Jesus moved from correcting popular misinterpretations of selected Old Testament texts that speak of righteous conduct (5:17-48) to correcting popular misconceptions about righteous conduct. Throughout this entire section proper motivation for actions is a constant emphasis.
Remember that "righteousness"means what is in harmony with the will of God. Righteous deeds are those that are pleasing to Him. Jesus warned His disciples about the possibility of doing good deeds for the wrong reason as He began His teaching about righteous behavior. If one does what God approves to obtain human approval, that one will not receive a reward for his good deed from God. Notice again that disciples' rewards will vary. Some disciples will receive more reward from God than others.
The rabbis considered almsgiving, prayer, and fasting as the three chief acts of Jewish piety.300Jesus dealt with each of these aspects of worship similarly. He first warned His disciples not to do the act for man's praise. Then He assured them that if they disregarded His warning they would get human praise but no more. Third, He taught them how to do the act secretly, for God alone. Finally, He assured them that the Father who sees in secret would reward their righteous act openly.
Alms were gifts of money to the needy. What Jesus said on this subject is applicable to all types of giving.
Interpreters have understood the practice of sounding a trumpet to announce alms-giving metaphorically and literally. Metaphorically it would mean that Jesus was using a figure of speech to picture showy giving something like "blowing your own horn."However, His description seems to have had a custom behind it. There is old evidence that during this period the Jewish priests blew trumpets in the Temple when they collected funds for some special need.301Alternatively, this may be a reference to the horn-shaped collection receptacles in the Temple that noisily announced contributions that people tossed into them.302However, Jesus mentioned the synagogues and streets, not the Temple. Probably Jesus referred to the blowing of trumpets in the streets that announced fasts that included alms-giving.303
The idea of not letting the left hand know what the right hand does pictures secrecy. The way to avoid hypocrisy is to let no other people know when we give. We can carry this to the extreme, of course. Jesus' point was that we should not draw attention to ourselves when we give. Hypocrisy does not just involve giving an impression that is incorrect, such as that one gives alms when he really does not. It also involves deceiving oneself even if one deceives no one else. A third kind of hypocrisy involves deceiving oneself and others into thinking that what one does is for a certain purpose when it is really for a different purpose. This seems to be the type of hypocrisy in view here.
"They were not giving, but buying. They wanted the praise of men, they paid for it."304
"The hypocrites are not identified here, but Matthew 23 clearly indicates that they are the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29). A clearer illustration of a facet of Matthew's style can hardly be found. First he intimates a fact, then he builds on it, and finally he establishes it. Here the intimation concerns the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees."305
"As leaders,' the religious leaders evince their evilness most prominently by showing themselves to be hypocritical.' Hypocrisy in Matthew's story is the opposite of being perfect.' To be perfect is to be wholehearted, or single-hearted, in the devotion with which one serves God (5:48; Deut. 18:13). To be hypocritical is to be divided' in one's fealty to God. Hypocrisy, then, is a form of inner incongruity, to wit: paying honor to God with the lips while the heart is far from him (15:7-8); making pronouncements about what is right while not practicing them (23:3c); and appearing outwardly to be righteous while being inwardly full of lawlessness (23:28)."306
6:5-6 Jesus assumed that His disciples would pray, as He assumed they would give alms (v. 2) and fast (v. 16). Again He warned against ostentatious worship. The synagogues and streets were public places where people could practice their righteousness with an audience. The motive is what matters most.
Jesus was not forbidding public prayer (v. 6).
"The public versus private antithesis is a good test of one's motives; the person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God's approval than in human praise."307
Jesus alluded to the Septuagint version of Isaiah 26:20 where the private room is a bedroom (cf. 2 Kings 4:33). Any private setting will do.
6:7-8 Jesus digressed briefly to give a further warning about repetitious prayer (vv. 7-8) and a positive example of proper prayer (vv. 9-15). Jesus' disciples can fall into prayer practices that characterize the pagans. Jesus Himself prayed long prayers (Luke 6:12), and He repeated Himself in prayer (26:44). He also advocated persistence in prayer (Luke 18:1). These practices were not the objects of His criticism. He was attacking the idea that the length of a prayer makes it efficacious. Pagan prayer commonly relies on length and repetition for effectiveness.
Jesus' disciples do not need to inform their omniscient Father of their needs in prayer. He already knows what they are. Why pray then? Jesus did not answer that question here. Essentially we pray for the same reasons children speak to their parents: to share concerns, to have fellowship, to obtain help, and to express gratitude, among other reasons.
