Chapter 11
CHARITY GIVEN IN SECRET Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly (Matt. 6:1-4).
The theocentric focus of this law is the fact that God gives rewards openly to those who give alms secretly for His sake. There is no doubt that there are rewards for giving charity. The question is: Who is the targeted source of the rewards? Is it men or God? Do alms-givers seek the praises of men or of God? There are rewards in history and eternity. The question is: Who gives these rewards? The answer that men give is revealed by their actions. If they give alms in public, then their reward is the praise of men. If they give alms in secret, then their reward is God's praise, possibly in history but surely after the resurrection.
Public Displays of Generosity The message is clear: donors should not go to any expense in publicizing their personal charitable activities. This does not mean that they may not announce the existence of their activities. If an institution exists to do charitable work, how will potential recipients learn of its existence if it remains entirely secret? How, for example, is a public foundation to give away its money if it cannot lawfully announce its existence? Only if it gives to "insiders," i.e., individuals or groups that are selectively informed by the informal information grapevine that money is available. The broader the organization's vision for giving, the more important it is for potential recipients of the money to present their needs to the organization. How can this be done in secret?
In the United States, a public foundation must report its activities and expenditures to the Internal Revenue Service. If it refuses, it loses its legal status as a tax-deductible organization. Those donating money to it will no longer be able to deduct this money from their taxable gross income. They will be taxed on it even though they gave it away. The tax authorities police the use of the money. The organization's funds must be used to support the charitable activities that it was set up to support.
What Jesus was condemning was a publicity campaign by the givers for the sake of the givers. To announce that a foundation gives away funds to certain causes is a legitimate reason to have a publicity campaign, although these costs should be minimized. The campaign may be used to gain both donations and outlets for the donated funds. It should be designed to bring in more deserving recipients for the funds. It should not be designed to publicize the donors.
This is a reason why family names should not be placed on charitable organizations. When they give away money, this should not bring fame or good reputation to the families that set up these foundations. The Carnegie Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and all the other family-created foundations with family names on them violated this basic principle. Even William Volker, known posthumously as Mr. Anonymous,(1) violated this principle when he set up the Volker Charities in the early decades of the twentieth century.
There is another reason: well-funded non-profit organizations have almost always been taken over by people who hold opposite views from their founders, unless the founders were political liberals. The more conservative the donor and the larger the size of his foundation's capital base, the faster it has been taken over by liberals. When Henry Ford II resigned from the liberal Ford Foundation in disgust in the mid-1970's, he admitted what had happened. Conservatives do not capture liberal foundations; liberals capture conservative foundations. Why? Because the educational institutions that produce the managers that run large bureaucracies are liberal. Also, because liberals use long-term planning to infiltrate and capture rich or influential conservative organizations.(2)
Rewards as Positive Sanctions This passage does not condemn the giving of charity for the sake of rewards. On the contrary, it identifies personal rewards as the primary goal of charity. Nothing here is said of the needs of the poor. The issue here is the source of the rewards: God or men. When the donor's goal is to gain the praises of men, he may very well receive this reward, but this is the only reward he will receive. Jesus condemns his opponents: "They have their reward." All they have is the praise of men. In eternity, this counts for nothing. It condemns rather than upholds.
The system of covenantal cause and effect in history and eternity is based on a system of rewards, i.e., sanctions. Point four of the biblical covenant model has to do with sanctions.(3) Without God's covenantal sanctions, men would be trapped in a universe where either impersonal chaos and chance or impersonal determinism would rule the affairs of man. In either case, meaning would have to be imputed by men to their environment, an environment beyond man's control. Either it would be too chaotic to control or too deterministic for man to be anything but a cog in a great machine.
Charity is a good thing because rewards are a good thing. The question is: How good are the rewards? Rewards from men's praise are a good thing, but not at the expense of rewards from God. Jesus made it plain here that the reward-seeker must choose. He must not seek both. By seeking God's reward, he may receive the praise of men as an unintended consequence. By seeking men's praise, the giver can be sure that he will not receive God's reward. The system of covenantal sanctions is clearly weighted on the side of seeking God's reward. The system, in the peculiar language of economists, is asymmetric. But, then again, God's creation is asymmetric. Even though it often appears as if it were asymmetric on the side of covenant-breakers, it isn't. It is on the side of covenant-keepers.(4)
There is no doubt that it is unwise to choose the praise of men when such praise negates the praise of God. To do so is to make a catastrophic choice, which is part of a more comprehensive system of choices: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26).
Seeking the praises of men is a variant of mammon worship.(5) Instead of seeking wealth, the donor seeks praise. Instead of serving the buyers in order to amass riches, he serves the objects of his charity. His goal is the same: personal rewards in history. He uses his talents in order to build up his supply of rewards in history. This is false worship. True worship has as its goal eternal rewards through service to God. Earthly rewards come as a consequence of service to men as surrogates for God (Matt. 25:34-40).
Uncoordinated Giving "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth" (v. 3). This is an odd saying. It sounds as though the proper approach to giving is some sort of indiscriminate handing out of funds. Is this what the passage means?
What Jesus is condemning is a system of giving which is calculated to gain the praise of men. The giver chooses his charities carefully in terms of a plan. This plan is designed to benefit the giver by enhancing his reputation as a charitable person. Everything the giver does is calculated to win him the praise of men. His giving is designed to buy him the praise of men.
Then is it wrong to design charitable giving plans in order to buy rewards? No, for Jesus says that a reward from God is a legitimate goal of charity. The question is: Who is the source of the rewards? It is a question of sovereignty. Who is the true God? Whose standards governing charity are sovereign? God is hidden from sight; men are in plain view. Should the giver seek his rewards from the invisible God or the visible gods? Jesus' answer is clear.
The command not to let the right hand know what the left hand is doing is a command for two-handed charity. Men should give away alms with both hands. What Jesus was saying is that there should be no coordinated plan of giving -- two-handed giving -- if it involves making calculations regarding the praises of men.
God sets forth standards for covenantally faithful giving. First, it should be to please God and thereby gain His rewards. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal" (Matt. 6:19-20).(6) Second, it should be two-handed: generous, not to a fault, but to a benefit. Third, it should be for the sake of the recipients. If giving to a recipient who needs help but will not bring the praises of men, ignore the praises of men.
Conclusion To give alms wisely requires a plan. It is not to be uncoordinated. The question is: Whose plan? The top priority of this passage is to identify the sovereign source of rewards for alms. That source is God, who sees in secret now and rewards in public: sometimes in history but always in eternity. The presumption is that God's rewards do not come immediately. Those who seek the praise of men already have their reward. God shall publicly reward obly faithful givers. This is future tense.
This forces men to act in faith: faith in the near-term praise of men or the long-term praise of God. They give now, but they hope for praise. There is a time factor in making one's choice: immediate vs. indeterminate. There is also a source factor: men or God. Choose well which time frame and which God to serve, this passage warns us.
Footnotes:
1. Herbert C. Cornuelle, Mr. Anonymous: The Story of William Volker (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1951).
2. Gary North, Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996).
3. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), ch. 4.
4. Gary North, Millennialism and Social Theory (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990).
5. See Chapter 14, below.
6. Chapter 13, below.
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