Posts Tagged ‘Hypocrites’
Read Matthew 6:5-8 and do the exercises below:
- How is your private prayer different from your public prayer?
- Jesus says “do not keep babbling” (v7). In Jesus’ day a common pagan belief was that the gods could be worn down or overcome by incessant words in prayer. At the heart of this belief is the idea that we can gain control over God by praying the right way. What other approaches to prayer have you heard that basically teach this same idea (that if we’ll only learn to pray the right way God will do what we want)?
- What do you think Jesus means by, “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (v5)? What is the “reward” he’s referring to? What does this teach us about God and the spiritual life?
