Matthew 6:5
What does Matthew 6:5 mean?
“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.
The short answer
In Matthew 6:5, Jesus tells his followers not to pray like "the hypocrites" — people who love to stand and pray in synagogues and street corners "that they may be seen by men." His verdict is dry and final: "they have received their reward." If the goal was attention, they got it. That's the whole payout.
The vocabulary here is more vivid than it looks in English. As Craig Evans points out, the word "hypocrite" comes from the theater — it was the word for an actor. And the Greek phrase behind "corners of the streets" uses a word, plateia, that was applied to the grand colonnaded street of Sepphoris, a city near Jesus' hometown. Evans suggests the picture Jesus paints may be that of an actor standing in a busy thoroughfare, projecting a soliloquy loudly enough to pull in a crowd. Prayer, in other words, staged as a performance — complete with a stage, a script, and hoped-for applause.
That detail matters, because it clarifies what Jesus is not condemning. He is not saying that prayer must be hidden or that faith should be invisible. Allan Hugh Cole Jr. observes that Jesus himself prayed with people and on their behalf, and that neither his praying nor his faith was ever kept private — his devotion was interpersonal and public by nature. Jesus taught prayer, led prayer, and prayed where others could see him.
So the target of Matthew 6:5 isn't visibility. It's motive. The problem with the street-corner performer isn't that people can see him praying; it's that being seen is the point. The prayer is addressed upward but aimed sideways, at the audience. Jesus' warning presses a single question underneath every prayer: who is this actually for?
What scholars say
Evans answers a question hiding in the verse's vocabulary: why does Jesus call these people 'hypocrites' — a word from the theater — and what scene would his listeners have pictured on those colonnaded streets? Cole, meanwhile, shows that Jesus' own prayer life was interpersonal and public, never kept private.
“Jesus warns his disciples not to 'be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others' (Matt. 6.5). Standing and praying in public may once again allude to the performance of the actor (or 'hypocrite'), who in the theatre stands and gives a soliloquy. It has been observed that the word plateia , meaning 'street' (one of the words in the translation 'street corners'; literally 'corners of streets', en tais goniais ton plateion ), was used of the colonnaded street in nearby Sepphoris. The image may be that of a actor standing in a busy thoroughfare speaking loudly, hoping to attract an audience to the theatre.”
“He invited people to pray and taught them how (Matt. 6:5–14; 7:7–11; Luke 11:1–13). He prayed with and on behalf of others (Luke 9:28–29; Mark 14:32–33; John 17:20–23). When praying in solitude, he nevertheless remained tethered to his people as he kept God’s will for himself and them in mind. Neither his praying nor his faith was kept private. In fact, these never unfolded apart from deep interpersonal and public commitments that others could witness. These included people who did not know him as well as those that he called to remain by his side, share his life, and work with him on God’s behalf. We might go as far as to identify Jesus’ life and faith as “devout” precisely because of their essentially interpersonal and public natures.”
What it means for you
This verse doesn't ask you to stop praying in front of others — at meals, in church, with a struggling friend. It asks you to notice who you're performing for. Most of us have felt the pull: choosing words for how they'll sound, or feeling a small glow when someone notices our devotion. Jesus names that pull honestly and warns that applause is a reward that pays out instantly and then is gone.
A simple practice: before you pray aloud, take one breath and remember your actual audience. Public prayer offered to God can bless everyone in the room. Prayer offered to the room reaches no further than its walls.
Matthew 6 in context
Matthew 6 sits at the center of the Sermon on the Mount. It opens with a thesis: don't do your righteousness in front of people in order to be seen by them. Jesus then works through three examples of devout practice — giving to the needy (6:2–4), prayer (6:5–15), and fasting (6:16–18) — and in each case contrasts the performer, who already has his reward, with the person who acts for the Father "who sees in secret." Verse 5 begins the prayer section, which leads directly into the Lord's Prayer.