6:9-13 Jesus gave His disciples a model prayer known commonly as "The Lord's Prayer."Obviously it was not His prayer in the sense that He prayed it but in the sense that it came from Him. He introduced the model as such. Here is a way to pray that is neither too long, ostentatious, nor unnecessarily repetitious.
One of Jesus' unique emphases, as I have already mentioned, was that His disciples should think of God as their heavenly Father. It was not characteristic of believers to address God as their Father until Jesus taught them to do so.308
"Only fifteen times was God referred to as the Father in the Old Testament. Where it does occur, it is used of the nation Israel or to the king of Israel. Never was God called the Father of an individual or of human beings in general (though isolated instances occur in second temple Judaism, Sirach 51:10). In the New Testament numerous references to God as Father can be found."309
"The overwhelming tendency in Jewish circles was to multiply titles ascribing sovereignty, lordship, glory, grace, and the like to God . . ."310
"Our"Father indicates that Jesus expected His disciples to pray this prayer in a group context. Private use of this prayer is all right, but the context in which Jesus taught it was corporate, so He gave a corporate address. The "our"does not include Himself since it is part of Jesus' teaching concerning how to pray.
The way we think of God as we pray to Him is very important. In prayer we should remember that He is a loving Father who will respond as such to His children. Some modern individuals advocate thinking of God as our Mother. However this runs contrary to what Jesus taught and to the thousands of references to God that God has given us in the masculine gender in both Testaments. God is not a sexual being. Nevertheless He is more like a father to us than a mother. Thinking of Him primarily as a mother will result in some distortion in our concept of God. It will also result in some confusion in our thinking about how God relates to us and how we should relate to Him.311
"In heaven"reminds us of His transcendence and sovereignty. Our address to God in prayer does more to prepare us for proper praying than it does to secure the desired response from Him.312
The first three petitions deal with God and the last three with us. This pattern indicates that disciples should have more concern for God than we do for ourselves. We should put His interests first in our praying as in all our living. All the petitions have some connection with the kingdom. The first three deal with the coming of the kingdom, and the last three are appeals in view of the coming kingdom.313
The first petition (v. 9c) is that everyone would hold God's name (His reputation, everything about Him) in reverence. He is already holy. We do not need to pray that He will become more holy. What is necessary is that His creatures everywhere recognize and acknowledge His holiness. This petition focuses on God's reputation. People need to hallowit, to treat it as special.
God's reputation and the kingdom had close connections in the Old Testament (Isa. 29:23; Exek. 36:23).
"In one respect His name is profaned when His people are ill-treated. The sin of the nation which brought about the captivity had caused a profanation of the Name, Is. 43:25; 49:11; Ezk. 36:20-23. By their restoration His name was to be sanctified. But this sanctification was only a foreshadowing of a still future consummation. Only when the kingdom' came would God's name be wholly sanctified in the final redemption of His people from reproach."314
The second petition (v. 10a) is that the messianic kingdom will indeed come quickly (cf. Mark 15:43; 1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 11:17). It was appropriate for Jesus' first disciples to pray this petition since the establishment of the kingdom was imminent. It is also appropriate for modern disciples to pray it since the inauguration of that kingdom will begin the righteous rule of Messiah on the earth, which every believer should anticipate eagerly. This kingdom has not yet begun. Christ will rule over His kingdom from the earth, and He is now in heaven. This petition focuses on God's kingdom. People need to preparefor it.
"Those who maintain that for Jesus himself the kingdom of God had already come in his own person and ministry inevitably treat this second petition of the Lord's prayer in a rather cavalier fashion. It must be interpreted, they say, in line with other sayings of Jesus. Why? And what other sayings? When all the evidence in the sayings of Jesus for realized eschatology' is thoroughly tested, it boils down to the ephthasen eph humas[has come upon you'] of Matt. 12:28 and Luke 11:20. Why should that determine the interpretation of Matt. 6:10 and Luke 11:2? Why should a difficult, obscure saying establish the meaning of one that is clear and unambiguous? Why not interpret the ephthasen[has come,' 12:28] by the elthato[come,' 6:10]; or rather, since neither can be eliminated on valid critical grounds, why not seek an interpretation that does equal justice to both?"315
"Jesus' conception of God's kingdom is not simply that of the universal sovereignty of God, which may or may not be accepted by men but is always there. That is the basis of his conception, but he combines with it the eschatological idea of the kingdom which is still to come. In other words, what Jesus means by the kingdom of God includes what the rabbinic literature calls the coming age."316
The third petition (v. 10b-c) is a request that what God wants to happen on earth will indeed transpire on earth as it now does in heaven. That condition will take place most fully when Christ sets up His kingdom on the earth. However this should be the desire of every disciple in the inter-advent age while Jesus is still in heaven. Nothing better can happen than whatever God's will involves (Rom. 12:1). God's "will"(Gr. thelema) includes His righteous demands (7:21; 12:50; cf. Ps. 40:8) as well as His determination to cause certain events in history (18:14; 26:42; cf. Acts 21:14). This petition focuses on God's will. People need to doit.
"This difference [between God's heavenly universal rule and His earthly millennial rule] arises out of the fact that rebellion and sin exist upon the earth, sin which is to be dealt with in a way not known in any other spot in the universe, not even among the angels which sinned. It is here that the great purpose of what I have named the Mediatorial Kingdom appears: On the basis of mediatorial redemption it must come' to put down at last all rebellion with its evil results, thus finally bringing the Kingdom and will of God on earth as it is in heaven."317
The remaining petitions (vv. 11-13) focus on the disciples' needs. Notice the "Thy,""Thy,""Thy,"in verses 9 and 10 and the "us,""us,""us,"in verses 11-13. Some believers have concluded that prayer should not include anything selfish, so they do not make personal petitions. However, Jesus commanded His disciples to bring their personal needs to God in prayer. The first three petitions stand alone, but the last three have connecting "ands"that bind them together. We need all three of these things equally; we cannot get along without any of them.
The bread in view (v. 11) probably refers to all our food and even all our physical needs.318Bread has this larger significance in the Bible (cf. Prov. 30:8; Mark 3:30; Acts 6:1; 2 Thess. 3:12; James 2:15). Even today we speak of bread as "the staff of life."Daily bread refers to the necessities of life, not its luxuries. This is a prayer for our needs, not our greeds. The request is for God to supply our needs day by day. The expression "this day [or today] our daily bread"reflects first century life in which workers received their pay daily. It also reminds disciples that we only live one day at a time, and each day we are dependent on God to sustain us. Asking God to provide our needs does not free us from the responsibility of working, however (cf. vv. 25-34; 2 Thess 3:10). God satisfies our needs partially by giving us the ability and the opportunity to earn a living. Ultimately everything comes from Him. Having to live from hand to mouth one day at a time can be a blessing if it reminds us of our total dependence on God. This is especially true since we live in a world that glorifies self-sufficiency.
The fifth petition requests forgiveness from debts (v. 12). "Debts"(Gr. opheilemata) probably translates the Aramaic word hobathat was a common synonym for sins.319Viewing sins as debts was thoroughly Jewish (cf. Ps. 51:4).320The second clause in the sentence does not mean that we must earn God's forgiveness with our own. Our forgiveness of others demonstrates our felt need of forgiveness. The person who does not forgive a brother's offenses does not appreciate how much he himself needs forgiveness.
"Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offenses of others, it proves that we have minimized our own."321
Some Christians have wondered why we should ask for God's forgiveness since the New Testament clearly reveals that God forgives all sins--past, present, and future--when He justifies us (Acts 10:43; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14). That is judicial or forensic forgiveness. However as forgiven believers we need to ask for forgiveness to restore fellowship with God (cf. 1 John 1:9). Forensic forgiveness brings us into God's family. Family forgiveness keeps our fellowship with God intimate within God's family.
"Personal fellowship with God is in view in these verses (not salvation from sin). One cannot walk in fellowship with God if he refuses to forgive others."322
Some interpreters view verse 13 as containing one petition while others believe Jesus intended two. Probably one is correct in view of the close connection of the ideas. They are really two sides of one coin.
"Temptation"is the Greek peirasmosand means "testing."It refers not so much to solicitation to evil as to trials that test the character. God does not test (peirasmos) anyone (James 1:13-14). Why then do we need to pray that He will not lead us into testing? Even though God is not the instrumental cause of our testing He does permit us to experience temptation from the world, the flesh, and the devil (cf. 4:1). Therefore this petition is a request that He minimize the occasions of our testing that may result in our sinning. It articulates the repentant disciple's felt weakness to stand up under severe trials in view of our sinfulness.323
"But"introduces the alternative. "Deliver us"could mean "spare us from"or "deliver us out of."The meaning depends on what "evil"means. Is this a reference to evil generally or to the evil one, Satan? When the Greek preposition apo("from") follows "deliver,"it usually refers to deliverance from people. When ek("from") follows it, it always refers to deliverance from things.324Here apooccurs.
