A Good Secret： Almsgiving — Duane Troyer

Grace be with you. Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm thankful. I'm thankful to be gathered with everybody. I'm thankful for a beautiful day and a beautiful place to gather. Why don't we...

Jesus’ Teaching on Secret Righteousness

I'm going to continue into chapter 6 now of the Sermon on the Mount. We'll look at these next few verses. Why don't we stand and read them and we'll pray and get started. Chapter 6, verses 1 through 4.

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed of them. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in synagogues and in the streets so that they may be honored by men.

Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving will be in secret and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Let's pray. Well, Father in heaven, we thank you for all you do for us. Thank you for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us to walk in your ways, to be faithful, to walk worthy of this salvation that you've offered us.

We pray for your grace and spirit to help us. We pray now that as we look into these words that you would enlighten us and help us and help us to get your meaning and what you meant when you said this and help us to be faithful to your will in all things.

Thank you again for all you do for us. In Jesus' name, Amen. So, here we are in Matthew, in this first sermon that we have recorded that Jesus preached. He's laying out what I've in previous messages called and I've heard it called this from other people as well, like this would be like the constitution of a new kingdom, of a new nation of people.

Here's the summary of what constitutes the attitudes and the actions and the behaviors of the people that will be citizens of this new kingdom. It is teachings that reshape the way that the natural man thinks.

He has other worldly solutions for this world's problems. And there are solutions that work. There are solutions that work universally and eternally. They just work. They are that deep, that meaningful.

This sermon on this mountain is the equivalent to the new covenant that Mount Sinai would be to the old covenant. Leo Tolstoy said about the Sermon on the Mount, he said, nowhere does Jesus speak with greater solemnity, nowhere does he propound moral rules more definitely and practically, nor do these rules in any other form awaken more readily and echo in the human heart.

So we've looked at the Beatitudes, we've looked at how Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth, the light of the world, how he came to fulfill the law, and then six times he references the law in the Torah, and then he lays a law beside it.

And the law that he lays beside this makes the old law just disappear. It vanishes away, not into destruction, but into uselessness. If we get what Jesus is saying, this law that came from the Torah that he's referencing is useless.

What do we need? A law that says thou shalt not commit adultery, if we get thou shalt not lust, or that we should not lust after someone, and so forth. Why would we need a law that says thou shalt not murder, if he says don't even be angry with someone.

Motives Behind Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fasting

And so now, here we go into chapter six, and he's talking, now he's getting into some things that his Jewish audience would have been familiar with. And what does he do? He wants them to check their motives.

He's going to talk about almsgiving, praying, and fasting. All things that his listeners would have been doing and would have been familiar with, but he's wanting them to check their motives and be sure that they're not doing it for the wrong purpose and totally lose the value.

So here in chapter six, I really appreciate this wind, although it keeps blowing my pages around. Here in verse six, he starts in by saying, Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed of them, by them.

Otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Now depending what translation, if you're reading in a King James translation, it'll probably say either beware or take heed. And then it says, take heed that you do not your alms, thank you, that you do not your alms before men to be seen of men or something like that.

And this translation says, practice your righteousness. Various translations read different. Some of them will say something like, take heed that you don't do your charitable deeds, your alms or your deeds of righteousness.

And there's some discrepancies in different manuscripts and that's why that's the case. But I think with Jesus, I think there's not that much difference in the meaning necessarily. Jesus is starting by saying, Beware, beware, take heed.

Let me back up just a little bit. So basically he's saying these good deeds that you're going to do, I want you to take care why you do these and I feel like this verse 1 is kind of a, I'm going to park right here on this verse 1 for a while, for the first part of this message.

But what I'm saying about this verse 1 will apply once we get into the next message and he talks about praying. And he talks about fasting. So he's saying, take care that you don't do these things to be seen of men.

And then he goes on in verse 2 to say, So, when you give to the poor, don't do this. And later he'll say, And when you pray, don't do it this way. And he says, when you fast, don't do it this way. But he says, beware, take heed.

