Should Christians Only Pray in Secret?
Secret Prayer?
Matthew 6
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. Hopefully, you don’t either. When I gather with other believers I enjoy worshiping and fellowshipping together with them. However, sometimes I hear people object to public demonstrations and gatherings of the faithful. Sometimes they even quote Jesus to say that it is only hypocrites who pray in public with others. An example of such a teaching from Christ is found in the Sermon on the Mount.
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:5-8, NASB)
So, should we only pray in secret? The short answer to this is, No. While it may seem at first glance that Jesus is calling all corporate prayers hypocritical in Matthew 6:5-8, we have to recognize that in the immediately following verses (Matthew 6:9-13) Jesus teaches the most famous group prayer recorded in Scripture! Notice the pronouns Jesus uses: “Our,” “us,” and “we” are all plural. Jesus is not condemning all public prayers and then instructing His followers to pray together publicly in groups. Instead, Jesus is condemning the attitude of praying pridefully with the intention of sounding pious and using meaningless repetition and flowery words. It is not sinful to be seen while you are praying. However, it is sinful to pray with the sole purpose of being seen by others. There is a big difference between these two things. Instead of praying with the intention of being seen by others, Jesus teaches His followers to prioritize their prayers correctly. When we prioritize like Christ and pray together in humility, we can confidently pray both privately and publicly and know our God is pleased to receive our prayers.
There is so much depth to the prioritization Jesus is teaching for prayer. We’ve got a book on this which we encourage you to check out called, Faithful in Prayer: Seven Biblical Priorities in Prayer. For now, let’s focus a little more on the “secret” vs. “public” (or, internal and external) nature of the Christian faith.
Is Christianity About the External Activities?
One of the biggest misunderstandings about Christianity is that it is a religion about “externals.” In reality, the Scriptures are much less concerned about what we do than who we are.
On the one hand, it is easy to flip through the pages of the Bible and point to passages that refer to our external conduct and say, “See! Christianity is all about what we do!” It cannot be denied that the Bible talks about our conduct. There is some truth to the fact that Christians do certain things. (Here’s a link to our article: What Do Christians Do?) Even so, we do not become Christians by sitting in a church pew any more than we could become a lawn mower by sitting in a shed!
It should be clear that who we are has a real and significant impact on what we do. The primary focus of New Testament Christianity is on becoming a child of God through the completed work of Christ – being born again into the family of God by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
It is good and right for those who have experienced the transformative grace of God in their lives to begin living in accordance with this truth. The two are intimately tied together but the order is very important. We do not – and cannot – become children of God by acting the right way. But, children of God ought to behave in accordance with the will of their Father!
You may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the above question about whether or not we should pray in secret? The fact is that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is (in part) addressing this common misconception that God is simply interested in our external acts of righteousness.
Clean Outside, Rotten Inside
The Pharisees had perfected the act of putting on a show of righteousness while they were still living outside of the will of God. Jesus confronts this directly saying in Matthew 15,
You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’” (Matthew 15:7-9, NASB)
God is not interested in our self-righteous external acts of piety. God is interested in our hearts being rightly inclined towards Him. If our prayer, giving, service, evangelism and worship are actually for God, then we should have no problem doing it all in secret so that only God is aware. After all, we should be seeking His will and His favor, not the favor of spectators.
It comes down to our motivations. Is our motivation in praying, giving, serving, evangelizing and worshipping to please the Lord and to do right in His eyes out of devotion to Him? Or, are we seeking the approval and rewards of the approval of man? Jesus points out the wrong motives of the Pharisees again in Matthew 23:
“But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.” (Matthew 23:5-7, NASB)
Notice that Jesus says they do their deeds to be noticed by men. It’s not that their deeds are seen by men that is the problem. It’s that they do their deeds in order to be seen by men that is drawing such severe rebuke by Jesus. Notice the “woes” that follow. Yikes! These severe rebukes and warnings are ignored at our own risk.
Clean Inside, Clean Outside
Jesus’s word of correction is to stop focusing on the externals (“being noticed by men”) and fix their motivation for doing such works:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:25-28, NASB)
If our motives are right before God, it won’t matter whether our deeds are noticed by men or if they are done in secret. God sees all things and judges justly. That includes the secret intents and motivations of our hearts.
If we misunderstand the focus of Scriptures on the internal reality of our hearts being either properly or improperly oriented towards God (and the effect this orientation has on our external actions, making even “righteous deeds” done with impure motives like filthy rags before a holy God), then we may find a contradiction with other passages. For example, consider the following passage which is also from Jesus in the same Sermon on the Mount:
Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16, NASB, underline added)
The Apostle Peter declares a similar truth:
Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:12, NASB, underline added)
To those who seek to gain praise from men, the Lord says do your deeds in secret. To those who seek to gain praise for the Lord, He says do your deeds before men that they may glorify your Father in heaven! The motivations behind our actions are the most important aspect. God is interested in our hearts because He knows that if we are rightly oriented towards Him we will act rightly in the world (see 2 Corinthians 5:12).
To sum up: Christians should be obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit in all things, and in all things should seek to glorify God. Our motivation should always be to receive praise from our Lord and Master. If we act to be seen by men, we’ve received our reward in full. If we never shine in the darkness by letting our generosity be seen, then we are hiding our light under a basket. In all things, seek to follow the lead of the Spirit – against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:16-26)!
Related Questions
Does the Bible say to pray in private? Yes, Jesus teaches that His followers should pray in private in Matthew 6:5-6. This teaching is given to illustrate that God Himself, not other people, should be the primary focus of our prayers. This instruction is not a prohibition of public prayer as even our public prayers should still be focused toward God.
Why Does God want us to pray in secret? The purpose of secret prayer is to strip away any prideful motivation that may exist from others seeing your demonstration of piety and trust in God. If you are unwilling to pray in private, when only God knows, then clearly God is not your intended audience.
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