However the Old Testament predicted that a time of great evil would precede the establishment of the kingdom (Jer. 30). Some commentators, including non-premillenarians, have understood the evil in this petition as a reference to Satanic opposition that will come to its full force before the kingdom begins.325God later revealed through Paul that Christians will not go through this Tribulation (1 Thess. 1:10; 4:13-18; et al.). Consequently we do not need to pray for deliverance from it but from testings generally.
Some have seen a veiled reference to the Trinity in these last three petitions. The Father provides our bread through His creation and providence, the Son's atonement secures our forgiveness, and the Spirit's enablement assures our spiritual victory.
The final doxology appears in many ancient manuscripts, but there is so much variation in it that it was probably not a part of Matthew's Gospel. Evidently pious scribes added it later to make the prayer complete liturgically.
6:14-15 These verses explain the thought of the fifth petition (v. 12) more fully. Repetition stresses the importance of forgiving one another if we want God's forgiveness. Our horizontal relationships must be correct before our vertical relationship can be.
"Prayer is straightforward and simple for those who have experienced the grace of the kingdom in Christ. In prayer the disciple does not try to coerce or manipulate God. There are no magical words or formulae, nor does an abundance of words count with God. Short, direct, and sincere prayers are adequate."326
"The sample prayer, it can be concluded, is given in the context of the coming kingdom. The first three requests are petitions for the coming of the kingdom. The last three are for the needs of the disciples in the interim preceding the establishment of the kingdom."327
6:16 Fasting in Israel involved going without food to engage in a spiritual exercise, usually prayer, with greater concentration. Fasting fostered and indicated self-humiliation before God, and confession often accompanied it (Neh. 9:1-2; Ps. 35:13; Isa. 58:3, 5; Dan. 9:2-20; 10:2-3; Jon. 3:5; Acts 9:9). People who felt anguish, danger, or desperation gave up eating temporarily to present some special petition to the Lord in prayer (Exod. 24:18; Judg. 20:26; 2 Sam. 1:12; 2 Chron. 20:3; Ezra 8:21-23; Esth. 4:16; Matt. 4:1-2; Acts 13:1-3; 14:23). Some pious believers fasted regularly (Luke 2:37). The Pharisees fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12). God only commanded the Israelites to fast on one day of the year, the day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29-31; 23:27-32; Num. 29:7). However during the Exile the Israelites instituted additional regular fasts (Zech. 7:3-5; 8:19). Fasting occurred in the early church and seems to have been a normal part of Christian self-discipline (1 Cor. 9:24-27; Phil. 3:19; 1 Pet. 4:3). Hypocritical fasting occurred in Israel long before Jesus' day (Isa. 58:1-7; Jer. 14:12; Zech. 7:5-6), but the Pharisees were notorious for it.
"Fasting emphasized the denial of the flesh, but the Pharisees were glorifying their flesh by drawing attention to themselves."328
Jesus' point in this verse was that His disciples should avoid drawing attention to themselves when they fasted. He did not question the genuine contrition of some who fasted, but He pointed out that the hypocrites wanted the admiration of other people even more than they wanted God's attention. Since that is what they really wanted, that is all they would get.
6:17-18 Jesus assumed His disciples would fast as He assumed they would give alms and pray. He said nothing to discourage them from fasting (cf. 9:14-17). He only condemned ostentatious fasting. To avoid any temptation to pander to the adulation of onlookers Jesus counselled His disciples to do nothing that would attract attention to the fact that they were fasting when they fasted. Again, the Father who sees the worship that His children render in secret will reward them.
The three major acts of Jewish worship--alms-giving, prayer, and fasting--were only representative of many other acts of worship that Jesus' disciples performed. His teaching in this section of the Sermon (6:1-18) stressed lessons they should apply more broadly. In His teaching about each of these three practices, Jesus first warned His disciples not to do the act for man's praise. Then He assured them that if they disregarded His warning they would get human praise but no more. Third, He taught them how to do the act secretly. Finally, He assured them that the Father who sees in secret would reward their righteous act openly. He thereby explained what it means to seek first the kingdom and its righteousness (6:33).
