Three Pillars of Personal Piety — Mat 6:1-18

Although obviously giving to the needy and intercessory prayer paired with fasting can be seen as service to others, most interpreters agree that in verses 1-18 Matthew has combined three practices in the traditional behavior of Jews in his day under what could be called "personal piety." They are almsgiving, prayer and fasting. And according to how Jesus commanded that they be done, each of these is private and confidential, a matter solely between the individual and God.

Almsgiving, 6:1-4

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4 NRSV)

Giving food or money to the poor has a long history. And within the Judaism, Christianity and Islam the term for "alms" is often the same word that means "righteousness." In fact, in several of the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew the word "alms" (eleēmosunē) occurs in this passage instead of the word "righteousness" (dikaiosunē). This opening verse is therefore not referring to three different forms of "righteousness": almsgiving, prayer and fasting, but only to almsgiving.

In the following passages from the ancient Jewish writing Tobit which was known in Jesus' time the Greek expression Matthew uses ("practice your righteousness") has to be translated "give (as) alms":

Tobit 4:7 give alms from your possessions, and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. 8 If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. …  4:16 Give some of your food to the hungry, and some of your clothing to the naked. Give all your surplus as alms, and do not let your eye begrudge your giving of alms.

Tobit 12:8 Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than wealth with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold.

But notice that Tobit ranks giving to the needy above prayer and fasting, which are Jesus' next examples in this passage, and that he advocates giving proportionately to your means, just as the NT does. Furthermore, the reward from God is mentioned in the form of his face being turned toward you for giving and away from you for refusing one in need. Rather significantly, what is not mentioned in the Tobit passage is the need for secrecy.

Not all of Jesus' teachings were to counter earlier ones. It may be assumed that, if he didn't explicitly criticize a practice of his own time, he accepted it as valid. This would certainly include all that is written here in Tobit.  Consequently, although in our Matthew passage Jesus says nothing about the amount to be given, elsewhere—in the story of the widow's two copper coins in Mk 12:41-44—he does. Jesus therefore agreed with much in the practices of sincerely pious Jews of his day.

But here, as in the previous section on the "Five Antitheses", Jesus is contrasting true piety with what was practiced by some hypocritical groups in his day.  In this passage he is mainly concerned about a hypocritical use of giving. It is the motive behind the deed that concerns him. The true disciple does what he does only for God to see, not to impress others.  And the reward mentioned here may be the same as Tobit's, namely the awareness of God's approval now in this life ("the face of God" turned toward you).  As a disciple you have to decide which is more important to you: others being impressed or God's face of approval turned toward you, and others totally unaware why.

How, you ask, are we to reconcile this apparent contradiction: we are to let our light shine before others so that they may glorify our Father in heaven, yet we are also not to let anyone know about our deeds of piety? The answer may lie in the intended audience. The light is to shine for outsiders—i.e., unbelieving friends—to see, and what impresses them are not acts that would impress fellow believers (such as time spent in prayer, money given to Christian causes, attendance at Bible study groups), but deeds of honesty, mercy and generosity. To outsiders we are "salt" and "light." But to insiders—fellow Christians—we are not primarily salt and light. It is in this latter category that we are to practice our piety toward God and not toward others. It is in this insider group that the temptation is strongest to impress others with prayer, Bible study, giving, attendance at meetings, etc. That is where Jesus' strong warnings against ostentation come into play.

Concerning Prayer, 6:5-15

Warning against hypocrisy

Prayer and alms are often linked in early Jewish texts from the time of Jesus and slightly before. In the book Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach we read: "Do not give up the practice of prayer, nor neglect giving alms" (7:10). In Jesus' time among Jews prayer was done at fixed times of the day, usually four times a day. This practice was preserved in the Early and Medieval Church monastic practice of praying at hours of the day and night. When possible it might be done in groups; hence, Jesus' mention of praying in the synagogues and on the street corners. Of course, there is nothing wrong with group praying. But private prayer was also practiced from earliest times in the OT. And in the book of Daniel we read of Daniel's faithful observance of private prayer several times a day. You remember that the Babylonian king outlawed praying to any god but himself, and Daniel risked a death sentence in order to continue to pray to God, and he was noticed.

But once again, in our Matthew passage Jesus is warning against putting on a show in prayer. How does one do that? One way is by doing it only in public and with great eloquence, which some Jews did in his time. 

Another way is by long-winded prayer, which Jesus says characterized the pagan gentiles in his day (6:7). Long wordy prayers are unsuitable for Christians, because we believe that God knows our situation and needs without being told all the details. Many congregational prayers spend too much time teaching God about himself.

This statement led Jesus to give a sample or model prayer that illustrated this brevity. It is what the ancients called the "Our Father" (Latin pater noster) after its opening words, and which most people today know as "The Lord's Prayer," a misnomer, because it was not the prayer that Jesus himself used, but one that he suggested for his disciples. You'll notice that this prayer is a group prayer, since it uses "we", "us" and "our", instead of "I", "me", and "my".

