By Eric Lyons
Most people who are familiar with the Bible would agree that Matthew chapters 5 7, often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, contain some of the most memorable sayings in the world. Jesus’ list of beatitudes (5:3-12), His instruction to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (7:12, NIV), and His parable of the wise man and the foolish man (7:24-27) often are recalled even by those who rarely (if ever) read the Bible. Sadly, however, some of Jesus’ teachings in this sermon are better known among certain unbelievers as being contradictory. Allegedly, Jesus’ statements in Matthew 5:16 (“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”) and 6:1 (“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them…”) are incompatible. At one moment Jesus supposedly said, “We should” let others see our good works, and in the next He said, “We shouldn’t” let others see our good works. Are the skeptics correct in their assertions? What is the truth of the matter?
The Bible student who examines these passages (and others) carefully will notice that Jesus never said that His followers must not do good deeds in the presence of others. On the contrary, He has always wanted good deeds to be done, but they are to be done for the purpose of giving God the glory, and not man. Sadly, many Bible critics have twisted the true message of Jesus in effort to find an inconsistency in His teachings (cf. 2 Peter 3:16). The Bible teaches that God expects His followers to be doing good deeds. To the churches of Galatia, Paul wrote: “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” During the last week of His life, Jesus taught that His disciples are responsible for doing such things as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick (Matthew 25:31-46). But, these good works, and many others, are to be done in order to bring glory to God, not ourselves. When Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,” He ended this sentence with the phrase, “and glorify your Father in heaven.” A similar statement was written years later by the apostle Peter:
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation (1 Peter 2:11-12, emp. added).
Through the good works of mankind, God is to be exalted. (“To Him be the glory both now and forever”—1 Peter 3:18). Man, on the other hand, must never per- form godly works for the purpose of drawing attention to himself. In their efforts to expose the Bible as a book of errors and Jesus as less than divine, skeptics frequently omit the part of Matthew 6:1-4 that gives the context of Jesus’ statement concerning good deeds. Jesus was not forbidding all good deeds done in public. Rather, He was condemning the performance of “charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them” (6:1, emp. added). In the very next verse, Jesus elaborated on what He meant, saying, “Therefore, when you do charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men.” The hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, whom Jesus explicitly condemned earlier in this sermon (5:20), performed “all their works …to be seen by men” (Matthew 23:5). This was the attitude of which Jesus warned His listeners. Do not do charitable deeds in order to receive praise from men, but do them (whether private or public) to be seen of God.
Jesus taught that the proper motivation must lie behind every “good” action for that action to be pleasing in God’s sight. Some godly actions may be done in secret (e.g., giving monetarily to a good work, praying for the sick, etc.). Others can (and must) be done openly (e.g., preaching the Gospel—cf. Acts 2). Whatever actions in which we engage ourselves, in order for them to be pleasing to God, they must stem from a sincere heart whose motivation is to bring glory to God.
