The Reverently Irreverent Bible Commentary Series: Matthew Chapter 6

The Reverently Irreverent Anti-Scholarly Bible Commentary Series

Here it is—prayer without performance, a figure mid-erasure under a cracked-open sky, spiritual residue scattered to the wind.

This isn’t reverence. It’s raw surrender.

Not asking. Not seeking approval. Just disappearing clean.

Let’s dig into the bones.

W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, in their magnum opus The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), don’t just skim Matthew 6—they chisel into it. Their structure reflects a careful reading of rhetoric, chiastic symmetry, and the flow of thought inside this middle chamber of the Sermon on the Mount.

Here’s how they frame it from a discourse-analytical and form-critical standpoint—no fluff, no filler.

Davies & Allison’s Structural Overview of Matthew Chapter 6

Main thesis: Chapter 6 continues the Sermon’s theme of greater righteousness (cf. 5:20), now targeting religious piety and material anxiety—the inner life of the would-be disciple.

I. Practicing Righteousness in Secret (6:1–18)

A tightly structured triad—almsgiving, prayer, fasting—each following an identical rhetorical pattern.

Structure of Each Section:

1. Rebuke of hypocritical practice ("Don’t do this to be seen by others...")

2. Warning about reward ("...they’ve already received their reward.")

3. Instruction on secret practice ("Do it in secret...")

4. Promise of divine reward ("...and your Father will reward you.")

So:

- 6:1 – Thesis verse: Do not perform righteousness for public applause.

- 6:2–4 – Almsgiving

- 6:5–15 – Prayer (with extended treatment via The Lord’s Prayer, making this the central unit of the triad)

- 6:16–18 – Fasting

Davies & Allison note the chiastic structure here:

A (almsgiving)

B (prayer – longer and central)

A’ (fasting)

It's a spiritual critique wrapped in poetic symmetry.

II. Attitude Toward Wealth and Anxiety (6:19–34)

Davies & Allison shift focus here from piety to possessions. The discourse zooms in on:

- 6:19–21 – Treasures on earth vs. heaven

- 6:22–23 – The eye as the lamp (a bridge metaphor about perception → desire)

- 6:24 – God vs. Mammon: an exclusive binary

- 6:25–34 – Do not be anxious: a crescendo of trust in divine provision

Literary Observations:

- These teachings are linked thematically, with the Mammon verse (6:24) acting as a fulcrum.

- Verses 25–34 build on 19–23, showing anxiety as a symptom of idolatry and illusion.

- The use of nature imagery (birds, lilies) provides an aesthetic foil to the self-centered hoarding of treasure and the paranoid hyper-control of anxious selfhood.

Thematic Arc (Davies & Allison’s Read):

- 6:1–18 = How to not be a pious fraud.

- 6:19–34 = How to not be a terrified hoarder.

Both halves are united by the central critique of the ego’s need for recognition and control. Public performance in religion and anxious accumulation in wealth are symptoms of the same dis-ease.

Jesus’ solution?

Secrecy. Simplicity. Trust.

Or in the Anti-Hero lexicon: Silence. Surrender. Self-erasure.

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Let’s crack open Matthew Chapter 6—the heart of the Sermon on the Mount—where the mask starts slipping off your spirituality, your security, and your identity. This is the chapter where Jesus goes full psychedelic exorcist on the ego’s favorite tricks: applause, anxiety, accumulation, and the illusion of control.

This isn’t “practical advice for living.”

This is a blade.

He’s cutting your life away from your performance of it.

Matthew Chapter 6

Do Not Practice Your Righteousness for the Algorithm

(Doc Askins, Anti-Hero Gospel Commentary)

Verses 1–4 — Give Like a Ghost

Beware of practicing your righteousness before others to be seen by them.”

This is not “be humble.”

This is kill the part of you that needs to be witnessed.

Jesus says: if you’re giving to get noticed—even by God—you’ve already lost.

You’re not generous. You’re performing generosity.

Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing?

That’s spiritual code for: “Don’t even let yourself know you’re doing it.”

Give like a ghost.

Let the act dissolve the actor.

