Is It OK to Post My Good Deeds Online If My Heart Is in the Right Place?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, is it okay to post my good deeds online if my heart is in the right place?

Now Tim, before we get started on this question, what Bible verse do you have for us? Yeah, Matthew 6, 1 -6 says,

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your

Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.

Truly I say to you that they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your

Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may be seen by others.

Truly I say they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your

Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Well, that seems pretty open and shut, doesn't it?

I mean, certainly there's a lot there that our culture, particularly our culture that is influenced by social media, would do well to try to reflect on.

Yeah, it feels like social media is one of those things where it basically, it's the type of thing where you typically get rewarded for talking about yourself, right?

Not rewarded in any real, tangible sense, but more just like you get fake internet points.

That's what you get on social media a lot of times. And so, yeah, likes and hearts and little laugh emojis and whatnot.

And so, basically, it sounds like just from a cursory sort of, like listening to you read that passage off, it sounds like essentially what's being said there, the application for our day and age is essentially like a, you know, beware boasting about your good works online.

Otherwise, your only reward will be the little thumbs up, the number of thumbs up that you got on Facebook, right?

Yeah, definitely. Is that an accurate, so that's an accurate. So, okay.

But, I mean, what does that mean though? I mean, does that mean like, hey,

I can never talk about anything good that I've ever done ever in my entire life online lest I, you know, lose my reward in heaven for those things?

Yeah. So, you know, part of what's happening is you have a verse like this. It's basically telling you to be aware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.

So, what's happening is there is a, there's something that you're warned against. So, what you're warned against is practicing your righteousness to be seen by other people.

That's what you're warned against. So, then in the minds of many people, as they're trying to interpret a passage like this, they think then that the issue is entirely one of motive.

Okay? So, like their way of trying to understand what's happening is to basically say, hey, the problem

Jesus is addressing is not the problem of practicing your righteousness before others, period.

Right? Right. The issue is it's just a motive issue. And, I mean, certainly, yeah, he's critiquing a certain motive, but it's a little bit more complicated than what people are making it out.

So, what's happening is, like, right. So, the idea here is to say, hey, beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you'll have no reward.

And there are specific applications that Jesus gives at this point. So, if you're going to give to the needy, don't sound a trumpet.

Right? Okay. If you're going to give to the needy, don't sound a trumpet. And then if you're going to pray, right, don't be like the hypocrites who, you know, love to stand in the streets and pray and, you know, make long prayers.

Go in your prayer closet. Basically shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.

And, you know, when your Father who sees you in secret, He'll reward you. So people look at that and they'll say, okay, is

Jesus then – they'll start with a prayer kind of thing. Is Jesus criticizing the idea of ever praying in public?

Right? So that's the logic. Well, no, He's not necessarily discouraging the idea of ever praying in public or else it would always be sinful and always be wrong for people at church to pray in public.

So then what it reduces to in their mind then is it's all about motive. Right? It's not about – like the issue is not about praying publicly or not praying publicly.

It's only – the issue is only don't do it in order to be seen by others. And then the problem, though, is to say that that's just – that's not really what's happening.

Okay? What do you mean? Meaning like – so taking a step back, part of what's happening is

Christians in their mind, they don't have like a category for an external action that decisively demonstrates the character of a person's heart.

Does that make sense? Maybe. Keep going. All right. So what's happened is

Christians have been like religiously policed with this idea that you could never assume anything about the actions of other people.

And like what you need to do is you need to always kind of assume the best possible motives for other people. And you need to always – like you can never like draw any conclusions whatsoever from a person's external actions as it relates to their heart condition.

Okay? So in every single encounter, no matter how bizarre a person might actually act, you have to basically like put your fingers in your ear and say,

I don't know what this means. I can't assume anything negative about this.

The only things I can assume are positive about this. And so basically like you have to go into every encounter, and if you have bizarre external behavior, you have to pretend like you don't know what it means.

Does that make sense? Yeah. All right. So let me see if I can give you examples and then talk about, well, how does it apply to a passage like this?

