Heavenly versus Earthly Reward

Mat 6:2 Therefore when you give charity, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have praise of men. Truly I tell you, They have been paid their reward.

Christ sees a clear difference between our social relationships and our relationship with God. Through his teachings, he works to devalue social values because they distract us from eternal values.

In this verse, Christ focuses on the social value of fame. When we "sound a trumpet," we want others to notice us. We are looking for approval, not from those who know us, from the crowd, from society. This is one of the many areas where Christ makes it clear that there is a difference between private personal relationships, which are important, and broad social recognition, which Christ teachs in unimportant.

(Aside: I wonder if the slang terms of "trumpeting accomplishments" or "blowing your own horn" come from the Bible. Or was the practice of salpizo, the Greek term sounding horns, such a common event throughout the ages that it came down to us from actual practice. Of course, today we have television instead of horns, but the principle is the same.)

We have pointed out before that the word Christ uses for reward, misthos, means payment for work. Here, that point is made more clearly adding the word apecho, which is a business term that means being having been "paid in full."

So charity is clearly work that we are paid for. However, we can only get paid once for this type of work. If we are paid by others, that is, by society, we are not paid by God. Society pays in the currency of fame. God pays in the currency of spiritual development.

Does Christ teach that society is evil? Is society evil? Only in the sense that social rewards compete for our attention with spiritual awards. We usually think of Christ as battling between the material and spiritual, but more often than not, Christ teaches us that the real temptation is social, living our lives to gain recognition and approvel from strangers. This is completely consistent with Christ's other mentions of society, for example, his teachings about the use of courts.