The secret teachings of Jesus – not so secret after all, but routinely ignored by many Christians today.
“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.” St. Matthew chapter 6: 1
“Therefore when thous doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not they left hand know what they right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” St. Matthew Chapter 6, verse 2-4
In the church today, its very fashionable to give tithes and offering, as well as alms “publicly” in blatant contradiction to the teachings of Jesus.
In fact you can find many examples of this kind of thing going on. For example I know people who tithe and support missionary works, including charities by check.
They do this for obvious reasons – not only for the adulation and praise of people inside their church, but they do it for the tax purposes as well. Not only do they wish to get credit for this on the front end, as I like to say but they want credit for this on the back end in the form of a tax refund at the end of the year.
In fact they fully expect to get all that money back at the end of the year in many cases…The church also aids and abets them by providing a statement of their tax deductible contributions.
When asked why they don’t do this secretly they give you a lot of excuses for that. I maintain they do it so they can been seen of men.
I’ve learned you can’t argue with them on this point because most Christians will take offense. So in fact will church leaders I might add. So I usually don’t say anything when they put a check in the collection plate instead of cash. Or when they are officially recognized by the pastor before the entire congregation for being a “contributing member” of some charity or cause celeb…But like Jesus said in Matthew 6 they have their reward.