In Luke's report of Jesus' giving this prayer it is not in the context of teaching about brevity in prayer. Luke tells us that once after Jesus had been praying one of his disciples asked him to teach them as a group how to pray, just as John the Baptizer had taught group prayer to his disciples. This means that John too had had things to say about how one should pray, perhaps some of the same things that Jesus is recorded as saying in Matthew. John too was a keen critic of the hypocritical piety of that time, as we know from the gospel accounts of his ministry. Jesus' words in Luke 11:2 simply indicate the disciples should use this prayer whenever they pray. But in Matthew the wording has a different emphasis: "This is the way you should pray," which stresses two things: (1) "you" is in contrast here not to John's disciples but to the hypocrites and pagans, and (2) "this is the way" focuses on the lessons Jesus has just given on privacy and brevity of disciples prayer.

The prayer Jesus then gave to the disciples can serve as a pattern for every type of prayer only in its brevity, because its content does not include elements that form an essential part of a disciple's prayer "diet": it contains no praise or thanksgiving, and the only sense in which it contains intercession for others is that since it is group prayer, "give us this day our daily bread and … deliver us from evil" could be thought of as our prayer also for all Christians.

Jesus gave this short prayer to illustrate the point he had just made: that prayer should be brief, concise and without any hypocrisy or pretense. But in its content it does not exhaust all elements of what disciples should pray for. that is why on Sunday mornings we are led in praise, confession, thanks and intercession by a pastor before we voice this group petition for ourselves as a conclusion.

Still, it is worth looking at the content of this prayer in order to see what needs it does meet.

The "Lord's Prayer" and final comment, 6:9-15

“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.  (Matthew 6:9-15 NRSV)

(1) The words "our father" remind us of two significant facts: (a) "father" reminds us that God has become our loving protector and provider because we have believed in Jesus his Son, and (b) "our" reminds us that we are a family, voicing our common needs to him. Luke's version omits "who are in heaven," which in Matthew's version distinguishes God from our earthly fathers.

(2) "May your name be kept sacred" reminds us that the name of God expresses how we understand and conceive of him. We invest in the names "God", "Lord", "Father", "Savior", and "Jesus" all the attributes and character traits that we have come to understand from holy scripture. Since this verb is passive ("may your name be kept holy"), the identity of him or them who keep it holy is left unstated and undefined. It is possible even that God himself could be thought of as the subject. That is, we pray that God will keep his own many names and attributes holy for us to contemplate and adore. A second possibility is that we pray that we ourselves may always cherish the many names and descriptions of God and of Jesus and lovingly meditate on them. That we not treat these names and descriptions as something commonplace and ordinary, but as sacred gifts from God. A third possibility is that we are praying that the world not fail to see the holiness of God's character as expressed in his many names and titles. I think that Jesus may have meant to include all of these possibilities, and it would be good if we prayed this prayer slowly and reflectively, thinking as we do of all these possibilities.

(3) "May your kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is a prayer for the realization of God's redemptive plan for all creation: the bringing back into complete obedience to him of every creature. Luke's version is the simple "May your kingdom come," since what follows in Matthew's version means exactly the same thing, and ironically Luke's version demonstrates the ideal of brevity even better than Matthew's! With these words we pray for Jesus' return to earth, the elimination of all evil and evildoers, and the creation of a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is another expression of what the earliest Christians prayed daily: Maranatha ("Come, Lord Jesus!"). Secondarily, it is a prayer for the advance of the gospel and God's saving work among sinners today. It is important that such an eschatological prayer be part of every disciple's daily prayers, because it shows that we are not content with the world in the state it is, and that we long for the return of him who is its rightful ruler. To keep silent on this subject is to imply that we are doing fine without Jesus. And you and I both know that we are not. When Paul wrote to the Philippians that "our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ," he might well have substituted the word "king" for "citizenship," for he was voicing the same thought as this prayer. Paul doesn't say our king is in heaven and it is to there that we will eventually go; rather, he says that from there we are expecting the king to come again to earth.

(4) From the grander concerns for God's name and rule, our prayer moves on to the needs of us who are the earthly agents of that kingdom. In order to function faithfully as the King's advance guard we have legitimate needs. We now ask God to equip us for that task. First we ask for physical sustenance, what is called here "daily bread." Luke's version reads literally, "Keep giving us each day the food that we require," while Matthew's reads "This very day give us the food that we require." It is a minor difference. Both versions recognize that God will tend to our needs on a daily basis, just as with the manna in the wilderness. He will not necessarily give us a supply to last us for years, but will require us to depend on him and ask him for what we need each passing day. I admit that this is not what the verse says literally, but I interpret the food that we require to include all sorts of health needs as well. If we are to serve God daily as his agents in the work of the kingdom, we need the health and strength to do so. This is not to say that God may not include as part of someone's service a period in the hospital, or even a terminal illness during which he or she witnesses to the health care professionals. That may be the case. But the norm will be that we ask for sustenance and health sufficient and appropriate to our requirements to be good and faithful agents and workers. This is a disciples' prayer, and it is proper that we view each clause in it in that context. God commanded the ravens to feed Elijah in the wilderness so that he might continue to prophesy to the kingdom of Israel.

(5) 6:12 Agents of the King will always fail in their tasks because of laziness, negligence or willful disobedience of the rules. They will always need reinstatement and restoration to fellowship with the King. And so we come to "forgive us our debts," which means the same thing as "forgive us our sins/trespasses" in Luke's version. This request is amplified by the words "as we have forgiven our own debtors." In Matthew and Mark, Jesus makes it clear that our forgiveness depends upon our forgiving others. This is a difficult concept to those of us steeped in the Pauline form of teaching, for it sounds like earning forgiveness. But several parables of Jesus show just how seriously our Lord took this matter. The man forgiven a huge debt who then went out and punished a man who owed him much less was then called to account by his own creditor and severely punished. So I take this as a serious need that we as disciples must pray about daily: that we show the reality of God's grace to us by freely and promptly forgiving anyone who sins against us. Any day that we fail to practice this kind of forgiveness, we cease to function as Jesus' earthly agents.

(6) 6:13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. This is the phrase that in the traditional wording reads: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." There are two significant differences between the traditional rendering and better ones, such as what I had read this morning. First, all interpreters agree today that the text should be translated "deliver us from the evil one," meaning Satan. This may be thought only a minor matter, since the evil that we are tempted to do is ultimately from Satan. Still, it is important to understand precisely what Jesus asks us to pray for. It is Satan and his attacks, not just "evil" in some abstract sense, that we are to seek God's protection from.

More important, what is meant by "lead us not into temptation" in the traditional wording, or "do not bring us to the time of trial" in the newer rendering? "But deliver us …" clearly is intended as the contrasting action of God, for which we pray.  In … we are told that "God tempts no man"; so why should we ask him not to "lead us into temptation"? And how does leading us into temptation or trial form a contrast to "deliver us from the evil one"?  The opposite of God's rescuing us from the evil one would be allowing us to face Satan unaided and unprotected. This, therefore, must be the intended meaning of "do not bring us to the time of trial."  As we pray this phrase each week, we should think of it as equivalent to "Do not leave me to face the Devil unprotected, Lord! But save me from this Evil One!"

At this point the prayer that Jesus taught the Twelve came to an end. No "amen" was necessary in these ancient times. We use the "amen" in group prayer today largely to signal to those not leading the prayer that it has ended. Paul's prayers in his letters regularly have an "amen" at the end, perhaps also in some cases to signal the end. But he also indicates in 1 Cor 14:15-16 that the believers there were to use "amen" at the conclusion of group prayers spoken by others, much as we might say it after statements given from the pulpit that we heartily agree with. But prayers of Jesus recorded in the Bible never have an "amen." Compare Mt 11:25-26; Jn 11:42; and Jn 17. On the other hand, Jesus often prefixed the words "Amen, amen I say to you" to his most solemn claims and promises directed to his disciples. Our English translations usually render this as "verily, verily" or "truly, truly."

More significantly to those of us accustomed to the traditional Lord's Prayer, Jesus' words did not include "For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." This concluding phrase appears fairly early in a document known as the Didache (Greek for "the teaching"), which dates to the end of the apostolic age. The early date of this document attests to the use of this phrase from the earliest churches, but  there is no indication that it was actually part of what Jesus himself taught the disciples to say. There is nothing wrong with our joining these earliest churches in saying it, but we should be clear in our minds that this was an addition. The purpose of the addition was to give assurance to the congregations speaking it that the God we pray to has the power to accomplish all of this and much more.

Concerning Fasting, 6:16-18

Most modern western Christians do not fast at all as a religious rite. Many decide to abstain from some favorite food during the season of Lent as a special sign of devotion to God, but this is not true "fasting," which in earliest times meant abstaining from both food and water for a set period of time, during which fasters wished to focus their minds intensely on prayer to God. Paul suggested to his Corinthian converts that married couples might even consent to abstain from sexual intercourse for a limited time for the same purpose.  Muslims and some other groups fast only during daylight hours and eat and drink after dark. This custom may have ancient prototypes, but it was not the biblical custom. Before facing Satan's temptations at the beginning of his public ministry Jesus fasted "forty days and forty nights" (Mt 4:2), as Moses had done on Mt. Sinai, when God gave him the law (Exod 34:28; Deut 9:9).

Many have noted that by introducing verse 16 with the words "when(ever) you fast" Jesus assumes that some disciples will fast. But this is not quite the same thing as commanding or even recommending that all disciples do so. The point of the teaching here is not commanding a duty to disciples, but warning against an abuse of a voluntary practice.

Does God desire us to fast today? Most evangelical theologians would say there is nothing to indicate one way or another about this custom. There is certainly no theological objection to continuing this custom, which has old and honorable roots. Evangelical pastors and Christian counselors would only add that one should be careful not to damage your health by unwise or immoderate fasting.

There are many good ways to show God your devotion and earnestness in addition to or as a substitute for fasting. If it is not done trivially, there is nothing wrong with voluntarily abstaining from some pleasure for a time—perhaps something that you really want to purchase, but are willing to do without—just to show God how much you love him. But be careful not to "accidentally" mention it to other Christians and thus "inadvertently" impress them with your holiness—or your foolishness! Any kind of fasting should be totally confidential, between you and God, no one else.