Complete textual-variant dossier
Adverse entailment established
Sections distinguish readings, edition history, evidence, theological consequences, and the Research Center's evaluation. CBGM is an analytical tool; editorial committees—not the software—make textual decisions.
1Passage and issue
Passage
Issue
> “Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The exact TR reading has not yet been entered in the structured field.
Authorized Version
“Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” — Matthew 6:4
Edition note
The Research Center uses the received Greek text underlying the Authorized Version as its baseline; edition-specific differences are recorded when the variation unit requires them.
Historical annotation witness
Erasmus’s Annotationes
Erasmus’s printed Greek text, his Latin annotation, and the Research Center’s evaluation are distinct evidence. Each edition remains separately identified because Erasmus revised the Annotationes across his five editions.
Not yet assessed. No inference about Erasmus’s silence has been made. A Latin annotation and translation will appear here only after an edition and exact locus have been verified.
The Erasmus annotation audit has not yet been completed for this locus. Do not infer from this status that Erasmus was silent.
Westminster and Dutch annotation witnesses
Westminster Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
Dutch Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
No distinct NA28 reading has been entered; the received and NA28 texts may agree at this unit.
Translation or explanation
The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 2 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in the weight and distribution of external attestation, scribal harmonization to a parallel passage, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; the printed confidence rating represented here is {B}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on Matthew 6:4, 6:4
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
No passage-specific ECM/CBGM editorial explanation is attached to this record. Official method sources describe the CBGM as a set of coherence procedures, not a decision-maker: editors define variation units and local stemmata and evaluate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence together with transcriptional, intrinsic, and other philological evidence.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
UBS6 retains the NA28 / UBS5 Greek main-text wording in Matthew, so no main-text change is shown for this passage. The separate project ledger covers Acts, Mark, and Revelation.
No change row is attached to this passage.
UBS6 is published, and the German Bible Society identifies its Greek main text as identical to the intended NA29 main text. The complete NA29 volume and its apparatus remain forthcoming. Project-ledger rows retain their source and verification statements until they are checked against the published UBS6 text and, when available, the NA29 apparatus.
5Doctrinal and four-point analysis
Effect class
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony
Exact proposition affected
The triune identity of the Father, the Son/Word, and the Holy Ghost.
Doctrinal analysis
Some faithful acts may remain unknown until resurrection.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 6:4, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Critical editions omit openly at verses 4, 6, and 18. That very symmetry creates the critical case. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 6:4 must be applied to comparable readings as well. A principle such as age, difficulty, brevity, or coherence cannot be decisive here and quietly reversed elsewhere merely to escape a historical, grammatical, or theological difficulty.
Consequences
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony: Some faithful acts may remain unknown until resurrection.
Preconditions of intelligibility
The argument presupposes stable authorship, meaningful language, objective logical norms, transmissible evidence, and a coherent account of how Scripture can be received and identified by the church. The analysis tests whether the method can make those conditions intelligible without reducing the text to an indefinitely revisable editorial construct.
This framework examines an argument and its conditions; it does not claim to read an editor's private motives.
6Argument for the received reading
External and historical evidence
The manuscript support is not identical in all three places; verse 18 carries the narrower Greek line. The uneven manuscript support should prevent the refrain from being defended as if a single copyist either kept or lost all three words in one stroke.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
One openly could have begun as an explanatory addition and then spread to all three endings. A scribe may feel that secret devotion needs a public counterpart. Once one refrain is shortened, a later copyist can align the other two with it.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
— Matthew 6:4 The words shall reward thee openly close Christ’s teaching on alms, prayer, and fasting in the Textus Receptus. Jesus prays with disciples, and the church knows who serves in many offices. Ecclesiastical reception can preserve a phrase even where surviving Greek count thins.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 6:4. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Canonical coherence with the rest of Scripture
Canonical coherence remains an explicit test: a proposed reading must make grammatical and theological sense within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. No conflict is asserted merely because two editions differ; the claimed incoherence must be demonstrated at this passage.
Canonical-coherence verdict
The Authorized Version is retained where its representation of the TR forms a coherent reading within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. Any competing form must demonstrate an equal or better canonical fit rather than merely invoke an edition or method label.
Response to the principal critical argument
Critical editions omit openly at verses 4, 6, and 18. That very symmetry creates the critical case. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Conclusion
“Openly” answers that gaze without making the disciple hunt for later recognition. The Father decides the time and form of disclosure. Some faithful acts may remain unknown until resurrection. Others may bear visible fruit now while the worker’s name stays hidden. The promise belongs to God’s judgment, not to a publicity plan.
The uneven manuscript support should prevent the refrain from being defended as if a single copyist either kept or lost all three words in one stroke. The transmission may have developed separately at each occurrence. Matthew’s repeated design and the final received form bring those local histories back into one coherent paragraph.
