Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were the three pillars of first-century Jewish piety, and this chapter takes all three apart the same way — not by lowering the bar, but by moving it from the street corner where everyone could see it into a closet where only God could.
A study in Matthew 6 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 28 min read
Let Not Thy Left Hand Know What Thy Right Hand Doeth
“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”
Matthew 6:1-4
Chapter 5 closed with what righteousness is; chapter 6 opens with how easily its outward acts — giving, praying, fasting — can be hollowed out from the inside while looking exactly the same from the outside. “Sound a trumpet” is likely not literal; it is a vivid figure for the kind of conspicuous almsgiving that made sure a crowd was watching. “They have their reward” is not a threat of future punishment — it is a flat statement that the transaction is already complete: they wanted applause, and applause is exactly what they received, in full, with nothing left over.
“Christ’s own words make His meaning plain, that in acts of charity the aim should not be to secure praise and honor from men. Real godliness never prompts an effort at display. Those who desire words of praise and flattery, and feed upon them as a sweet morsel, are Christians in name only.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 80
White is careful to note this is not a blanket rule against ever being known to give — Paul himself publicized the Macedonian churches’ generosity to spur others toward the same spirit (2 Corinthians 9:2). The line is about aim, not visibility: whether the giving is done for the audience or simply in front of one.
Use Not Vain Repetitions
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Matthew 6:5-8
The same pattern from verses 1-4 repeats exactly, now applied to prayer: public performance rebuked, private sincerity commended. Verse 7 adds a second, separate danger — not performance this time, but a pagan theory of prayer itself, that sheer volume or length of words could pressure a reluctant deity into listening.
“This idea of prayer is an outworking of the principle of self-expiation which lies at the foundation of all systems of false religion. The Pharisees had adopted this pagan idea of prayer, and it is by no means extinct in our day, even among those who profess to be Christians. The repetition of set, customary phrases, when the heart feels no need of God, is of the same character as the ‘vain repetitions’ of the heathen.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 86
The problem was never length or repetition as such — Jesus Himself repeated the same words three times in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:44) — but repetition standing in for genuine need, words performing devotion the heart is not actually feeling. Verse 8’s reassurance, “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him,” removes the entire premise that prayer exists to inform or persuade God, clearing the ground for what follows.
After This Manner Therefore Pray Ye
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:9-15
Six petitions, and the order is deliberate: God’s name, kingdom, and will come before a single word is said about the pray-er’s own needs. White notes Jesus would later give this same prayer a second time, months afterward, to the disciples alone, when they asked Him directly, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1) — not a new prayer the second time, the identical words repeated, “as if He would say, You need to understand what I have already given.”
“Jesus teaches us to call His Father our Father. He is not ashamed to call us brethren. So ready, so eager, is the Saviour’s heart to welcome us as members of the family of God, that in the very first words we are to use in approaching God He places the assurance of our divine relationship, ‘Our Father.’”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 103
The relationship is settled before the first petition is even made. “Hallowed be thy name” is not asking God to become holy — He already is — it is asking that His name be honored, starting with the pray-er’s own life:
“God sends you into the world as His representative. In every act of life you are to make manifest the name of God. This petition calls upon you to possess His character. You cannot hallow His name, you cannot represent Him to the world, unless in life and character you represent the very life and character of God.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 107
“Thy kingdom come” and “thy will be done” look forward to the same event this site’s own studies of Daniel and Zechariah have already traced — the full establishment of God’s kingdom at Christ’s own return — while “daily bread” brings the prayer back down to the most ordinary need a person has, on the theory that both belong in the same six lines. The prayer’s own close then turns to the one condition Jesus singles out for extra comment, immediately, in the two verses that follow it:
“He who is unforgiving cuts off the very channel through which alone he can receive mercy from God. We should not think that unless those who have injured us confess the wrong we are justified in withholding from them our forgiveness. It is their part, no doubt, to humble their hearts by repentance and confession; but we are to have a spirit of compassion toward those who have trespassed against us, whether or not they confess their faults.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 113
Verses 14-15 do not make forgiveness a payment God extracts in exchange for His own — they describe a single channel, open or shut, through which mercy given and mercy received both have to pass. An unforgiving heart has not lost God’s favor by some separate penalty; it has simply closed the only door mercy was ever going to come through.
