Mon, 26 June, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
It seems that in Jesus’ day, the rich would make a big display of using some of their money to help others. They would sound the trumpet, their aquivilant of calling a press conference, and make sure everyone knew about their generous giving. Almost two thousand years later, nothing has changed.
What do we learn from this?
There are many ways we can trumpet our giving. Go to any college campus and you will see many egregious examples of this: building after building named for the wealthy doner who provided the funds for the facilities. They have given their money to be seen by people as philothrapists. They have their reward as people daily see their name on the building. But that that is all they will get. God promises no eternal reward for such an action done for the glory of the person who does it.
Disturbingly, you see this in churches as well. In most cases, people do it without thinking. They want to honor someone who has done much for the church. Sometimes without the person’s knowledge after their death the church posts a plaque recounting what they have done. Obviously, this isn’t the same. But too many times, the plaque is posted at the wishes of the person as a quid pro quo. They have given to the church and served in the church, and they want everyone to know what they have done and to honor them. This is clearly wrong. And since it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the plaque put up by the church to honor someone without their knowledge or desire for acknowledgement, and the plaque put up at the express desire of the person seeking acknowledgement, I personally oppose both.
Our service for God should be done for Him and not for the aclaim of others.
Where is Christ in this passage?
Jesus tells us that what we do can have eternal significance, if it is done for God. Whether it be our giving, our fasting, our prayer, or our obedience to His commands, all of these otherwise good actions can be for naught when we do them out of a desire for the praise of people. But as we do them for God, there are eternal consequences.
