Private prayer and open public prayer
The Lord's Prayer (1886-1896) from the series The Life of Christ, Brooklyn Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet , and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly ." ( Matthew 6:6 ) In perhaps His primary teaching on giving, prayer, and fasting , Christ used an interesting blend of singular (thee, thou) and plural (you, ye) pronouns. Since even pronouns as recorded in Scripture are inspired and profitable, there must be a lesson to be learned from them. Although Christ begins the passage using the plural pronoun --"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them" ( v. 1 ), evidently addressing the large group assembled--He switches and speaks in the singular. In the verses dealing with giving ( vv. 2-4 ), with praying ( vv. 5-6 ), and with fasting ( vv. 17-18 ), He uses the singular pronoun and singular ve