Jesus is saying, I am about to tell you some things that are deceptive, that are dangerous, but not so obvious. There is a subtle thing that goes on in our hearts and I want you to really beware of it.

So take caution, beware. Sometimes when we pour concrete in areas where there is foot traffic or people around, when we're done, we'll put caution tape around it. Beware! Because it's not completely obvious that this is not safe to walk on or drive on or something like that.

And that's what you do when you put wet paint or when paint's wet or something like that, when something's not just clearly obvious. And Jesus is coming into a section of his teaching here and he's surrounding it with caution tape and he's saying, beware.

I'm going to tell you about an evil that is real subtle, he's saying, and if your motive for doing good is to be seen by men, then you lose the reward that I have for you. I know I keep saying this, that Jesus came to lay the axe at the root of the tree and it seems like he just keeps striking that axe deeper and deeper and deeper.

We had read in the previous chapter, in other messages, how the root of murder, if you want to deal with the root of murder, get down to that root that's called anger and deal with it. If you want to deal with the root of adultery, get down to lust and deal with it right there.

Or a false swearing, the root of the problem there is that the common word has become unreliable. The root of evil progressing is because people resisted with evil and so forth. And then he ends up saying there in verse 5, therefore, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

You know how God loves those who love Him and those who hate Him. He does good deeds to those who love Him and hate Him. I want you to be that way. There's no reward for the one who just loves the people that love them.

There's no reward for only greeting your brothers. So be like your Father. And then he says, but beware, if you do these things for the purpose of being seen by men, that honor that you receive from men, that's your reward.

That self-satisfying feeling that when you've done something and people have noticed it and they say, oh, yeah, this is a good man. This is a godly man. That's your reward. There you go. Why is it so difficult for us to always have before our eyes how big, how there's this world of difference between being honored by God and being honored by men?

The Secret Relationship with God

I think there's something in us that wants to be honored. I don't think that's wrong. I think that's probably God-given. You know, if we end up being the honored guest at a meal or somewhere, that's special.

That's special. If someone confides in us something that they don't just tell everybody, that's special. It makes us realize that that person has some level of trust in me. And that makes us feel good.

If someone finds us worthy of sharing a secret, that he doesn't just share with everybody, it makes us feel special. I remembered Brother Buddy gave a message some years back, or I don't know how long ago, about secrets.

And I went back and listened to that. Secrets are fragile, but powerful, he said. And keeping secrets can obviously be a bad thing, but they're not always a bad thing. Not necessarily, not all secrets are bad, and they're actually special.

They're powerful. And would you believe it, that God, the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth, the one who spoke a word and the whole universe came into existence, the one who hangs the earth on nothing, the one who sits up there in this vast heavenlies and has the earth for his footstool, he wants to have this special, personal, secret relationship with us.

This relationship where there's things between us and him that no one else needs to know about. And for us to make so that other people knows about it blows the secret. It spoils it. It's really bad. It really hinders us from nurturing this relationship that we have with God.

It's a relationship that is nurtured by us carefully considering his will than doing his will without seeking honor of men. And we wait for the honor of God. And that's one of the reasons I think it's so difficult for us to remember this is because we have to wait on it with patience and we have to wait on it with trust and we have to wait on it in faith and with hope.

And these are things that are not so easily attained by the carnal man that longs for immediate gratification. If we, and this is another thing that Buddy pointed out in that message, is if we nurture or if we keep a sin a secret, if we're in hidden sins and we keep that a secret, we're actually nurturing a relationship with the devil.

That's really bad. And we'll get our reward from the devil. But if we do our alms and our prayers and our fastings in secret with God, we nurture a relationship with him and we'll receive a reward from him.

And if we do our alms and pray and fast on display to be seen of men, to get honor from them, we'll get our reward from them. And that'll be our full reward. Jesus said in John 5, 44, How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

One thing I want to be clear about is that this secret relationship with God is not some secret knowledge about the gospel or about salvation. It is not some special revelation that we have about God or our duty to Him.

