For Teaching

Matthew 6: What the Passage Says

103 claims across 34 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Matthew 6 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount by teaching that giving, praying, and fasting should be done for God rather than for an audience, since those who perform them to be seen already have all the reward they will get. He gives his followers a model prayer and adds that God's forgiveness of them is tied to their forgiving others. He then tells them to store up treasure in heaven instead of on earth, warns that no one can serve both God and money, and tells them not to worry about food, drink, or clothing but to seek God's kingdom and righteousness first.

Claim by Claim

6:1
- Jesus told them to take heed not to do their righteousness/almsgiving before men in order to be seen by them.
- If they do their righteousness to be seen by men, they have no reward from their Father in heaven.
- Their Father is in heaven.
6:2
- Jesus said that when one gives alms, he should not sound a trumpet before himself.
- The hypocrites sound a trumpet before themselves in the synagogues and in the streets.
- The hypocrites do this so that they may be glorified by men.
- Jesus said 'Verily I say unto you'.
- The hypocrites have received their reward in full.
6:3
- Jesus said that when one gives alms, his left hand should not know what his right hand is doing.
6:4
- The purpose is that one's almsgiving may be in secret.
- One's Father sees in secret.
- One's Father will reward him.
- The King James says the Father shall reward him openly.
6:5
- Jesus said that when they pray, they shall not be like the hypocrites.
- The hypocrites love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets.
- They do this so that they may be seen by men.
- Jesus said 'Verily I say unto you'.
- The hypocrites have received their reward in full.
6:6
- Jesus said that when one prays, he should go into his inner room.
- He should shut his door.
- He should pray to his Father who is in secret.
- One's Father sees in secret.
- One's Father will reward him.
- The King James says the Father shall reward him openly.
6:7
- Jesus said that when they pray they should not babble with empty repetitions, as the Gentiles/heathen do.
- The Gentiles think that they will be heard because of their many words.
6:8
- Jesus said they should not be like them.
- Their Father knows what things they need before they ask him.
6:9
- Jesus said they should pray in this manner.
- The prayer addresses 'Our Father who is in heaven'.
- The prayer asks that God's name be hallowed.
6:10
- The prayer asks that God's kingdom come.
- The prayer asks that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
6:11
- The prayer asks God to give us today our daily bread.
6:12
- The prayer asks God to forgive us our debts.
- The prayer asks this in the manner that we have forgiven our debtors.
6:13
- The prayer asks God not to lead us into temptation.
- The prayer asks God to deliver us from evil, or from the evil one.
- The King James adds that the kingdom, the power, and the glory are God's forever.
- The King James closes the prayer with 'Amen'.
6:14
- Jesus said that if they forgive men their trespasses, their heavenly Father will also forgive them.
- Their Father is heavenly.
6:15
- Jesus said that if they do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will their Father forgive their trespasses.
6:16
- Jesus said that when they fast, they should not be gloomy of face like the hypocrites.
- The hypocrites disfigure their faces.
- They do this so that they may appear to men to be fasting.
- Jesus said 'Verily I say unto you'.
- The hypocrites have received their reward in full.
6:17
- Jesus said that when one fasts, he should anoint his head.
- He should wash his face.
6:18
- The purpose is that he not appear to men to be fasting.
- The purpose is that he appear to be fasting to his Father, who is in secret.
- One's Father sees in secret.
- One's Father will reward him.
- The King James says the Father shall reward him openly.
6:19
- Jesus said not to lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
- On earth moth and consuming/rust destroy.
- On earth thieves break in and steal.
6:20
- Jesus said to lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
- In heaven neither moth nor consuming/rust destroys.
- In heaven thieves do not break in nor steal.
6:21
- Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
6:22
- The lamp of the body is the eye.
- If your eye is single/sound, your whole body will be full of light.
6:23
- If your eye is evil/bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
- If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.
6:24
- No one can serve two masters.
- He will either hate the one and love the other.
- Or he will hold to the one and despise the other.
- You cannot serve God and mammon/wealth.
6:25
- Jesus said 'Therefore I say unto you'.
- Jesus said not to be anxious for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.
- Jesus said not to be anxious for your body, what you will put on.
- Jesus asked whether the life is not more than food.
- Jesus asked whether the body is not more than clothing.
6:26
- Jesus said to look at the birds of the air.
- The birds do not sow.
