Luke 11:1

Instructions on Prayer

11:1 Now ¹  Jesus ²  was praying in a certain place. When ³  he stopped, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John ⁴  taught ⁵  his disciples.”

Luke 12:15

12:15 Then ⁶  he said to them, “Watch out and guard yourself from ⁷  all types of greed, ⁸  because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

[11:1]  ¹ tn Grk “And it happened that while.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

[11:1]  ² tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:1]  ³ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[11:1]  ⁴ sn John refers to John the Baptist.

[11:1]  ⁵ sn It was not unusual for Jewish groups to have their own prayer as a way of expressing corporate identity. Judaism had the Eighteen Benedictions and apparently John the Baptist had a prayer for his disciples as well.

[12:15]  ⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[12:15]  ⁷ tn See L&N 13.154 for this use of the middle voice of φυλάσσω (fulassw) in this verse.

[12:15]  ⁸ tn Or “avarice,” “covetousness.” Note the warning covers more than money and gets at the root attitude – the strong desire to acquire more and more possessions and experiences.