That kind of thinking is Gnosticism at the core. The gospel is public knowledge. The way Jesus came and publicly spoke and the way to salvation, the truth, the life has been made manifest in Christ. That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about things like glory and honor and rewards and things like that. Glory belongs to God alone. I think it's in the prophet Isaiah that it says, God said, I am the Lord your God, my glory I will share with no one.

Honor and rewards belong to those who are worthy of them. And according to this portion of Jesus' teaching, if we seek them from one another, we are no longer deemed worthy to receive them from Him. Psalm 91 starts in by saying, He who dwells in the secret places of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Christ and the Church as Bridegroom and Bride

In the Song of Songs, sometimes it's called the Song of Solomon, but I think the more appropriate name is the Song of Songs. Do you know why it's the Song of Songs? Because it's the greatest of songs.

God is the God of all gods. He's the King of all kings. And this is the Song of All Songs. The Song of Songs, you read this and there's this relationship going on between the groom and the bride. And it's a picture of what is supposed to be going on between Christ and the church.

And there's this intense and deep longing for each other. And they wake up in the middle of an afternoon and are like, Oh, where's my lover? I've got to go find him. I'm not sure where he's at right now.

I need to know where he's at. Or she. In chapter 2, verse 14, the bride says, Oh, my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. And I think that's the desire we should have in almsgiving and in prayer and in fasting.

Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. And this is not something that my brother on my right and my brother on my left have to know about. I think it's Robert M. Machein or McCain or something like that.

He was a minister in the Church of Scotland in the 1800s. I don't know much about him, but he said, No amount of activity in the king's service will make up for the neglect of the king himself. This word secret throughout this passage that we'll read it multiple times here in this message and in the next one, probably one or maybe two.

The Greek word is kryptos. It means concealed or hidden. It also means inwardly, which means that which is in secret or that which is hidden, not immediately evident. It's the same word that's used in 1 Peter 3, 4, when Peter says, Women, let your adornment not be outwardly with braiding hair and adornment.

What's it say? Braiding of the hair and so forth. Those external adornments. But let it be, and here it is, kryptos, the hidden man of the heart. Let it be the hidden man of the heart. And then it goes on to say the ornament of the meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

We've all seen it. We've all seen a woman who outwardly adorned herself and made herself attractive. And it wasn't long till you realized, this woman on the inside is proud and boastful and loud and boisterous.

And any godly man does not want to be married to her. Any godly man does not want to be yoked up or in a covenant with a woman like that. And God does not enter a covenant into a covenant with people who don't have that hidden man of the heart that fosters and nurtures in the hidden man of the heart this love and this longing and this relationship with him.

One thing Jesus doesn't say here in verse 1 of chapter 6, he doesn't say, beware of doing deeds of righteousness before men. He says, beware of doing deeds of righteousness before men to be noticed of them, for the purpose of being noticed by them.

Good Works That Glorify God

Just earlier in this same sermon, Jesus had said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. He went on to say that a city that is set on a hill cannot be, and here's this word again, kruptos, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Maybe it's krupto there, but the same root word at least. But it's that, and they glorify the Father in heaven. Herein is the difference between the teaching that Jesus gave earlier, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and the difference between that and Jesus saying, when you do these good works, or when you do your prayers and your almsgiving and fasting, beware that you don't do it to be seen of men.

Jesus, when he came, he came to glorify the Father and to show compassion to humanity. His deeds of kindness couldn't be hidden. I mean his fame just spread abroad like fire in the wind. Even though he tried, he would heal people and he'd say, now see to it that you don't tell anybody.

And he'd make a blind man see. And one of the people, maybe the lepers that he cleansed, he told them to go do what needs to be done in the temple to get your access back in the city or whatever. But for the most part he was like, don't go spread this abroad.

Jesus sometimes tried to get away from everybody and get up on the mountain and pray by himself and be alone. But people just followed him and found him. I think we can say that's one of the distinguishing, or we can use it as a gauge to mark the difference between a true ministry of healing and things like that and what we mostly see today where they draw big crowds together.

