When one looks at the Lord's Prayer as it appears in Luke and Matthew, the differences can be very confusing. To properly discuss this issue one must firmly take a look at one of these two Gospels and discover the intentions the author had in the words that he chose.

Luke's strongest reason for maintaining Jesus' exact words is apparent in his own desire for writing this text. At the outset of this Gospel, the author explains to the reader that he intends to offer a well-written history of Jesus. Assuming this is his true intention it can only be assumed that Luke would make every effort to get the wording of Jesus correct when quoting him. Contradicting Luke's approach to evangelism, Matthew is believed to have rearranged the writings found in the Q source into a narrative that better suited his intentions.

The author of Luke's Gospel did have other clear intentions that seem to contradict with his historical intention. First the author (from here on referred to as Luke) consistently changed the wording of Mark in order to clarify the language and make the syntax flow properly. When looking at the Matthew's version of the prayer, one can see repetition of ideas that one concerned with literary construction would take offense to. For example an author can see the phrase "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" simply an unnecessary reiteration of "thy kingdom come." Looking at Luke's writing it appears that this verbiage could have been eliminated. Also, since Luke was writing for a Gentile audience, he constantly removed references to Jewish culture. In other parts of the Gospels, where the other synoptic authors would call Jesus 'rabbi', Luke replaced it as teacher. This record of de-semetization of the Gospel by Luke can offer an explanation for the reason references to heaven, and other Semitic phrases, would be removed from the wording of the prayer that Jesus first offered.

Looking at the evidence as it has been presented, one can come to the conclusion that though Luke kept the same words as Jesus originally spoke, he did not report all of them. When looked at simultaneously, most of the words in Luke's version appear in Matthew's in the same way. This accommodates the struggle between Luke as a historian and his apparent deletion of certain phrases. Historians do not always find it necessary to include all words that they are quoting (shown in modern historical works with the ellipse), so long as the words that are included are the actual words of the person being quoted. Furthermore this accommodates what was excluded from Luke's Gospel. Continuing with the line of thought just mentioned, Luke, as historian, would not mind removing certain portions of the text, such as repetitive themes and certain words that would be known to offend the intended audience.