So think about it like this. So like if a girl were to dress immodestly, what kind of assumptions would – could you make?

She's a hussy. All right.

So like in the minds of many people, you're not really allowed to say that she's looking for attention, right?

Mm -hmm. She's desperate for attention. She's looking for attention. She's – Possible dad issues.

Possible dad issues. Godless hussy. All right. Whatever. You're not allowed to assume anything in the minds of any people.

But then like people in a past generation, they would know like, okay, like if you're constantly posting pictures of yourself in various states of undress online, like that means something.

You're communicating. You're easy. You're communicating. You're a hussy. You're communicating. Your attention is starved, right? Yeah. You need affirmation.

Because – so objectively like those behaviors reveal something about a person's heart to where – like if a person has a content heart, right?

They're not filled with vanity. They're concerned about their brothers. They're not going to engage in certain actions along those lines.

So what's happened though is the church, we've kind of declared a ceasefire against all of these things to where we're not really allowed to assume anything one way or the other, right?

Yeah. And so you always have to kind of assume, well, they just – they don't know how they're coming across.

It doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could be totally innocent. Who knows, right?

And so like that's kind of how we're trained in these encounters in general is to view the world kind of like that.

And then – so like what you're not really allowed to do is just decisively fill in the motive, right?

Yeah. But then the problem is that like your whole justice system is like built upon like gaining evidence in order to establish motive, right?

Like in order to convict certain people of crime, like you don't have to – like there's different ways you can convict a person of a crime.

Certainly if they have a confession that says, hey, I did it, right? Yeah. Here's a video of me telling you what

I'm going to do and then, yeah, certainly that would be evidence. But like there's other ways to establish motive besides just …

Confession. Like a public – yeah, yeah. And then there's a reality that we all have evil hearts and we're probably deceived about like – like even if we're

Christians, we have like the old man in our heart that is deceiving us about like how wonderful … Yeah, how benevolent we are.

Right, right. Right. So like – so but there's a variety of ways that you can establish motive on the basis of external action.

And so as Christians, we basically have lost this kind of way of thinking because we're so committed to the proposition that you can't make any judgment whatsoever about motives in a way that kind of – like it makes it to where it's almost impossible to understand what's being said here.

So like just to give you an analogy, let's say that you see a person online and we're so kind of inculcated by like social media and the expectations of social media that some of these things don't seem as absurd as what they actually are.

But like I mean if a person like basically posted a video of himself online saying like, look at me, help this homeless person, right?

Uh -huh, yeah. I'm just out here helping this homeless guy just out of the kindness of my heart.

No, no, no, no. Don't thank me. Don't thank me. I'm doing this because I love

Jesus and I love you. All right. Now you think about something like that.

Like, okay, like the normal kind of Christian reaction to something like that is to say, okay, you're full of something, right?

It may not be love you're filled up with here.

You're full of something, right? But you think about something like that, like if you really are motivated by the love of God for this other person, like there's a sense in which there's no need for you to put it on display like that, right?

Uh -huh, yeah. And show the world how great and wonderful and awesome you are and generous you are.

So, I mean, if you were to say, hey, I used to be greedy, but now I'm generous because God changed my heart.

Watch me help this homeless person. It's like, oh, come on. Like just do it. Just do it.

And so part of like the passage is saying when you give to the needy, right? When you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

So you're giving maybe in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you, right? So, like the whole issue is like you can engage like externally.

Like if you're just going to broadcast this thing, right? Like so when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do.

Like on the face of it, if you saw someone saying, hey, I'm going to give to the needy, right? Blow the horn, you know, so everyone can watch me give to the needy.

Everyone would look at that and you say, hey, that's crazy, right? That feels a little weird.

That's a little excessive. You know what the good news is though? I mean, I can't even play the trumpet, so I'm safe from that one.

You're safe from that. All right. So, but the whole, so the logic of the passage is to say that that external action is revealing your heart.

Uh -huh. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Like there was, there is no requirement that you announce to everyone, hey,

I'm, you know, giving a hundred dollars to this homeless person. Right. There's no, that wasn't, that's not like a necessary step.

