The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay No. 3

Matthew 6: Yet more deeply flawed Jesus-script 
 

In my article here last week, I mentioned that the Sermon on the Mount is treasured by Christians as the pinnacle of wisdom—Jesus at his best. Yet, if we asked churchgoers where we can find this famous sermon, or how recently they’d read it—read it carefully, critically—what would their answers be? Surveys have shown that Bible reading is not a favorite hobby among those who profess to be Christian. And no wonder: there are texts, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, that would prompt many of the devout to say, at least to themselves: “This doesn’t make sense.” My article last week was about Matthew 5, so now we move on to Matthew 6 (this famous sermon is found in chapters 5-7).
 
 
I prefer the term Jesus-script—instead of Jesus quotes—because “the words of Jesus” were most likely invented by the anonymous gospel authors, who wrote decades after the supposed events they depict. So much of what we find in Matthew 6 qualifies as cult weirdness. That is, to keep on the good side of the god of the cult, certain behaviors were mandatory. Here is verse 6:1:
 
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”  
 
And verses 3-4: “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

Whoever is in the cult, and obeys its rules, will be rewarded by the god. 
 
Public praying is also frowned upon, verse 6: “…whenever 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.” When you’re in the cult, you get to know divine secrets—and there are rewards for that. It’s a great puzzle that the modern version of the ancient Jesus cult specializes in public praying, for example, at church. We’ve all seen the publicity photos of evangelicals surrounding Trump, laying their hands on him and praying. In other words, to hell with taking this Jesus-script seriously. 
 
Then we find one of the most famous fragments of Jesus-script, verses 10-13, known as The Lord’s Prayer, which is loaded with absurdities and magical thinking—no surprise since it derives from ancient superstition. Here is the King James version:

 “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

There are so many things wrong with this. 
 
Our Father which art in heaven. As long as humans have invented gods, they have imagined them in human categories. That is, they are commonly assigned genders, male or female. Christianity fell into this pattern: their god is a father, who has a son, who was conceived by the holy spirit—thus presumably also male. It is hard to calculate how much damage this has done by encouraging misogyny. I suppose we can credit the Catholic church with the effort to counter this, by worshipping, idolizing the Virgin Mary, whom the church has declared was bodily taken to heaven. Hence she is the Queen of Heaven. Yet even this has not cancelled the imbedded misogyny of the Catholicism: Pope Francis was quite firm that women will never be admitted to the priesthood. 
 
Perhaps it made sense to assign human gender to the creator god in the context of the ancient understanding of the world, that is, earth was the cosmos, with the heavenly realm above the clouds and below the moon. Now we know that earth is a planet orbiting the sun, one of billions in our galaxy, and that there are billions, perhaps trillions of galaxies. How does it possibly make sense to assign a human gender role to a force that created all this? If there is such a mind responsible for it all. Most professional cosmologists are not committed to that idea. 
 
So exactly where is this heaven which is god-the-father’s home? Some theologians have noticed the silliness of claiming that heaven is a place, and have resorted to insisting that heaven can be considered a state of being. Yet they have failed to provide the reliable, verifiable, objective data to prove this claim. 
 
Hallowed be thy name. This is flattery—why would the creator of the cosmos get off on human praise? — with magical thinking as part of the mix, which is especially clear when the devout end their prayers with in Jesus’ name we pray. That’s the equivalent of a magic spell: if we say Jesus’ name, there’s a better chance that the prayer will work. And this short prayer ends with yet more flattery: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.”
 
This is the second mention of kingdom in the prayer, the first being in verse 10: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” How does it possibly make sense to equate a god’s realm with human concepts about royalty? This appears to be a reference to the primary focus of Mark’s gospel, i.e., that the kingdom of god was due to arrive at any time, and among the many consequences would be the end of Roman rule. The writings of the apostle Paul may have influenced the author of Mark’s gospel: Paul was certain that he would still be alive when Jesus arrived on the clouds to establish his kingdom (I Thessalonians 4:13-17). But there has been no “arrival of the kingdom.” This is a theological blunder, and Christian theology remains anchored to this blunder. Given the vast scale of human and animal suffering we see around us every day, there is precious little evidence that a good god’s desires prevail on this planet. We might also wonder how this god feels about being pestered by the devout—for the last two thousand years—to bring his kingdom. 
 
There are a couple of other texts in Matthew 6 worthy of mention, because they are signs of cult fanaticism—and because they are simply ignored today by so many Christians. 
 
Verses 19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
 
The early Jesus-cult wanted its devoted followers to remain focused on achieving eternal life. So heaven was the only place to store up treasures. Of course, today some of the most famous televangelists, among them Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland, have stored up enormous treasures on earth, including mansions and private jets. But I know so many devout churchgoers who are obsessed with accumulating treasures on earth. Christmas itself has become an orgy of consumerism, but aside from that, they want what most folks want these days: cars, big flat-screen TVs, fine houses, decent wardrobes, and dozens of luxuries taken for granted in our modern world. Instead of storing up treasures in heaven. Whatever that means. 
 
And in verses 25-33 we find Jesus-script that warns against worrying about what to eat, drink, or wear. Here are verses 28-30: 
 
“And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” 
 
The ridicule at the end can be expected from cult fanatics. Cult members would be especially hurt to be told they didn’t have enough faith. 
 
This has a hollow ring today: don’t worry about what to eat, drink, and wear. Responsible adults know very well that being responsible means providing for their families—what to eat, drink, and wear. They would be considered fools if they bragged that their god clothes the grass of the fields, so why worry? 
 
Things may have changed since I attended church, but I suspect that dressing properly is still a thing. Has dressing in your Sunday Best gone out of fashion? And the church itself has specialized in storing up treasures on earth, by which I mean building countless spectacular houses of worship in which to offer praises to their god. Some of the faithful may assume that this qualifies was storing up treasures in heaven, but is it really?  Moreover, the Jesus-script about not worrying about clothing is totally ignored by Catholic clergy especially. The costume budget of the Vatican alone must be colossal. But, of course, the Vatican—and thousands of Catholic churches worldwide—have perfected show business to impress the folks who show up for mass. How could their dogmas not be correct when they specialize in spectacular rituals performed in dazzling costumes? Don’t worry about clothing is thoroughly ignored in this context. 
 
Again, it’s no wonder if the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t get much traffic. It contains too much Jesus-script that just doesn’t make sense. There is too much cult weirdness. 
 
 
 
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
·      Guessing About God (2023),
·   Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available. 
·     Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
 
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
 
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.