Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.
Matthew 6:5 (CSB)
After giving, Jesus moves to prayer. Same pattern. He starts with the wrong way.
“Hypocrite” was a word for an actor. Someone wearing a mask, playing a part. And Jesus says they love to pray where people can see them. Watch that word “love.” They don’t just happen to pray in public. They enjoy the stage. Their heart is set on the audience, not on God.
The problem isn’t praying where people can hear you. Jesus Himself prayed out loud in front of others (John 11). The problem is when being seen praying matters more than the prayer. When the audience is the room and not God.
And the verdict is the same as before: they got their reward. People noticed them. That’s all they’re getting.
We know what that looks like in a smaller way. The prayer we said louder so someone would catch it. The Bible readings or devotionals we want others to know we do. The spiritual habit we mentioned so someone would know about it. Each one aims the prayer sideways, toward the room, instead of up toward God. So we aim it back. We talk to God and stop checking whether the room is watching.
Jesus prayed in the opposite direction. The morning before a big day, He got up early and went somewhere alone (Mark 1:35). The hardest night of His life, He went to a garden and prayed face down by Himself (Matt 26). He didn’t want to be seen. He wanted to be heard. And God, who hears what nobody else hears, answered Him, not with a crowd’s applause, but by raising Him from the dead.