What are the correct words that people say in church containing the phrase 'thy kingdom come'?

Answer 1

You're probably thinking of the King James Version of what is commonly called "the Lord's Prayer," also known in some circles as the "model prayer." The Gospels give two slightly different versions of the phrasing. Matthew 6:9-13 renders it like this: Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Luke 11:2-4, on the other hand, uses a slightly different phrasing: And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3Give us day by day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. One commentary posits that these two different phrasings were actually offered on two separate occasions. Matthew places it during Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," where He taught a large group of people on a hillside or mountainside. Luke, on the other hand, has one of His disciples asking about prayer. Another common thought is that Jesus is not mandating a rote incantation, but offers instead a "how-to" manual for prayer, using the order of the subject matter rather than the specific words. This line of thought dismisses the differences as unimportant in light of the intent. Footnotes included in several translations, including the NIV, speculate that the closing doxology of the Matthew version is included only in later transcriptions of the text, the source for which may be part of a standard Jewish prayer. Some would say that the differences indicate fallibility of The Bible. While that would be true if the Bible should be held to modern-day standards of literary criticism, another train of thought takes a different approach. This approach, in short, assumes that the Bible is adequately accurate for communicating those thoughts that are important, relegating certain details as unimportant. The idea here is that God makes the standard, not us. Those who choose not to believe this, though, are left with a conundrum.