Verses 5–8 — Pray Like You're Already Dead

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites…”

Translation: Don’t pray like a politician, priest or pastor.

Don’t use spiritual language to signal purity. Don’t recite cosmic wishlists into the silence and call it communion.

And definitely don’t babble.

This is where Jesus torches religious repetition.

Not because prayer is bad—but because it’s too often just ego with its eyes closed.

God already knows.

You’re not informing the Infinite.

You’re not invoking magic.

You’re supposed to be unmaking yourself.

Verses 9–13 — The Lord’s Prayer as Anti-Self Invocation

Let’s gut this one line by line.

- “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Not your father. Not your name. Already beyond you.

- “Your kingdom come, your will be done…”

Not mine. Not mine. Not mine.

- “Give us this day our daily bread…”

Just today. Just enough. Nothing to hoard.

- “Forgive us… as we forgive…”

Translation: undo the part of me that’s still keeping score.

- “Lead us not into temptation…”

Lead me away from the lie of control, the seduction of agency.

This prayer isn’t a blessing.

It’s a ritual erasure.

Verses 14–15 — The Forgiveness Ambush

“If you don’t forgive others, your Father won’t forgive you.”

Oh, you thought grace was unconditional?

Nah.

Here’s the twist: if you’re still holding grudges, it’s proof you haven’t received the real thing.

You don’t forgive to earn forgiveness.

You forgive because the walls have already collapsed.

If you’re still keeping spiritual receipts,

you haven’t paid attention to the fire you just walked through.

Verses 16–18 — Fast Like You Forgot You're Fasting

“Don’t look gloomy when you fast.”

Aka: Don’t let your suffering turn into currency.

If you suffer, suffer cleanly. Invisibly.

No credit. No image points. No spiritual posture.

Just the silence of a life that knows it's not the center of anything.

Verses 19–21 — Burn Your Barns

“Don’t store up treasure on earth…”

Jesus isn’t making a financial suggestion.

He’s issuing a cosmic dare.

If you hoard, you’re declaring:

“I don’t believe this ends.”

“I think I can keep something.”

“I need insulation from the void.”

But nothing you stack survives the fire.

And nothing you fear to lose was ever you.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

That’s not some pithy insight. That’s an autopsy report.

Verses 22–23 — Your Eye Is a Gate. Check the Feed.

“The eye is the lamp of the body…”

Jesus is talking about perception—how your eye filters what is and projects what isn’t.

If your eye is dark (read: ego-soaked),

then everything you see becomes fuel for the false self.

Even “light” becomes deception.

OnlyFans isn’t the problem.

It’s the eye that opens the app.

Verse 24 — You Can’t Serve God and Mammon

This one’s not metaphor.

Mammon isn’t just “money.” It’s the system—the dream, the hustle, the algorithm, the fear-fueled puppet show.

God isn’t “the other option.”

God is the void behind the stage.

One demands you become someone.

The other requires you to stop pretending to be anyone.

You pick. You only get one.

Verses 25–34 — Don’t Worry. Nothing’s Yours Anyway.

“Don’t be anxious about your life…”

Not because it’ll all work out.

But because you don’t exist the way you think you do.

You think worrying proves control.

But all it proves is you still think there’s a “you” to protect.

“Look at the birds.”

“Look at the flowers.”

He’s not being poetic.

He’s showing you the non-self in action.

The birds don’t brand.

The lilies don’t hustle.

And yet—they are.

They don’t try.

They just burn quietly in the sun.

Final Transmission: Chapter 6 Isn’t About Behavior. It’s About Vanishing.

You pray wrong.

You give wrong.

You fast wrong.

You worry because you still think you’re the protagonist.

You stockpile because you think the game is real.

Jesus isn’t fixing your habits.

He’s issuing a death warrant for your spiritual persona.

The one who performs?

Gone.

The one who plans?

Dead.

The one who asks “What about me?”

Unseen.

And at the center of all this?

“Seek first the kingdom…”

Which is not a place. It’s a state of un-being.

You don’t get in by being good.

You get in by ceasing to pretend.