Once they have everybody gathered together, they'll bring a lame person or somebody up and try to perform some kind of miracle in front of everybody. And then they'll gather all their wealth and their fame.

And it's a totally different spirit. It's a totally different heart than what Jesus had. Proverbs 20, verse 6 says, Most men proclaim each his goodness, but who can find a faithful man? We, as humans, tend to hide our wrong deeds and want to display our good deeds.

And Jesus is turning this whole thing around. He's turning that whole thing upside down. He knows that it's deeply ingrained in us. This is exactly what Adam and Eve, the very first human beings, did.

As soon as they did something wrong, they tried to cover that up. It runs all through scriptures. When Saul came back from defeating the Amalekites, he proclaimed his goodness. He said, I have fulfilled the word of the Lord the word of the Lord.

And Samuel said, well, what means this bleeding of sheep and lowing of cattle that I hear? And he immediately was like, oh, well, that is for sacrifice. He covered up his disobedience in a show of piety, in a show of worship.

And even after Samuel soundly reproved him, Saul said, honor me before the elders and my people, and I will worship the Lord. Naaman, that story that when Elisha was the prophet there in Israel, and Naaman had leprosy, and he was in Syria, maybe, I'm not quite sure, some other country.

And someone told him that there's a prophet in Israel that could heal you. And he went over there to be healed. Now, Naaman wanted to be healed from his leprosy. There was actually something he even wanted more than that.

He wanted to be honored. And I don't think Naaman was able to see that. I think if somebody would have come to him on the way over and said, you know what, Naaman, what's your main motive for going over there?

And he would have said, well, I got leprosy. I'm going to die. I want to be healed. And that person would have said, no, your real motive to go over there is to get honored. He probably could not have seen it.

Naaman, like all men, had a heart that was deceitful, above all things, and desperately wicked. But when he came over there, and the prophet that he went to see didn't even come to the door, but simply sent a messenger out and said, go wash in the Jordan seven times.

It was too much. It was too much for a man who was seeking honor. And he said, I thought surely... He got angry. And he said, I thought surely he would come out and greet me, and he'd lay his hands on my leprosy, and he'd call upon this God, and he'd make this big deal of it.

And he was furious. And he rode away. And fortunately, or that's not the right word, but thankfully, one of his servants got his attention, and said, look, if he'd have told you to do something great, you would have done it.

Why couldn't you just do that? And he repented. He repented of his honor-seeking heart, and he went down into that muddy Jordan River, and he dipped himself seven times, and he came out clean. That time...

Then he went back to Elisha's house, and that time Elisha came out to meet him. And I think right there is a real picture of how this... If we come to God, and we are wanting to seek honor for himself, he's not even going to come to the door.

He's going to send a messenger to tell us what to do. But once we repent, and we humble ourselves, and we wash ourselves in that water of God, if we come to the door of Christ, he's there. He's ready for us.

Hypocrisy and the Desire for Praise

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I think that comes out of the prophet Jeremiah. We become actors with masks on. We clean up the outside of the cup, that part of the cup that people can see.

We clean that all up real nice, and we hope people think we're drinking nice, clean water. But inside, we're suffering from the contamination, and the slime, and the filth of what's inside the cup. It's that predisposition of mankind in general that sits on the driver's seat of Facebook and every social media platform that likes to put out that good face.

It likes to put out that good picture, that good display of who we are. And inwardly, we fail, and we never show that part. It's a misery. It's something that God cannot help us. God cannot help us when we're that way.

It's called hypocrisy. The word hypocrite literally means an actor in a play. An actor might play various parts in the same play, and he just puts on a different mask, and he presents himself as a different person.

Now here, today's passage is the first time we have recorded that Jesus used this word hypocrite, but he's going to end up in his next three years of preaching and teaching, and he's going to use this word a lot.

And he has a special hatred for it. About 95%, I'd say at least 95 of the time, when I hear what Jesus is teaching and telling to people, maybe 90%, I don't know, a really high percent, the posture that I imagine Jesus having is a teaching with open arms.