You could have just done it. Right. Right. Right. And so like the issue is like, if you really want to be aware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to see, be seen by others, what you need to do is you're not just like trying to figure out if your heart's in the right place.

And that's what everyone gets stuck at. Right. They think, well, it doesn't matter what you do externally.

So in the minds of many people, they read the passage and they're reading it and they're saying, well, whether you blow a trumpet or not before you give is entirely irrelevant.

So long as your heart is in the right place. But the whole logic of the passage is if you blow the trumpet before you give, that shows decisively that your heart is not in the right place.

Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, so like what you need to do, like, like if you're modest, right.

You want a reward from God or you want a reward from men. All right. If you want a reward from God, just give to that guy.

Okay. And don't parade it around. Don't turn it into a social media video. Don't put it out there on YouTube, you know, to show how generous you are.

Because all you're going to get is you're going to get those likes and those hearts, which, I mean, shows us how vain we actually are is that YouTube has like both a thumbs up and a heart one.

And I have no idea which one you're supposed to use. So you end up having to use both because one method of affirmation is not enough.

You mean. Yeah. As so people with regular accounts on YouTube, all they can do is give a thumbs up to comments.

But then when you are a content creator, they give you the ability to heart and heart and like the people who comment on your videos.

I don't know what the difference is other than the heart immediately distinguishes that a person got a like from the content creator themselves.

So maybe that's like a I mean, that's like the definition of, you know, the praise of men kind of thing.

They only gave me the thumbs up. They didn't give me the heart this time. I got a like on my comment from the person who made this video.

Right. Well, it's all nuts. All right. So but I think the broader point, though, is just to say, hey, you're looking at a passage like this.

There are certain external things that you can do. Here's the point. There's certain external things you can do that decisively show where your heart is.

So if you feel the need to sound a trumpet before you give. It's like that tell that like that's decisive.

That should be decisive proof to everyone around you. Your heart is not right. Right. Yeah. It's like it's like the person who says, hey,

I want to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Right. And then they you ask them, like,

OK, well, what are you doing? That's a pretty lofty goal. What are you doing to get there? And they're like, do you like do you study film?

Well, no, I don't really study much film. Oh, OK. Well, do you work on your mechanics a lot?

Are you working on your technique? Now, I don't really practice that a whole lot.

Oh, OK. Well, are you at least like getting in the gym and working out and getting stronger?

It's like, no, I don't really do any of that. It's like, all right, maybe maybe you don't actually want to go to the

NFL and be a starting quarterback. No, no, I definitely do. I definitely do want that. How dare you judge me?

You know, it's like, I don't think you do. If you did, you would probably be doing this thing. How do you.

Yeah. How dare you judge me that, you know, judge my heart, you know. Right. How do you know what

I really want? So but that's the point. Like you're like, biblically speaking, your behavior is going to reveal the state of your heart.

Sure. Like the things that you do are going to reveal the state of your heart. And so when you think about a passage like this, here's

I mean, the point there is just to say, hey, like this passage is telling you certain behaviors, right?

Certain behaviors are cues to tell you where the state of certain people's heart is.

And so like so the idea is like when you give to the needy, don't sound a trumpet before you. What you're meant to do is you're meant to say,

OK, sounding a trumpet before you give. That's absolutely bizarre. The only reason why anyone would ever do that is because they're looking to draw attention to what they're doing.

Right. Unnecessarily. So then the way you are meant to apply this today is you're meant to say, what are equivalents to blowing a trumpet before you give that we can look at, see, right?

Like what are some modern equivalents to doing that kind of thing that will tell people irrefutably here's the state of your heart.

And so and I think I mean, posting like just some easy modern equivalence, this kind of thing.

Is it like why do you feel the need every time you have a Bible study to post a picture of you, you reading the

Bible on social media? Like, what are you trying to get out with the filter added with the filter with your sepia filter or whatever?

I mean, what did you get out of that? Like, look at me reading the Bible. Right. Hey, look at me being a good husband.