Logical entailment
The Authorized Version serves as the faithful English representation. The preservation claim applies immediately to the authentic Hebrew and Greek texts—not to an English translation as though it were the inspired source.
Canonical-status rule: Physical printing is not canonical inclusion. If an edition prints a passage in double brackets while judging it secondary or non-original, it disagrees with the received text concerning the identity and extent of inspired Scripture.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At Matthew 6:4, the received text reads and its Authorized Version representation reads “Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” — Matthew 6:4”. The assessed critical reading is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Matthew 6:4, the received Hebrew/Greek form is ; the Authorized Version represents it as “Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” — Matthew 6:4”. The assessed critical form is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”.
- The received and critical forms are not the same at this locus. Therefore, if the competing critical form is original, the received form is secondary rather than the authentic wording at this place. The immediate consequence is: At Matthew 6:4, the received text reads and its Authorized Version representation reads “Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” — Matthew 6:4”. The assessed critical reading is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
- If the received form at this place is secondary rather than original, then the authentic Hebrew/Greek text was not kept pure at this place in the received textual tradition; therefore the unqualified confessional preservation claim must be denied or redefined.
Ultimate preservation consequence
If the competing reading is original and the received reading is secondary, then God did not preserve and keep pure the authentic text at this place in the received textual tradition. The unqualified confessional claim that Scripture was kept pure in all ages must therefore be denied or redefined.
Sources
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)Chapter 1, section 8 — Governing confessional preservation claim
- German Bible Society — UBS6 publications and relation to NA29Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — The Sixth Edition of the Greek New TestamentCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- INTF — Online Tools for the ECMCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — Interview with Hugh HoughtonCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
“Thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” — Matthew 6:4
The words shall reward thee openly close Christ’s teaching on alms, prayer, and fasting in the Textus Receptus. Critical editions omit openly at verses 4, 6, and 18. The manuscript support is not identical in all three places; verse 18 carries the narrower Greek line.
A threefold refrain
Matthew builds the passage by repetition. Hypocrites act before men and have their reward. The disciple acts before the Father in secret. The Father sees and rewards openly. The same close after each practice makes the paragraph easy to hear and remember.
That very symmetry creates the critical case. One openly could have begun as an explanatory addition and then spread to all three endings. A scribe may feel that secret devotion needs a public counterpart.
The reverse history is also simple. Once one refrain is shortened, a later copyist can align the other two with it. Repeated formulas are exposed both to expansion and to leveling. The fact that support differs among the verses suggests transmission in stages, not a single late invention dropped whole into every copy.
The words do not promise that every hidden gift will produce public wealth or applause. That would rebuild the hypocrisy Christ condemns. The Father may vindicate faithfulness in this life, but the final open reward appears before his judgment seat.
Secret does not mean that all prayer must be physically solitary or that every gift must be anonymous. Jesus prays with disciples, and the church knows who serves in many offices. The issue is the chosen audience of the heart.
The full refrain turns the disciple away from immediate spectators toward the Father who will bring hidden things to light. Omitting openly leaves the promise of reward intact, but it removes the answer to the hypocrite’s public stage.
The received threefold close belongs to Matthew’s craft and to the passage’s future hope. The evidence at verse 18 should be admitted as narrower, not hidden. Ecclesiastical reception can preserve a phrase even where surviving Greek count thins. The Father sees every secret deed, and his verdict will not remain secret.
The three settings also reveal different audiences. Alms can be displayed before recipients and neighbors. Prayer can be staged in congregational space. Fasting can be advertised through a face. In each case a lawful practice becomes hypocrisy when the human gaze is chosen as the reward.
“Openly” answers that gaze without making the disciple hunt for later recognition. The Father decides the time and form of disclosure. Some faithful acts may remain unknown until resurrection. Others may bear visible fruit now while the worker’s name stays hidden. The promise belongs to God’s judgment, not to a publicity plan.
The uneven manuscript support should prevent the refrain from being defended as if a single copyist either kept or lost all three words in one stroke. The transmission may have developed separately at each occurrence. Matthew’s repeated design and the final received form bring those local histories back into one coherent paragraph.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 6:1–18; 10:26; 25:31–46; 1 Corinthians 4:5.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
- John William Burgon, The Revision Revised.
7Related materials
Open a group to follow connected articles, books, biographies, media, research notes, variants, or downloads. Research Center relationships use permanent record IDs; external items retain their actual link.
- Record
- VAR-1024
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 2026-07-22 · Exact Day
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Recovered project data; bibliographic and source-level verification remains record-specific. Metzger commentary entries were matched by exact passage where present; ECM/CBGM rationale is passage-specific only when an official editorial explanation is cited. Ledger rows are identified as UBS6 / intended NA29 data but retain their row-level verification caveats pending direct collation.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis; cited sources retain their stated rights.
- Known limitations
- Staging record; independent review remains open.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Matthew 6:4, 6, 18 — “Shall Reward Thee Openly”: A Threefold Refrain under Review,” VAR-1024, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas