Matt 6 : 25 to 34

Do Not Worry

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^b]">[b]?

²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Some people today associate faith with being able to obtain possessions from God, but Jesus did not even associate it with seeking basic needs from God. Pagans seek those things, he warned (v. 32; compare 5:47; 6:7); we should seek instead God's kingdom and his righteous will (6:33). It is when his people care for others in need among them that God supplies the needs of his people as a whole, perhaps because then he can best trust them to use his gifts righteously (Deut 15:1-11; Blomberg 1992:126). In our lifelong plans and each day as we decide what to do with our life and resources, we have fresh opportunities to prove to God our love for him-or our lack of it.

Anxiety does no good. Jesus highlights this theme in Matthew 6:26, 34. Anxiety will not add even the smallest unit of time to one's life. Not only is it true that we cannot extend our life by worrying, but daily experience in our comparatively fast-paced culture confirms the wisdom of an earlier Jewish sage, who observed that worry and a troubled heart actually shorten life (Sirach 30:19-24). If much study is wearying to the flesh (Eccl 12:12-undoubtedly many a scholar's favorite verse), worry about wealth also banishes sleep and destroys the flesh (Sirach 34:1).

Unlike some ancient philosophers, Jesus never condemns people for recognizing their basic needs; their Father knows they need food and clothing. Yet he calls them to depend on God for their daily sustenance. Those who can trust their heavenly Father to care for them (as most first-century Jewish children could depend on their earthly fathers) need not be anxious concerning clothes or food.

Jesus paints his point in graphic word pictures. Like a typical sage, he finally notes that one has enough to worry about for the day without adding tomorrow's worries (Mt 6:34; compare Prov 27:1). Employing the typical rhetorical technique of personification (Kennedy 1984:60), Jesus further admonishes his hearers to let tomorrow worry about itself. Yet when Jesus forbids us to worry about tomorrow, this does not mean that concerns will never press upon us. It means instead that we should express dependence on God in each of these concerns. We should pray for our genuine needs (v. 11), provided we pray for God's kingdom most of all (vv. 9-10; most of Paul's "concerns" fit this category: 2 Cor 11:28; 1 Thess 3:1-5). The part of the future we must concern ourselves with and work toward is what he has revealed to us and called us to do (compare Mt 10:5-25).