Picture of me being a good husband. Look at me like giving. Here's a picture of me given to a homeless person.

Like, aren't I? You know, it's like, why did you do that? Smile. Why are you first? Take a selfie with me.

She benefited. All right. Good luck being homeless. You know,

I don't need any of this. It's like the homeless guy takes the stuff you just gave him and throws it on the ground after he leaves.

But no, so like there are things like there are equivalence to this kind of thing. And the problem is like when you live in a narcissistic society, like for many people, this is just a foreign way of thinking.

Like it's a very foreign way of thinking that it would be even remotely wrong to make an online record of all your good deeds for everyone to look at.

So like we've lost, we've utterly lost any idea of humility, like in our society in general.

To the point where like, oh, like, it's just, it's obvious. Like, you know, if I have good deeds to do, why wouldn't

I tell everyone about it? And then, you know, if anyone criticizes it, then you just look at them and say, hey, you don't know my heart.

Right. It's like, well, I know, I don't, I know a trumpet when I see one.

I know what a trumpet sounds like. Yeah, I know what a trumpet sounds like. So, you know, that's told me what your heart is.

Right. That's the point. Now, what about the argument like, hey, this might be encouraging to someone else to hear?

But essentially like a, you know, like a, hey, I'm sure I'm trying to share my testimony or like I'm trying to, you know, communicate to others.

Like what what it is that God's doing, you know, and and using that as a means of encouragement to other people.

Where does that fall into all of this? Yeah, I mean, so I think the like the main issue here is like you're, you know, be aware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.

For then you have no reward from your heavenly father who is in heaven. So like you think about that, what you're meant to do is you're meant to kind of identify like what are some trumpet equivalents in this kind of way.

Right. What are some things that are trumpet equivalents? And so like what you're meant to think is like you're meant to like look for moments where individual is like parading their righteousness in front of other people unnecessarily.

So like is this unnecessary or is this like necessary in that way?

So like meaning. All right. So I think about like this, like when you give, like you give, like don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Let your giving done be done in secret. So like if you're going to give to people, like there's a sense in which like actually giving to people might mean that some people find out about it.

Right. So like you can't just absolutely always make every single one of your giving anonymous.

But then like here's the thing, like to the extent to which you can tone that down, not make a spectacle of it, not make a show about it, the better off that will actually be.

So there's any number of ways in which you can encourage people to give in public. Right.

So like if I if you were to, you know, post verses online about like the importance of giving the importance of being generous, you can do that over and over again without like every time you give to someone posting a receipt.

Here's the thousand dollar check I sent to X. You know, here's the five hundred dollar check I sent. So a lot of this is about like how specific does this information actually have to be.

You get what I'm saying? And so like the more that you can tone that down, the more that you make it about the message.

Like you can have an encouraging message without putting all the focus and intention on yourself.

Right. So you can be a person who's talking about the importance of giving all day long. So then this is these are just kind of basic distinctions that people are mixing up when you talk about this kind of stuff online to where like every time you decide to give to a charity, you don't have to broadcast, hey,

I'm going to give a thousand dollars to this charity. Hey, I'm going to get five hundred dollars to this charity because I appreciate this charity and support this charity.

And, you know, and then you say, well, the reason I'm doing this is because I'm trying to encourage you to give as sacrificially as I am.

Right. It's like you can like there's any number of ways you can encourage people to give sacrificially without broadcasting all the specifics of what you're doing.

Does that make sense? So, hey, we should give like here's a good charity you should be supporting.

Right. Here's a charity I support. I'm not going to tell you how much I support them, but here's a chair.

Like if you're thinking through charities to support, here's some ones I've identified as good methods of supporting like any number of there's any number of ways to say the same kind of thing without necessarily having to rub people's face and like all the specifics of it.

Does that make sense? Yeah. What what about, you know, like there's a lot of in this day and age, there's a lot of guys out there who do like evangelism, street evangelism, where they where they're filming it or, you know, some form of like.

