But if God so clothe the herbage of the field, which is to-day, and to-morrow is cast into [the] oven, will he not much rather you, O [ye] of little faith?
The Lord has just pointed to the lilies. Now He drives the lesson home with one sharp picture. God dresses roadside grass in beauty, and by tomorrow that grass is fuel. The question is not whether God can provide. It is why His own children still worry.
The picture comes from ordinary village life. An oven there was not a machine but a hole in the ground, and dried plants were the fuel.
In the cities some people worked as bakers and had built-up ovens. Everywhere else, each household usually had its own simple oven. A hole was dug in the ground and coated with clay, which hardened in the heat of the fire. Grass of every kind dried quickly in the sun, and people threw it into the oven to heat it.
So the Lord picks something with no lasting value — and God still made it beautiful.
What a rebuke comes from the plants of the field, as our Lord explains it! Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these lilies. The closer you look at them, even with the most powerful instruments, the more they outshine the splendour of Israel's richest king. Yet all that lavish beauty of shape and colour was only a carpet spread under the feet of the poorest Israelite one day. The next day it was fuel for an oven.
The reasoning runs upward. If God takes care of the lowest and shortest-lived thing He has made, He will not overlook His own people. Note also that each illustration answers a specific worry.
"But if God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?" Grass is the lowest thing, as it were, that He has made in the plant world — something both common and short-lived. So the ravens rebuked their anxiety about food, and the lilies their anxiety about clothing.
The same Maker stands behind the flower and behind the believer.
God, the creator of all animal and plant life, has fitted them together so admirably and sustains them. He will also provide for His children, who are worth much more than they are, in a fatherly way, with food and clothing. Yet how often we too show little faith in this matter!
The lilies neither toil nor spin. But the point is trust, not laziness.
Sowing or reaping, toiling or spinning could still be a duty. It would be, if they had to provide for themselves and their household, and could earn their supplies more easily by this work than in any other way. Even in an unfallen world, the Lord put Adam, whom He had formed, into the garden of Eden to till it and guard it.
The Lord's closing words are a rebuke, but a gentle one. He names the real problem: not scarce resources, but a small trust. Set against our own helplessness, that weakness stands out.
All your anxiety cannot add a single cubit to your height. And how much else there is of this kind, where we depend entirely on the will of another! We already have to leave so much to Him, and He clothes the perishing lilies of the field with a glory greater than Solomon's. Why not, then, leave everything to Him? The weakness of a person's faith is the only truly sad weakness, after all.
Left unchecked, that small faith pulls a believer down to the outlook of people who have no God at all.
Anxiety, darkness and doubt come from unbelief, joined with loving the world or the things in the world. That is how it was with the Gentiles, who did not know God. If we know Him, and the blessedness of His kingdom, and the perfection of His righteousness, why be anxious about tomorrow?
How much more? Look at what God has already spent on us.
God lavishly gives such beauty to grass, though it lasts such a short time. How much more can we depend on Him to clothe those whom He gave His Son to redeem!
- Grass. God dresses a weed that will heat tomorrow's oven — the lowest, briefest thing He makes.
- Gift. If He spends that much beauty on fuel, His care for children bought by His Son is beyond question.
- Rebuke. "Little faith" is real faith that has shrunk; it is the one weakness worth grieving over.
- Danger. Anxiety about food and clothes drags believers down to the level of people who do not know God.
- Balance. Trusting the Father does not cancel honest work. God gave Adam a garden to work before sin entered.
Be not therefore careful, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we put on?
The Lord has just pointed to the birds and the lilies, and now He gathers it up with a "therefore." He bars the three questions worry asks — food, drink, clothing — but how do you stop thinking about what the body cannot live without?
This verse sums up what came before. One writer notices a small word the Lord changes as He repeats Himself.