- The birds do not reap.
- The birds do not gather into barns.
- Your heavenly Father feeds them.
- Jesus asked whether you are not worth much more than they are.
6:27
- Jesus asked which of them by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature, or one span to his lifetime.
6:28
- Jesus asked why they are anxious about clothing.
- Jesus said to consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
- The lilies do not toil.
- The lilies do not spin.
6:29
- Jesus said 'I say unto you'.
- Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these.
6:30
- The grass of the field exists today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven.
- God clothes the grass of the field in this way.
- Jesus asked whether God will not much more clothe them.
- Jesus called them of little faith.
6:31
- Jesus said therefore not to be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?'
- Or 'What shall we drink?'
- Or 'What shall we wear?'
6:32
- The Gentiles seek after all these things.
- Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
6:33
- Jesus said to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness.
- The King James specifies the kingdom of God.
- All these things will be added to you.
6:34
- Jesus said therefore not to be anxious about tomorrow.
- Tomorrow will be anxious about itself.
- Sufficient for the day is its own evil/trouble.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1: The King James "alms" means money, food or goods given to the poor. The Greek manuscripts differ at this point: some read a word meaning acts of charity, others a broader word meaning acts of righteousness, which would make this verse a heading covering all three practices that follow, giving, praying and fasting. "Take heed" is simply old English for "be careful."
6:2: The Greek word behind "hypocrites" originally meant a stage actor, someone speaking lines in a mask, so the charge is playacting rather than lying. A synagogue was the local building where a Jewish community gathered to pray and hear the scriptures read; it was a normal and public place to give and to pray. No one has found evidence of actual trumpets being blown for donations, so the phrase is most likely a figure of speech for making an announcement of it. "They have their reward" translates a commercial term used on receipts: paid in full, the account closed, nothing further owing. "Verily I say unto you" renders the Hebrew word amen, used here as a strong opening: this is certain.
6:3: Letting one hand not know what the other is doing is a proverb, not an instruction about hands. The point is giving so discreetly that you barely register it yourself.
6:4: "Openly" in "shall reward thee openly" is absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts, which end simply "will reward you." The word was in the manuscripts the King James translators used, and appears again in verses 6 and 18.
6:5: Standing was the normal posture for Jewish prayer, and prayers were said at fixed times of day. That is what makes the criticism sharp: the problem is not standing or praying aloud, but arranging to be at a busy street corner exactly when the hour of prayer arrived.
6:6: "Closet" in 1611 English did not mean a place to hang clothes. It meant a small private inner room, often a storeroom, one of the few rooms in an ordinary house with a door that shut. "Thy Father which is in secret" means the Father who is himself unseen, not a Father hiding in the room.
6:7: "Vain repetitions" translates a Greek word that appears almost nowhere else and seems to imitate the sound of babbling or stammering. It suggests heaping up words or syllables to wear a god down. "The heathen" here means non-Jews, people outside Israel's worship; ancient prayers to the gods often did pile up long strings of divine names and titles to be sure of naming the right one.
6:9: "Hallowed" is an old English word meaning treated as holy, set apart, held in reverence. It is a request, not a description: may your name be regarded as holy. "Which art in heaven" uses "which" of a person, normal in 1611 English where we would now say "who." In Hebrew usage a person's name stands for the person himself and his reputation.
6:10: "Kingdom" here is closer to reign or rule than to a country with borders. The request is for God's authority to take effect, not for a piece of territory. "In earth" is simply older English for "on earth."
6:11: "Daily" translates a Greek word found almost nowhere else in ancient literature, and its meaning is genuinely uncertain. It may mean "for the day at hand," "for the coming day," or "necessary for existence." Translators have to choose one; the original readers may have heard all of these at once. "Bread" stands for food generally, as it does in English phrases like earning your bread.
6:12: "Debts" is literal: the Greek word means money or goods owed. In the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, the ordinary word for a sin was the same word used for a debt, so the image and the meaning ran together. Luke's version of this prayer uses "sins" in the first half and "is indebted" in the second.