Protesting abortion clinics or, you know, pride, pride parades or whatever, whatever it is, something like that, they're recording it and they're posting it online like, hey, here's my interaction with a atheist sharing the gospel or something like that.

Is that falling into the same category of boasting before men? I mean,

I think. All right. So you can take the same kind of action. And like if you think about like the principle that's at work, they were right.

People are practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward. That's when you give sound, no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues.

So part of this is like discussion about what kind of things that we're talking about here.

Yeah. Okay. So you have a certain. So obviously, like being a public witness, you're supposed to let your light shine before men that when they see your good works are going to glorify

God, your father in heaven. So this like when people are trying to harmonize these kind of things, they often go to that kind of passage where that passage basically talking about the importance of letting your light shine before men.

And so you're going to do public things to show your allegiance to God.

Right. In general, like that's just a part of the Christian life. You don't have to keep your Christian life just utterly private and everything else.

But you can do, you know, like if you're going to post a video of you talking to an atheist with the goal of trying to edify the body and equip them to see how do you talk to atheists, right?

Equip them and train them. Yeah. You can you can like there's there's there's a way to do that that puts the focus on equipping and training.

Right. And there's a way to do that that puts the focus on your own personal achievements.

Right. Like meaning like, okay, I'm going to post this is my, you know, this is our number five of me evangelizing this week.

Man, I'm really tired. My voice hurts so much from sharing the gospel with 1000 people today, but I just got to keep going.

Right. So that would be so that's now like the difference.

See, see what I mean? Like the difference between those two scenarios doesn't just resolve to motive. It resolves to like the presence of the trumpet sound.

Does that make sense? Like in that way, like that trumpet, like there's things that are entirely unnecessary to what you're doing.

And sounding a trumpet like what like that, like that kind of thing would be the kind of thing that's entirely unnecessary to the goal.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it just it just kind of seems, though, like if if the passage is saying practice your righteousness before men.

That feels like practicing, you know, hey, here's a here's a video of me sharing the gospel, you know, that's meant to be an encouragement and a method of equipping you to go and share the gospel still feels like practicing your righteousness before men.

When that's not a necessary, that's not like a necessary step and sharing the gospel is filming it.

And in fact, in some ways, it might even be like a deterrent because, hey, I don't want to be in I don't want my face on your video.

No, you know, without necessarily validating that one way or the other. Just like the prohibition, though, is be aware of practicing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them.

So in your mind, like the prohibition is not practicing your righteousness before men. It's practicing it in order to be seen by it.

And then the issue is that there are tells like there are behavioral tells that will tell everyone around you that they'll out you.

Does that make sense? So there's like, you know, there's poker tells that will out an individual that that like they are practicing their righteousness before men to be seen by men.

And so this is a passage which gives a few poker tells, so to speak, right? Like that will out you, that will out your motives.

Okay. So, so yes, no, the issue is not practicing your righteousness before men, period.

The issue is practice your righteousness before men to be seen by them. And their behavioral tells that will tell your heart is doing that.

Okay. And so now it doesn't give you like an exhaustive list of all of those tells.

But it gives you examples that you're meant to try to extrapolate out to other scenarios.

Does that make sense? So the tell it gives is thus when you give to the needy, don't sound a trumpet before you.

So you could give to the needy in a public way. Do you get what

I mean? What do you mean? Like just out in public and you and you give to like a homeless dude.

Is that what you mean? Right. Yeah. So you're giving to the needy, right?

Now, if you want to make it to where everyone knows you're doing this to be seen as you do it, there are certain things you can do, like record it, put it on the internet and say,

Hey, I'm going to go give to this homeless person. Watch me give, right? Like that. Like you don't have to do that.

You know, if the goal was to bless the homeless or the poor person, right? You could do that. Right.

If your goal is to be seen doing it, then you sound your trumpet, you turn your camera on, you put it on social media, right?

Does that make sense? Yeah. But then it seems like kind of the same thing, though, with the evangelism is like, Hey, you could just evangelize them.

Or you could evangelize them or, you know, turn the camera on, find the person and then evangelize.