Come to me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Come, and I'll give you fountains of living water. Sometimes he'll sit down. He has this inviting way of calling people to him. And then there's a small percent of time when he speaks, when I think he is pointing fingers, and it's the times when he says, you hypocrites, you actors, you who are making this show of something, and you're not it on the inside.

That's the little percent of the time that Jesus... You read Matthew 23. It's intense. He has a special punishment for the hypocrites. I think it's in Matthew 24 or somewhere where he talks about a certain person, maybe that master who beat his servants or something like that.

He said, I will appoint him. I will assign a place for him with the hypocrites where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. John Chrysostom wrote, he has appropriately called them actors for they wear a mask of mercy.

However, the spirit inside is one of cruelty, of inhumanity. They do it not because they pity their neighbor, but so they may enjoy recognition. In reality, this comes from the utmost cruelty. While another person is perishing from hunger, they are not concerned about relieving his suffering, but about obtaining praise.

Here, back to Matthew 6 here. So he says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed of them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored of men.

Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. I used to wonder, or just thought, I guess when I read that, I used to think, well, that's actually what the Pharisees did. Like, they literally went on a street corner, picked up a trumpet, blew it loud till they had everybody's attention, then dropped money in a box.

I used to think, well, that is so far out there. That is so absurd. Like, how could not anyone see through that? But I didn't realize till recently that some ancient writers don't think that's what they literally did, but that this was a figure of speech that Jesus used to expose just how inwardly they were desirous of praise.

I don't know about that, but it would make sense to me. Verse 3 says, but when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Do it secretly. Do it, if possible, do it secretly.

And I think as best as I can tell what Jesus is saying, those closest to you, those sitting on your left and those sitting on the right, don't need to know about this. They don't try to have their attention before you do these things.

And then verse 4 says, so that your giving will be in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. It takes faith. The Hebrew writer said, without faith it is impossible to please him.

For he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. It takes patience. It takes endurance. But in due time we shall reap if we faint not. I want to talk just a little bit about alms and almsgiving.

Almsgiving as Compassion and Mercy

I think the meaning of this word is deeds of compassion or deeds of mercy. It's especially deeds of mercy to the poor. And it's a major part of Christianity. After all, it's exactly what Christ came to earth to do.

If almsgiving means doing acts of compassion and mercy on helpless people, then that's the definition of what Jesus came to earth for. When John's disciples came to inquire of Jesus whether he's the one, the promised one, Jesus said, well, here's the evidence.

Check it out. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. That's all the evidence you need that this is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised one.

Jesus said in Luke 11, Give of such things as you have. He doesn't say acquire and make more and gather so that you can give more. Now, there might be a moderate place for doing that. But I think biblically, and I think I could tell you from experience, and I think biblically, we could see this, that money and possessions is too deceitful in its nature to cultivate this idea that we should have a thinking and a practice of making more and making more and making more so that we can give more.

It just doesn't work that way. Paul said give liberally in Romans. I'm just going to read a few verses that talk about almsgiving, starting in 2 Corinthians. You can page to them if you want, but I'm not going to expound much on them.

I'm just going to read a few verses. 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 -9 says, Now this I say, He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. As it is written, He scattered abroad, He gave to the poor, His righteousness endures forever.

Ephesians 4, verse 28 says, He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. Here Paul is instructing that we should work with our hands, so that we have something to share, but let's make sure we leave it in the context.

He's talking to the guys who were lazy, sitting around doing nothing, stealing. And he's saying, don't do that, work with your hands. Do something profitable to supply for yourself and to have enough to share for others.

And it's not, it's not, I don't think, it might be the verse that you could use to say, you could in a moderate way, try to increase your income to give more, but I don't think, I don't think he's, I don't think he's promoting the idea that we often hear of people who go heavy and big into business and multi-level marketing and things like that and justify it all with the idea that, yeah, we're doing it to help the poor.

