Matthew 6:1-4:

“Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. “Therefore, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

The Sermon on the Mount is corrective teaching by Jesus. Jesus was systematically teaching and correcting the erroneous teachings and practices of the religious leaders of His day, the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes. The religious leaders of that day were known for putting on a show in their piety. They demonstrated their righteousness in a very public way so that the people would take notice and give to them honor and praise.

Today’s false teachers are no different.

Steven Furtick once walked down the aisle of TD Jakes’ church with a wheelbarrow full of money, announcing he was making a $35,000 seed offering to Jakes’ church for a special blessing. And I believe Jakes returned the favor.

And then there’s Kenneth Copeland. There are estimates that he is worth more than $1,000,000,000. A “pastor” worth $1,000,000,000. Let that sink in. He will let his audience know he is wealthy.

One time he appeared on Pat Robertson’s tv show. He made a public display of handing a check of a large sum of money while the cameras were rolling. As the person who was making the video said, this should’ve been done off camera, but it was done on live tv for maximum effect.

A side note about Kenneth Copeland and his sycophants. Todd White and Dr Mike Brown boast about Copeland giving $50,000,000 to charity (ht Steve Kozar). Sounds good and very sacrificial on the surface, right? Well, one of the biggest tenets and teaching of these false teachers is the 10% tithe. Now take into consideration that Copeland is worth $1B. $50M is 10% of $1B. It is only 5%. He’s not even practicing his own preaching.

They have their reward now. I’d rather seek the reward in the coming kingdom.