit has convicted us through this study. In other words, where has He shown us misalignment between what we’ve discovered and how we practice our faith?
- ALIGN: Next, let’s look to God’s Word for guidance to correct that misalignment. This is often—but not always—a verse from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
- ALIGN: And finally, reflect on how we can change our thoughts or actions to align more closely with what we’ve discovered here. To really make this work, I’m committing to changing something and do my best to act on that commitment every day for at least three weeks.
That may seem like a lot to consider in one week. If you’re working with the Spirit, remember it’s okay to work at your own pace. Don’t worry about where you are—just do what you can when you can. I know the Lord will bless any time you spend in His Word!
GO TO WEEK 8 >