Yeah. Well, no, I think it's a good example. I think it's a good example of something that people should be thinking about where there is an inbuilt temptation in that kind of framework to make it about things that it's not to.

OK. Yeah. And by the way, I'm I'm pushing back on this as someone who feels like they've benefited greatly from watching a lot of those videos.

Like Ray Comfort or something like that. Yeah. Like Jeff Durbin. Yeah. Because I mean, just because, you know, for so long,

I was terrified to say anything and be thought of as unloving. And then I just saw these guys who were like going out there and and they were just saying it all, you know, and so me watching that,

I don't I don't know that I don't really watch them very much anymore. But initially it was like, oh, there's guys out there that are just doing it.

I guess I should go do that, too. You know, and so so I've benefited a lot from from those videos, whether, you know, whether they're good or bad at the end of the day,

I did benefit from them, I feel like. So but then I'm just, you know, I'm still wanting to push back and say, well, hey, if we're, you know, what does that mean for these things that I've been benefited from?

So if if that's sort of the application with this other thing, you know, giving to the needy.

All right. So like the issue is like what like the issue is, like what would be some irrefutable tells that would tell you that the primary goal here, right?

Yeah. Is to receive praise from it. OK. So as it relates to giving.

The tell that would say, hey, this is about. Like this is a tell to tell you what the motive is, right?

Sure. Yeah. As it relates to that, you know, example that people give with that would be like, you know, your daughter is has coins to give to the offering plate or whatever.

And she drops each one individually loudly so that everyone can hear the sound.

Do thing do thing. All right. So that would be a tell to tell your motive.

Right. Yeah. OK. Yeah. That would be pretty. All right. So so what you're meant to do is you're meant to try to think about what would be tells it would be irrefutable and obvious to explain motive.

Right. The motive of wanting people to praise you. That would be an example of a tell.

Now, like you, if your motive is to equip the church on how to evangelize, then there could could be a bunch of tells that would prove that's what you're trying to do.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I guess I guess the difference could be like, you know, if someone's watching, if you ever read the comments on some of these.

Is that girl who's given is that girl who's given the money? Is she trying to equip people to give by?

Yeah, that's what I was going to say is like when you read the comments on these videos, you know, on the evangelism ones, there actually are a lot of comments that are like, hey, this really helped me.

This really encouraged me. This really made me want to go out and tell, you know, someone about the gospel, whatever.

And then on the money videos, I assume, you know, I assume it's probably a lot more of like a wow, good job, you know, like literal praise, literal praise instead of some sort of like, thanks.

I actually got something out of this. So that's that's the point. So that's the point of what

Jesus is talking about. And that's the very distinction that he's talking about. I mean, you're going to know it by your fruit, right?

So no one's going to come away from that with a girl dropping the coins into the offering plate thinking, man, like that is a good like offering giving strategy that I could model after.

Right. Like, I mean, you showed me the proper form to how to drop it in there. Right. And how to do it each time.

You taught me that instead of a check, I need to bring a giant bag of pennies. A bag of pennies that I individually drop in there and stop the whole thing.

You know, so like, like, what do people get from it? And generally, like, you can tell the difference when, you know, it's just like, well, you go girl, right?

Way to give, you know, like, over and against, oh, thank you. Like I learned how to do

X thing or whatever else. So I'm not trying to say that every scenario is effortlessly easy to identify.

Right. And you can do the evangelism videos and you can market them in a way. And I've seen guys that kind of market those kinds of things in a way that feels like the emphasis for them is just to log all their great accomplishments.

You know, like, and demonstrate how committed they actually are, you know, and everything else.

So I'm not trying to say that, like, it can't be done poorly. I'm just trying to say that what you're meant to do with the passage is identify these tells.

Does that make sense? Like, what are the tells? And the tells are going to be like completely unnecessary things that serve the sole purpose of getting praise from other people.

Yeah. So what are those things as it relates to any of these, like, like meaning, like, you know, if you're going to pray for someone, right.

