So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:2-4
“It belongs to the clean eye not to look for the praise of men in any right conduct nor to associate one’s good conduct with any idea of praise, that is, doing the right thing just to please men. For if you will be disposed also to simulate good, if your only consideration is man’s praise, because he, unable to see the heart, may praise even what is false. And those who do this, that is, who simulate goodness, have duplicity in their hearts. The heart of simplicity, that is, the clean heart, belongs only to him who lives beyond human praise and in his right living looks only to Him and strives to please only Him who alone reads the conscience. And whatever proceeds from the purity of such a conscience is praise-deserving in proportion to its lack of desire for human praise.”
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount translated by John J. Jepson (Ancient Christian Writers 5; Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978) 93.
As I teach through the eight Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount over eight sessions at Camp Spofford in New Hampshire (which had this amazing sunset last night pictured in the header photo above), I am inspired as I read excerpts from both modern and ancient commentaries like this one.
Augustine of Hippo makes a profound point here that each of us we must consider. Rather than have duplicity in our hearts, which is doing good with wrong motives, let us exhibit a lack of desire for human praise with pure hearts. In other words, let’s do good today and every day because God is watching and will reward us!