Anoint Thine Head, And Wash Thy Face
“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”
Matthew 6:16-18
The third and final example runs the identical pattern a third time — and by now the repetition is itself the point, hammering home that this is one principle, not three separate rules about three separate religious duties.
“The fasting which the word of God enjoins is something more than a form. It does not consist merely in refusing food, in wearing sackcloth, in sprinkling ashes upon the head. He who fasts in real sorrow for sin will never court display.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 87
“Anoint thine head, and wash thy face” is the exact opposite of the grim, ash-smeared look the hypocrites cultivated — ordinary grooming, business as usual on the outside, precisely so that nothing on the outside betrays what is happening between the soul and God on the inside.
Ye Cannot Serve God And Mammon
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:19-24
Three images, one target: where the heart’s loyalty actually lies. Moths ruined stored clothing, rust corroded stored metal, and thieves took the rest — ancient wealth had no form immune to loss, which is exactly White’s point about the alternative.
“The instruction is to ‘lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’ It is for your own interest to secure heavenly riches. These alone, of all that you possess, are really yours. The treasure laid up in heaven is imperishable. No fire or flood can destroy it, no thief despoil it, no moth or rust corrupt it; for it is in the keeping of God.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 89
“A single eye” pictures clear, undivided focus, against a diseased or divided eye that distorts everything it looks at — the same undivided loyalty verse 24 then states outright, with a term (“mammon,” an Aramaic word for wealth or property, treated here almost as a rival deity) that turns money itself into a competing claim on a person’s worship.
“Christ does not say that man will not or shall not serve two masters, but that he cannot. The interests of God and the interests of mammon have no union or sympathy.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 93
The word is “cannot,” not “should not” — White reads this as a statement of plain fact about how loyalty actually works, not a moral exhortation that a sufficiently disciplined person might manage to overcome. Divided allegiance was never on offer in the first place.
Consider The Lilies Of The Field
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”
Matthew 6:25-30
“Take no thought” translates a Greek word closer to anxious, fretful worry than ordinary planning — Jesus is not condemning foresight (He Himself told parables praising it), only the corrosive anxiety that assumes God has forgotten the people He already feeds and clothes on a larger scale every single day.
“The hillsides and the fields were bright with flowers, and, pointing to them in the dewy freshness of the morning, Jesus said, ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ The graceful forms and delicate hues of the plants and flowers may be copied by human skill, but what touch can impart life to even one flower or blade of grass?”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 95
White pictures the scene itself — an actual Galilean hillside in bloom, wildflowers Jesus could point to as He spoke, not an abstraction. Solomon’s own proverbial splendor (1 Kings 10) becomes the standard the flowers are said to outshine without any effort at all.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Matthew 6:31-34
The chapter’s closing command answers its own opening warning about mammon directly — anxiety over daily needs is, functionally, the same divided loyalty verse 24 already named, just wearing a more sympathetic face.
“I have come to open to you the kingdom of love and righteousness and peace. Open your hearts to receive this kingdom, and make its service your highest interest. Though it is a spiritual kingdom, fear not that your needs for this life will be uncared-for. If you give yourself to God’s service, He who has all power in heaven and earth will provide for your needs.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 99
“Seek ye first” does not promise that need will vanish; it promises that need will be met as a byproduct of a settled priority, not as the priority itself. A chapter that began with three warnings against performing righteousness for an audience closes on the same single instruction each warning was quietly pointing toward — one day, one Father, one kingdom sought first, and everything else left, without anxiety, in the hands that were never going to drop it.