When you pray. Right. You don't have to go out in front of front of everyone.

Hey, guys, just want to let you know, I'm all praying for my grandma right now. She's in the hospital and I've been praying hard for her.

So hopefully she's okay. Cause I've just been praying so much literally from the moment

I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. I pray for my sweet, sweet grandma.

There he is like, you know, on the street corner praying for his grandmother still, you know, grandma.

I mean, but that's the kind of thing that they're doing, you know? And so when you're, when you're looking at that, you're saying, well, why is it necessary to do this, make a public spectacle out of an issue where you're praying for someone that no one knows, but you.

Right. Like, and you're making, you're turning it into a public spectacle. Right. And then like the end result is like, what are like, what is the overwhelming, obvious, like end result of all of this going to be that everyone's just going to look at you.

I mean, he really, that guy's really spiritual, man. That guy's always praying for his grandma. So, but that's, that's the point.

What are the tells like, what are the things that like are behavioral tells that show you something's off here.

Right. Yeah. That this isn't about what it's advertised to be about in that way. So, okay.

So does this passage, you know, it, it makes it very clear that the person who gets praise from men is they've already received their reward.

It says, so they will get no reward from God because they've already received their reward, which is the praise of men.

So does that, does that passage mean that there are in my, in my mind, there's two ways to understand this.

And, and so I wanted to, I want to just ask you, I think I, I think I know which one

I think it is, but then I want to ask you for everyone is, you know, there's one way to hear that passage, which basically means like,

Hey, the person who is doing these things. Who is, is constantly promoting their good works in front of everyone.

They're not going to receive their reward from God. They're going to receive it from men because ultimately at the end of the day, no

Christian acts that way. And so, so what's really being said there is,

Hey, that person is not a Christian. And so they're not going to receive any reward from God.

They're receiving a reward from man. And that's it. That's one way to understand it. The second way would be, it, it applies to people who are

Christian and it's simply saying that, you know, whatever rewards they're going to receive in heaven, they are not going to receive a reward for that one specific good work that they boasted about in front of everyone.

Does that make sense? The two sort of categories. So which, so which one of those is the correct way to understand the passage or is it some third way that I haven't,

I haven't thought of? Yeah. I mean, I, my answer before you said the third way comment was just going to be to say yes.

Yes. Okay. What do you, what do you mean? I mean, it's both like, like meaning like, um, so, you know, as you read, like it's, you have a condemnation against this kind of thing from God.

So beware of practicing your righteousness for others to be seen by them for you'll have no reward from your father in heaven.

So, you know, Jesus is presumably looking at his followers and telling them, like, beware of doing the very thing that the hypocrites are doing.

Right? So that's when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the street that they may be praised by others.

Truly I say they have received their reward. So like the hypocrite is the insincere person, like the person who's like making a public spectacle of serving the

Lord, but it's insincere. So like, that's the category of like the hypocrite. So the hypocrite people are the, like, they're the tax, they're the are, they're the

Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and all that. Like there's an assumption being made that their religion is fundamentally insincere and it's only, it's not going to result in any eternal reward.

It's all about praise of men here and now that's all they're going to get. But then the issue though, is that when you're living in a culture that's fundamentally controlled by the hypocrites, right, you're indoctrinated and inculcated in certain practices that seem reasonable to hypocrites.

And that you may unthinkingly adopt as a believer just because it's all around you.

It's the air you breathe. Right? So like this is the air you breathe. This is all around you. This is the way people operate.

And then you may be unthinkingly kind of led into doing things that upon like a second examination, they really don't make any sense, right, to do.

And like the only thing, like the only things these behaviors are doing is they serve the sole goal of parading your righteousness in front of people in order to be seen by them.

So you may, because you're surrounded by a bunch of people to whom that seems normal, right?

You may be led into doing those kinds of things yourself. And then you need to be warned against doing that because one, it's displeasing to God.

It's taking away the glory from him. And then two, you're not going to receive any reward from it.

Right? All right. So in that way, like it's, yeah, it's both. It's both of those things at the same time in the same instance.

