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,...
Jesus does not simply tell us to keep our giving hidden from other people. He goes further, into territory that almost sounds impossible. He says do not even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This is hyperbole, the same kind of striking image he...
Many of us read this passage and think, I would never literally blow a trumpet. That may be true. But Jesus is naming a hunger that does not always need a public square to feed it. Some of us are performing for an internal audience. We do good things so that we can...