6:13: "Temptation" translates a word that covers both enticement to do wrong and testing or trial of any kind, including hardship; English has no single word that carries both. "Deliver us from evil" is also ambiguous in Greek: the phrase can mean "from evil" in general or "from the evil one," and the grammar does not settle it. The closing sentence, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen," is not in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew; it appears to be an ending used in early church worship that was later copied into the text.
6:14: "Trespasses" translates a Greek word meaning a false step, a slip, a blunder, used for offenses against another person. It is a different word from "debts" in verse 12.
6:16: "Of a sad countenance" means wearing a gloomy face. There is wordplay in the Greek: the verb translated "disfigure" means to make something disappear or go unrecognized, and it sits next to a verb meaning to appear or be seen, so the sense is that they make their faces unrecognizable in order to be recognized. In practice this meant leaving the face unwashed and ungroomed, or smearing it with ashes.
6:17: Rubbing olive oil into the hair and skin was ordinary daily grooming in a hot, dry climate, like combing your hair, not a religious ceremony. Washing the face and oiling the head were exactly what someone fasting would normally leave undone. The instruction is to look completely ordinary.
6:19: Wealth in this world was held largely as stored grain, metal and fine cloth, so moths eating stored garments was a real way to lose a fortune. The Greek word translated "rust" means eating or devouring and can cover corrosion, worms or vermin generally. "Break through" is literally "dig through": house walls were commonly sun dried mud brick, and a thief got in by digging a hole through the wall rather than forcing a door.
6:21: In this way of speaking the "heart" is not just feelings. It is the inner center where a person thinks, decides and commits, closer to what we might call someone's whole self.
6:22: "Single" translates a Greek word meaning single, whole or undivided, and by extension generous, free of calculation. So "if thine eye be single" may mean an eye that is sound and healthy, or a person who is openhanded rather than grasping. Both senses are present, and money is the subject on either side of this saying. The ancient picture of sight assumed the eye let light into the body, which is why it is called the body's lamp.
6:23: "An evil eye" was a standard idiom in Hebrew and Greek for stinginess and envy, the opposite of the generous "single" eye of verse 22, alongside its plainer sense of an eye that cannot see properly.
6:24: "Serve" here means to be a slave to, not to work for wages. A slave belonged to one owner absolutely, so belonging to two was not a strain but a contradiction. "Mammon" is not a god's name; it is an Aramaic word for money, property or accumulated wealth, left untranslated in the Greek and carried straight into the King James.
6:25: "Take no thought" is the one phrase in this chapter most likely to mislead. In 1611 it meant "do not be anxious," not "do not plan" or "give it no thought." The Greek word means to be pulled apart with worry. "Meat" in the King James means food of any kind, not flesh specifically, and "raiment" means clothing.
6:26: "Fowls" in the King James means birds in general, not poultry.
6:27: The King James reading is literal and the Greek is genuinely ambiguous. A cubit is a measure of length, about eighteen inches, the distance from elbow to fingertip; but the word translated "stature" can mean either bodily height or span of life. So the line reads either "add eighteen inches to his height" or "add a short stretch to his lifespan," the latter using a length word for time as English does in "a long life."
6:28: The flower meant is uncertain and probably not the garden lily; it is most likely a bright wildflower of the Galilean hillsides, such as the crown anemone. "Toil" means hard physical labor, the man's work in the fields; "spin" means twisting fiber into thread, the woman's work that clothing began with. Between them the two words cover the whole labor of producing cloth.
6:29: Solomon, king of Israel roughly a thousand years before this, was the standard byword for wealth and splendor; the accounts of his court in 1 Kings dwell on his gold, his robes and his table.
6:30: Dried grass and wildflower stalks were burned as fuel, being the cheapest thing available where wood was scarce. The "oven" was a clay dome or jar heated by a quick, fierce fire lit inside it. The point is how briefly the grass lasts and how little it is worth.
6:32: "The Gentiles" means the nations other than Israel, that is, everyone outside the Jewish community and its worship. It is the same group called "the heathen" in verse 7.
6:33: "Righteousness" translates a word covering both right conduct and being in the right, the settled rightness of a life and of a relationship. "The kingdom of God" means God's rule or reign, the state of affairs where what he wants is actually done, rather than a territory on a map.
6:34: "Evil" in "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" means trouble, hardship or difficulty, not wickedness. "Sufficient unto the day" means each day brings enough of it on its own.

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