Hebrews 13 .6, 13 .16, sorry. And do not neglect doing good and sharing for with such sacrifices God is pleased. 1 John 3, 17 and 18. This is really powerful. But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. You know that portion in Galatians where Paul's talking about, Paul describes how he and Barnabas came to Jerusalem and they met with James and Peter and John and they gave each other a right hand of fellowship that Peter and James and John gave them a right hand of fellowship and said, you're free to go to the Gentiles.

We'll minister to the Jews. Here's one deal. Just don't forget the poor. Don't forget the poor, which Paul says I was eager to do anyway. Proverbs 19, 17 says, The one who has mercy on the poor lends to God and he will repay him according to his gift.

The early Christians quoted this verse often. The one who has mercy, shows mercy, does deeds of mercy to the poor, is lending to God. Now, lending to God? Like, we should lend to everyone. But there's, it's just the way it is.

There's, if you have anything, if you have any possessions, there's some people you're just always real happy to lend to. They return things in good shape, sometimes in better shape. And then there's some people who you just, you do, but you have to try not to do it begrudgingly.

You just, you're not sure. You're not sure if this, whatever you're lending to is going to come back. Is it going to come back at all? Is it going to come back in good shape? You know. And so, I would encourage us to still lend and be cheerful about it.

And do what Jesus said when he said, lend and don't even expect anything in return. That goes a long, long way in taking care of any bad feelings and anything like that. But imagine that we could lend to God, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who holds the whole cosmos and the whole universe and everything together and is all powerful, all knowing, all, has everything.

We could lend to him. What if we could? Well, we can when we give to the poor out of, out of a good heart not to be honored by men we're lending to God and he will repay accordingly. Now that's, that's pretty special.

Early Christian Examples of Generous Giving

Almsgiving was something the early Christians were known for. Not because they did it to be seen, they did it so abundantly that it could not be hidden. They recognized that Jesus said, didn't, Jesus didn't say, if you give alms.

He said, when you give alms. It's an expected thing. I'll read a few quotes. This is just a few. They speak much about this. Barnabas wrote, do not be ready to stretch forth your hand to receive while you draw them back when it comes to giving.

You shall not hesitate to give nor murmur when you give. Give to everyone who asks you. That's, there's something in the Didache really similar to that. Tertullian wrote, though we have our treasure chest, it is not made up of purchase money as of a religion that has its price.

Rather on the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation but only if it is his pleasure and only if he is able for there is no compulsion. All is voluntary. These gifts are to support and bury poor people, to support the needs of boys and girls destitute of means and parents and of old persons now confined to the house.

These gifts also help those who have suffered shipwreck. And if there happens to be any of us in the mines or banished to the islands or shut up in the prisons for no reason other than their faithfulness to the cause of God's church, they become the nurselings of their confession.

He also wrote, Tertullian also wrote, our compassion spends more in the streets than yours does in the temples. Here's a quote from Cyprian. He says, See how much he sins in the church. He who prefers himself and his children to Christ.

Such a person preserves his wealth and does not share, such a per, such a person preserves his wealth and does not share his abundant estate to relieve the poverty of the needy. What Cyprian is saying here, like I think we would all quickly, easily, immediately recognize that if we preferred ourselves before Christ, that'd be sin, right?

But he's saying here, if we prefer ourselves than our children to the extent that we're not helping the poor because of that, then it's sin because we're preferring them above Christ. And it goes hand in hand with the idea that he that is merciful to the poor lends to God.

Even those opposed to Christianity or outside of the church recognized it. One of the emperors named Julian said, Do we not observe the kindness of Christians to strangers, their care for the burial of their dead, and the seriousness of their lifestyle?

Do we not see how this has done the most to advance their cause? The godless Galileans, which is what he's calling these Christians, the godless Galileans not only take care of their own poor, but ours as well.

Another non-Christian, someone outside the church said in observing the Christians said, Giving in secret, oh sorry, this was Aristides. He is making this case on how that giving in secret was such a characteristic of the early Christians that he said, Christians do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude the kind deeds they do.