Matthew 6:5-6 lays out some rules about praying. It says that you should pray in private, "but thou when thou pray, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee".
Christians are to pray in private, with their room door closed. Matthew implies that Christians do this because Christians trust that God knows their secrets, and rewards their trust in it. Matthew precedes this with a description of how hypocrites pray in public where other people can see them praying, "that they may be seen". Praying to God in order to appear good is a way of wearing the "good guy badge" and is a selfish method to gain social esteem.
vexen.co.uk
Many Christian scholars and, most of all, most Christians plainly and simply ignore these instructions [Reynolds 1988, p338]. They pray in public, for display, on television and in the media. How ironic is it that a Christian prays in public, displaying their affiliation to God, yet they ignore the instructions they believe their God has sent them? They are rebelling against God, whilst pretending to be serving it!
In case there is any doubt, Matthew 6:1-4 and Matthew 6:16-18 both back it up with some very similar text.
"The three passages, with their obvious formal similarity framed into the same speech, show that Jesus considered prayer, almsgiving and fasting as being matter between God and man, and that these actions should be performed without witness. He does not only tell his disciples what not to do, he says quite explicitly what he expects them to do."
"Jesus Versus Christianity" by Alfred Reynolds, p340
Reynolds goes on to point that Matthew did not merely write down Jesus' teachings, he also wrote down Jesus' actions. And not only Matthew, either, but Mark, Luke and John all have Jesus pray exclusively away from the public. "We read that 'he left them', 'he departed', 'he went a little further', 'withdrew himself' to pray (Matthew 26:39, 26:42, 26:44; Mark 1:35, 6:46, 14:32, 14:34-35, 14:39; Luke 5:16, 6:12, 22:41). He also prayed, not publicly, but in the presence of his disciples in John 11:41-42, 12:27-28 and 17:1 to 26." [Reynolds 1988, p340] |