And then, I mean, with social media, like that's part of the problem with social media is it's training so many people to normalize things that are kind of insane when you think about it, that are a little bit insane.

Like meaning like, you know, social media basically trains everyone to think that they're like the actor in like the main character in their own story.

And then, you know, every time they do something, they need to tell everyone everything that they do step by step in their day.

You know, here's me waking up, you know, look at me brushing my teeth, you know.

All right. I'm going to read the Bible. Here's my Bible picture. Right? Yeah. With the coffee next to it.

The point though, is just to say that those are like social media trains you to think in weird ways.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like to where, like how many like videos have you seen online of people who instead of just helping person, they record like these awful things.

Right? Yeah. That's where like this whole topic is just absurd. Like meaning like you live in a social media dominated world and you think like it trains you to think in really stupid ways.

Right? Mm -hmm.

And then a lot of the things that you think are normal in society right now, like a lot of the things you think are normal, they're not normal.

Right? So it's not normal just to post every single step of your day online in order to – like the only reason why people do that is just to get people to like it.

Here's my morning routine. Have you ever seen those videos? Right.

But all that – so like you do need a pause and you do need to stop and then you do need to ask basic questions like why am

I posting selfies of myself all day long? Yeah.

To people. Like what am I trying to accomplish from all of this? Like is this just a chronicle of all my good deeds for the day that I'm posting in front of everyone just in order to be seen by it?

And I think like if that's what it is, yeah, that quiet time didn't help you any.

All that was was a photo op for you to get a bunch of likes. That didn't help you.

Right. Yeah. That's a photo op for you. That's just a – all right, you got a bunch of praise from people and that's all you got.

So I think with social media people really do – and I'm not claiming that I have all the answers about how to do it.

I'm just saying, hey, it does like introduce a lot of temptations for people just to pray their righteousness in front of others in order to be seen.

Okay. All right. Well, I think that's a good place for us to end the conversation. Was there anything else that you had to add there,

Tim? Yeah. No, I think as you're reading that kind of passage, we were practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.

I do think most people are ignoring – like they're missing the point of it and they basically think that it just reduces entirely to motive.

So like the external behaviors don't matter so long as your heart is in the right place. But then I think if they could get their mind around what's actually happening, what's actually happening in the passage is that there are tells.

There are tells that irrefutably show like the condition of your heart. And so there's certain things you can do.

There's trumpets that you can do, that you can sound. Like there's a way to give where you sound the trumpet.

Jesus is saying, don't sound the trumpet. And so what you're meant to do is say, what are comparable things like that?

What are trumpets I can identify in my life? Like what are things that are completely unnecessary to doing these good works that serve the sole purpose of getting approval and praise from men?

And what we should be praying is, Lord, help me to identify those trumpets and get rid of them.

Right? So the point is not just to say, hey, Lord, help purify my heart. The point is, help me identify the trumpets and get rid of those trumpets so that the praise can come from you and not from men.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think all that makes sense. And I think it is something for us to really think through in a society that is so self -focused in so many ways and so determined to make every single one of us our own individual center of the universe kind of thing.

When you brought up the whole people being trained to think, hey,

I'm the main character in the story. Everyone else is just an NPC out there.

Don't really matter. I don't know that I had necessarily consciously recognized that social media trains us to think that way.

But then hearing you say that, it really does do that. And it trains you to think about yourself and how do

I look in this picture? And what are people going to think of me when they see this post that I made online?

And whatever else, it's all me, me, me, me, me, me, me, which is the total opposite of the Bible. Obviously, how the

Bible tells us to live with humility and especially this passage talking about hiding your good works so that you're not purposefully pursuing the praise of men.

I have to assume this passage in some way is, you know, it's a command and it seems like it's meant to commands are typically meant to they're meant to help us honor

God, but then also protect us from certain things. Right. And so it seems like this sort of command is really meant to protect you from the temptation of viewing of constantly viewing or thinking about yourself and whatnot.

And so I think this is a pretty good and challenging topic to really think through.

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