Matthew 6 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 6:1
Jesus presents the basic warning he will repeat with various examples throughout the next several verses. He warns against displaying outward acts so others will think well of you, that you are righteous.
Matthew 6:2-4
Jesus warns against giving to the poor to win the hollow rewards of man’s approval and self-congratulation of self-righteousness. Instead He encourages His disciples to seek the greater reward from their Heavenly Father by giving without regard to being seen by men.
Matthew 6:5-6
Jesus teaches that it is better to pray to your Father in secret and be rewarded by Him than it is to pray in a way to be seen by men and be thought holy by them.
Matthew 6:7-8
Jesus teaches His disciples to pray to their Father who loves and understands them, not like the Gentiles who utter meaningless repetitions in order to manipulate their gods to get what they want.
Matthew 6:9-15
Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray. They are to pray to their Father with all due honor, seeking to accomplish His will, acknowledging their dependence on Him to meet their physical and spiritual needs.
Matthew 6:16-18
Jesus warns against fasting to win the hollow rewards of man’s approval and self-righteousness. Instead He encourages His disciples to seek the greater reward from their Heavenly Father by fasting in secret.
Matthew 6:19-21
Jesus encourages His disciples to invest their treasures wisely where their value won’t be lost. And He tells them that their hearts will follow their treasures.
Matthew 6:22-23
Jesus gives a short parable about what the eye can see to emphasize the importance of spiritual awareness. To have a true perspective. If our eye is good, we see the reality and glory of His Kingdom and we will act according to our sight, and prosper.
Matthew 6:24
Jesus teaches that people cannot love both God and wealth. They must choose one or the other. We can do what God commands, which is to serve and love other people; or we can love wealth and obey what its lusts require. It is one or the other, it can’t be both.
Matthew 6:25-32
Jesus teaches His disciples to trust in God to meet their needs and not live their lives worrying.
Matthew 6:33
Jesus crystalizes what He has been teaching His disciples when He tells them to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” If they do this, He promises them that God will grant them all their needs.
Matthew 6:34
Jesus adds another thing to the list of what not to worry about. He admonishes His disciples to not worry about the future. We cannot control the future. Our focus should be upon faithfulness in the present. That is the only time we can trust or act.
Additional Resources
The Gospel of Matthew was written to demonstrate to the Jews of Jesus, the Messiah’s generation that He was indeed the Christ. Matthew thematically substantiates the Messianic identity of Jesus beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which ran from Abraham, the father of Israel’s people through King David who was promised to have a son who would be on Israel’s throne forever. Throughout his Gospel account Matthew makes use of numerous prophecies both explicitly stated and by way of subtle allusion to support his thesis. Matthew further makes use of parallel events in Jesus’s life to those of Messianic figures from the Old Testament (Moses, Joseph, David, etc.) to bolster his argument.
Jesus came to offer the Jews the chance to participate in the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. To do this, they would have to receive and follow Him as their Messiah. Jesus’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Ultimately, they rejected Him as their Messiah and condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah opened the door for Gentiles to enter the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12, 22:1-10). Matthew’s Gospel is therefore a call for the Jews repent of their murder of Jesus and to embrace Him for the divine Messiah He is.
Matthew shows how their rejection of Him and His brutal death was predicted not only by Jesus Himself, but also was foretold in the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah.
The main proof that Jesus was the Messiah was “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4). This was Jesus’s death and resurrection from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
Because Matthew’s Gospel was written to people who were already members of God’s eternal family by virtue of their faith in God’s promise to send the Messiah, Matthew emphasizes the “reward of eternal life” (aka “The Prize of Eternal Life”) rather than “the Gift of Eternal Life”. In other words, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on how to “enter the kingdom” rather than how to “be born again”.
Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill the law and open a way for God’s people to participate in the Messianic kingdom if they would follow His example of worshiping God from the heart by forgiving and serving others.
For “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If we have faith to follow the example set forth by the resurrected Messiah, whom all authority on heaven and earth has been granted (Matthew 28:18) and take up our cross for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25), then we will become great in His kingdom (Matthew 20:26).
Finally, Matthew provides extensive samples of Jesus’s teachings including “the Sermon on the Mount”, “the Little Commission”, and “the Olivet Discourse” and many parables, alongside accounts of numerous miracles and wonders, personal moments with His twelve disciples, interactions with seekers, and increasingly as his Gospel account progresses: challenges and confrontations with His adversaries – the Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests.
Having just taught that true righteousness consists of outer and inner harmony, Jesus shares His divine insight into what motivates human behavior. Using the terms “reward” and “worry,” He addresses the issues of our desires and fears. In between these two topics, Jesus gives His followers the right perspective to have when they pray.
View Matthew on the Timeline