Read Along
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
That’s the first line of Matthew chapter six. At first hearing, it seems to point the other way from something Jesus said one chapter earlier, in the same sermon, to the same crowd: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds.”
So which is it? Do your good deeds where people can see them, or keep them hidden? Jesus said both, about thirty verses apart. And the answer sits in the last words of each line.
This is episode seven of twelve on the Sermon on the Mount. Last time, Jesus finished His six cases with the last of them: love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. And He ended on this: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Hold on to one word in that line: Father. Because here, in Matthew six, verses one to eight and sixteen to eighteen, the sermon turns.
Through most of chapter five, Jesus set what His listeners had heard taught from the Law beside His own words. Six times He said, “But I tell you.” Now He stops answering what they had heard, and turns again and again to His Father.
Count it. In all of chapter five, Jesus says “Father” three times. In the first eighteen verses of chapter six, He says it ten times.
And watch where He keeps placing Him. Not out in front of the crowd. “Your Father, who sees what is done in secret.”
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