Alms (charity) (1654) (eleemosune from eleemon = merciful from eleos = mercy, kindness, compassion) signifies mercy or pity particularly in giving alms. Alms (Webster, et al) - something (as money or food) given freely to relieve the poor. Any thing given gratuitously to relieve the poor, as money, food, or clothing, otherwise called charity. money given out of mercy for the poor. The Israelite was commanded to be generous in opening his hand wide to the poor and needy (Deut. 15:11). Gleanings from vineyards, orchards, olive groves, and fields should be made available to the poor (Lev. 19:9-10; Ruth 2:2, 7-8). Blessings were promised to those who were generous in aiding the poor (Pr. 14:21; 19:17). Eventually, the false notion developed that almsgiving had power to atone for the giver's sins! "By Jesus' time, the word "righteousness" was tied closely to the word "alms." Thus, when Jesus taught about "charitable deeds" (or almsgiving; Matt. 6:2-4), prayer (Mt. 6:5-15), and fasting (Matt. 6:16-18), he prefaced his teachings by saying, "Beware of practicing your piety [literally, righteousness] before men in order to be seen by them" (Mt. 6:1). In this way he taught that the giving of alms to the poor must not become a theatrical display to win people's applause; the praise that comes from God is more important." (Nelson's illustrated Bible dictionary) "Almsgiving is a pervasive part of the biblical tradition and is practiced to maintain community harmony. In the OT, caring for the poor is associated with living a just life, and kindness to the poor is viewed as the basis for a happy life (Pr 14:21). Isaiah emphasizes giving to the poor as a prerequisite for hearing the voice of God. Almsgiving must involve facing the poor with whom one lives, and sharing one's food and one's home; it is not simply the giving of financial resources. Care for the poor must also include the three-year tithing of the produce of the land (Deut. 14:28-29) and the leaving behind of grain in the field (Dt 24:19-22)." (Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible) ". Although no word with the specific meaning of "alms" or "to give alms" occurs in the Old Testament, the practice does seem to have existed. ?Hebrew tsaddiyq (06662) "righteous deeds" (Ps. 11:5) came to have the more restricted meaning of gifts to the poor. (The Eerdmans Bible dictionary) Alms Articles... Alms - The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia (Interesting Article as you might imagine!) Here is a short excerpt of this long article = A word derived from the Greek eleesosune (mercifulness), used by Greek-speaking Jews to denote almost exclusively the offering of charity to the needy, from a feeling of both compassion and righteousness. (See Proverbs 21:21) The word "almsgiving," however, is far from expressing the full meaning of the Hebrew ? eda? ah, which is, charity in the spirit of uprightness or justice. According to the Mosaic conception, wealth is a loan from God, and the poor have a certain claim on the possessions of the rich while the rich are positively enjoined to share God's bounties with the poor. A systematic mode of relief of the needy was, therefore, provided by the law and by the institutions of the synagogue). (See related interesting article for Jewish perspective on Charity and Charitable Institutions - The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia) Alms - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament Alms - Holman Bible Dictionary Eleemosune - 13v in NAS translated as alms, charity, giving. Matthew 6:2 "So when you give to the poor (alms), do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 "But when you give to the poor (alms), do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Barclay - To the Jew there were three great cardinal works of the religious life, three great pillars on which the good life was based--almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Jesus would not for a moment have disputed that; what troubled him was that so often in human life the finest things were done from the wrong motives. It is the strange fact that these three great cardinal good works readily lend themselves to wrong motives. It was Jesus' warning that, when these things were done with the sole intention of bringing glory to the doer, they lost by far the most important part of their value. A man may give alms, not really to help the person to whom he gives, but simply to demonstrate his own generosity, and to bask in the warmth of some one's gratitude and all men's praise. A man may pray in such a way that his prayer is not really addressed to God, but to his fellow-men. His praying may simply be an attempt to demonstrate his exceptional piety in such a way that no one can fail to see it. A man may fast, not really for the good of his own soul, not really to humble himself in the sight of God, but simply to show the world what a splendidly self-disciplined character he is. A man may practise good works simply to win praise from men, to increase his own prestige, and to show the world how good he is. As Jesus saw it, there is no doubt at all that that kind of thing does receive a certain kind of reward. Three times Jesus uses the phrase, as the Revised Standard Version has it: "Truly I say to you, they have their reward" (Matthew 6:2; Matthew 6:5; Matthew 6:16). It would be better to translate it: "They have received payment in full." The word that is used in the Greek is the verb apechein (Greek 568), which was the technical business and commercial word for receiving payment in full. It was the word which was used on receipted accounts. For instance, one man signs a receipt given to another man: "I have received (apecho, 568) from you the rent of the olive press which you have on hire." A tax collector gives a receipt, saying, "I have received (apecho, Greek #568) from you the tax