Two words from Jesus correct both the hypocrite and the pagan. Our Father. Donald Hagner and other commentators on Matthew note how radical this address was in first-century Judaism. Jewish prayers of the period leaned hard on God’s transcendence, His holiness,...
The Gentiles’ error was different from the hypocrites’ but came from the same diseased root. The hypocrite had the wrong audience; the pagan had the wrong God. The word Jesus uses for their babbling describes a noisy flow of sound without meaning, and...
Jesus is not warning us against public prayer; He prayed publicly many times, and the disciples gathered to pray as a body in the early chapters of Acts. What He is warning us against is the prayer that has shifted audiences without us even noticing. The hypocrite did...
Step back this morning and look at the whole passage. The warning of verse one, the diagnosis of the hypocrites in verse two, the radical secrecy of verse three, the promise of the Father in secret in verse four. Each thread points the same direction. Hidden...
It is easy to read this verse as a promise of a delayed payment, as if God were a heavenly cashier who simply moves the reward from one shelf to a higher one. Look more carefully at the language. Jesus does not merely say that the Father sees in secret. In verse six,...