which is due." A man sells a slave and gives a receipt, saying, "I have received (apecho, 568) the whole price due to me." What Jesus is saying is this: "If you give alms to demonstrate your own generosity, you will get the admiration of men--but that is all you will ever get. That is your payment in full. If you pray in such a way as to flaunt your piety in the face of men, you will gain the reputation of being an extremely devout man--but that is all you will ever get. That is your payment in full. If you fast in such a way that all men know that you are fasting, you will become known as an extremely abstemious and ascetic man--but that is all you will ever get. That is your payment in full." Jesus is saying, "If your one aim is to get yourself the world's rewards, no doubt you will get them--but you must not look for the rewards which God alone can give." And he would be a sadly short-sighted creature who grasped the rewards of time, and let the rewards of eternity go. To the Jew almsgiving was the most sacred of all religious duties. How sacred it was may be seen from the fact that the Jews used the same word--tsedaqah (Hebrew 06666)--both for righteousness and almsgiving. To give alms and to be righteous were one and the same thing. To give alms was to gain merit in the sight of God, and was even to win atonement and forgiveness for past sins. "It is better to give alms than to lay up gold; almsgiving doth deliver from death, and it purges away all sin" (Tobit 12:8). "Almsgiving to a father shall not be blotted out, And as a substitute for sins it shall stand firmly planted. In the day of affliction it shall be remembered to thy credit. It shall obliterate thine iniquities as the heat, the hoar-frost." (Sirach 3:14-15). There was a rabbinic saying: "Greater is he who gives alms than he who offers all sacrifices." Almsgiving stood first in the catalogue of good works. It was then natural and inevitable that the man who desired to be good should concentrate on almsgiving. The highest teaching of the Rabbis was exactly the same as the teaching of Jesus. They too forbade ostentatious almsgiving. "He who gives alms in secret," they said, "is greater than Moses." The almsgiving which saves from death is that "when the recipient does not know from whom he gets it, and when the giver does not know to whom he gives it." There was a Rabbi who, when he wished to give alms, dropped money behind him, so that he would not see who picked it up. "It were better" they said, "to give a man nothing, than to give him something, and to put him to shame." There was one particularly lovely custom connected with the Temple. In the Temple there was a room called The Chamber of the Silent. People who wished to make atonement for some sin placed money there; and poor people from good families who had come down in the world were secretly helped by these contributions. But as in so many other things practice fell far short of precept. Too often the giver gave in such a way that all men might see the gift, and gave far more to bring glory to himself than to bring help to someone else. During the synagogue services, offerings were taken for the poor, and there were those who took good care that others should see how much they gave. J. J. Wetstein quotes an eastern custom from the ancient days: "In the east water is so scarce that sometimes it had to be bought. When a man wanted to do a good act, and to bring blessing on his family, he went to a water-carrier with a good voice, and instructed him: 'Give the thirsty a drink.' The water-carrier filled his skin and went to the market-place. 'O thirsty ones,' he cried, 'come to drink the offering.' And the giver stood by him and said, 'Bless me, who gave you this drink.'" That is precisely the kind of thing that Jesus condemns. He talks about the hypocrites who do things like that. The word hupokrites (Greek 5273) is the Greek word for an actor. People like that put on an act of giving which is designed only to glorify themselves.... The synagogue had certain officials. There was the Ruler of the synagogue. He was responsible for the administration of the affairs of the synagogue and for the arrangements for its services. There were the distributors of alms. Daily a collection was taken in cash and in kind from those who could afford to give. It was then distributed to the poor; the very poorest were given food for fourteen meals per week. (Matthew 6 - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible) In Barclay's Note on James 2 - To a Jew almsgiving was of paramount importance. So much so that righteousness and almsgiving mean one and the same thing. Almsgiving was considered to be a man's one defence when he was judged by God. "Water will quench a flaming fire," writes Ben Sirach, "and alms maketh an atonement for sin" (Sirach 3:30). In Tobit it is written, "Everyone who occupieth himself in alms shall behold the face of God, as it is written, I will behold thy face by almsgiving" (Tobit 4:8-10). When the leaders of the Jerusalem Church agreed that Paul should go to the Gentiles the one injunction laid upon him was not to forget the poor (Galatians 2:10). This stress on practical help was one of the great and lovely marks of Jewish piety. (ii) There was a strain of Greek religion to which this stress on sympathy and almsgiving was quite alien. The Stoics aimed at apatheia, the complete absence of feeling. The aim of life was serenity. Emotion disturbs serenity. The way to perfect calm was to annihilate all emotion. Pity was a mere disturbance of the detached philosophic calm in which a man should aim to live. So Epictetus lays it down that only he who disobeys the divine command will ever feel grief or pity (Discourses 3: 24, 43). When Virgil in the Georgics (2: 498) draws the picture of the perfectly happy man, he has no pity for the poor and no grief for the sorrowing, for such emotions would only upset his own serenity. This is the very opposite of the Jewish point of view. For the Stoic blessedness meant being wrapped up in his own philosophic detachment and calm; for the Jew it meant actively sharing in the misfortunes of others. (iii) In his approach to this subject James is profoundly right. There is nothing more dangerous than the repeated experiencing of a fine emotion with no attempt to put it into action. It is a fact that every time a man feels a noble impulse without taking action, he becomes less likely ever to take action. In a sense it is true to say that a man has no right to feel sympathy unless he at least tries to put that sympathy into action. An emotion is not something in which to luxuriate; it is something which at the cost of effort and of toil and of discipline and of sacrifice must be turned into the stuff of life. (James 2 - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible) Luke 11:41 "But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you. Luke 12:33 "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. Acts 3:2 And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. 10 and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Acts 9:36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. Acts 10:2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. 4 And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 31 and he said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Acts 24:17 "Now after several years I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings; When you do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, you are conducting your affairs between yourself and God, unknown to anyone else. When we are exercising acts of devotion such as giving or other acts of Christian duty such as praying and fasting, we are not to call attention to ourselves or be impressed with ourselves or to think that we are adding merit by our deed. Note that Jesus is not prohibiting any gift that might be seen by someone else for it would be virtually impossible to make all contributions strictly anonymous. Jesus is simply condemning the showy, ostentatious display when one gives. As someone once rightly said "Work for the Lord. The pay isn't much, but the retirement benefit is out of this world." Spurgeon put it this way... God is a sure paymaster, though he does not always pay at the end of every week. Spurgeon commenting on not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing exhorting us to... ?Do it so by stealth as scarcely to know it thyself; think so little of it with regard to thyself that thou shalt scarcely know that thou hast done it. Do it unto God; let Him know it.? Do not let what you have done be so known, even to yourself as to become the subject of self-approbation. Do not count over what has been given, rather go on to give more. C H Spurgeon's comments... 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. Seek secrecy for your good deeds. Do not even see your own virtue. Hide from yourself that which you yourself have done that is commendable; for the proud contemplation of your own generosity may tarnish all your alms. Keep the thing so secret that even you yourself are hardly aware that you are doing anything at all praiseworthy. Let God be present, and you will have enough of an audience. He will reward you, reward you "openly ", reward you as a Father rewards a child, reward you as one who saw what you did and knew that you did it wholly unto him. Lord, help me, when I am doing good, to keep my left hand out of it, that I may have no sinister motive, and no desire to have a present reward of praise among my fellow-men. (Commentary) Phil Newton - While almsgiving relieves human suffering, there is a bigger aim that the Christian keeps in mind. He desires to help others but more than anything, he offers his gift with a sense of gratitude for the great mercy that the Lord has shown him. He keeps the Lord in his eyes - so to speak - as he makes his gift. It is with a view toward pleasing Him that the Christian gives. It is because the believer has so thought upon the character and practice of Jesus Christ that he desires to do as Christ did in giving, and all to the glory of God. (Sermon) Clearly Jesus is speaking figuratively to emphasize the degree of privacy that one needs to manifest when giving to the church, to missionaries, etc. Simply put, do not tell anyone of your giving! There is a more subtle danger. We refrain from telling anyone and then we feel a sense of self-satisfaction because we are such humble donors. Jesus is saying that our giving is to be in as sense hidden even from ourselves. Don't let your right hand shake your left hand in congratulations. Don't praise yourself for your giving. Deny your flesh any temptation to pat yourself on the back because you are such a generous giver. This can be very subtle so as Jesus commanded at the outset of this section continually "beware"! You should have such pure motives of concern for the poor that when giving, you have no self-awareness and no self-serving motives at all. Chip Bell - I heard a story about a little seven-year-old girl that came to church with her parents one Sunday morning. She watched her parents singing songs. She sat and listened through the sermon and the pastor's prayer. She saw the offering go by, and watched her parents put something in the basket. And then after church, as the family was driving home, the mother commented, "I thought the music this morning was just awful." And the father added, "And the sermon was not only too long. It was boring." Their little daughter in the back seat heard all this and it really made her think. Finally, after a few moments of silence, she said, "Well, Mom and Dad, you've got to admit it was a pretty good show for a dollar." (See his full message Matthew 6:1-4 Clink. Clink. Ta Da!)