As the Lord began, so He closed His charge to the saints against anxiety in the earthly life. He picks on purpose the ordinary, everyday matter of daily food and clothing. He brings in the birds of the sky as the witness of generous provision without worry. He brings in the unmatched splendour of the lilies of the field as a rebuke to troubled efforts after empty show. The sense and the wording of verses 25 and 31 are much the same. But in the later verse He exchanges "you" and "your" for the more tender, family expression "we."
Commentators differ on how far the prohibition reaches. Some read it as a matter of what fills the mind and holds first place.
To "take no thought" about our food, drink or clothing does not, of course, mean never to think of these things. It means not making them the objects of our thoughts as though they were the most important things in life. Gentile nations do this, giving great weight to things of only minor importance. Our Father knows we need such things, and we can depend on Him to supply them at the right time.
Others refuse to soften it at all. They press the wording as it stands.
Notice, "take NO thought." This needs no interpretation or adjustment. People may say it means "anxious thought." But there is nothing about "anxious" in the passage… If the Lord Jesus meant "anxious thought," He would have said so… The Spirit says through the apostle, "do not be anxious about anything." Why? Because God is caring for you. There is no use in two thinking about the same thing, when One can do everything and the other can do nothing.
The Lord does not choose rare emergencies as His example. He chooses the things every household asks about every week — and He says the same thing three times over.
In Matthew 6 the things that may give rise to this anxious care are much more general. They are not wants that arise only in exceptional circumstances, but everyday needs that all of us have. In particular the Lord speaks of food and drink to sustain our lives, and clothing for our bodies… Three times in this passage the Lord instructs His hearers not to be careful, or anxious, about these matters.
The Lord's reason points at "the Gentiles." What that word means carries the argument.
These outward things tempt us to lay great stress on them. But He reminds us that they are only the objects the Gentiles seek after. "Gentile" was a term used of a man without God, in contrast to a Jew who had God in an outward way in this world. A Christian is a man who has God in heaven as his Father. "Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." So then, since our Father knows this, why should we doubt Him? We do not distrust our earthly father; much less then should we doubt our heavenly Father.
Worry is not treated here as a harmless personality trait. Left alone, a weakness turns into something worse.
What we shall eat and drink, and what we shall wear, is the absorbing pursuit, the overwhelming and soul-destroying question… It is the weakness of our flesh. But it often becomes the sin of our souls. It drags us down in our living to the level of the nations of the world that do not know God. It makes us distrustful of His loving-kindness towards us.
The Lord does not free us from care so that we can relax. He frees us so that something can grow.
Why is there such emphasis on our being without care? It is certainly not so that we may settle down in comfortable ease. In the parable of the sower some of the seed fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked the seed. In His explanation the Lord said the thorns are the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things and the pleasures of this life… If we want to live lives that are fruitful for God, we must not let the cares of this world crowd out His claims and interests. As we seek His interests and actively pursue them, we will find that our needs are met.
Having forbidden the questions, the Lord does not leave the questioner empty.
Are we then left without comfort or resource? Far from it. The Lord finishes with real cheer for those who seek to be faithful: "your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." And is it not the Father's pleasure to consider every need of every child? Who can pretend that He does not abound in all good things, or that He would not have us trust in Him rather than in ourselves?
- Father, first — the ban on worry rests on one fact. The birds and the lilies show a Father who provides. He already knows what you need.
- Father's business — commentators differ on how far "take no thought" reaches. Does it bar all thought, or only the thought that makes food and clothing the chief thing in life? Both agree these questions belong to Him, not to you.
- Father's family — the Lord shifts from "you" to the warmer, family word "we" here. He puts the anxious words into His disciples' own mouths before He answers them.
- Fatherless talk — to spend life on these three questions is to talk like people without God. That weakness of the flesh becomes the sin of the soul.
- Father's fruit — freedom from care is not for ease. It is for fruit. The cares of this world are thorns, and they choke the word before it can yield anything.
for all these things the nations seek after; for your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
The command to seek first does not arrive in a quiet room. It lands in the middle of talk about food and clothes. One writer asks us to notice that:
The Lord Jesus said, "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." What had He been speaking of just before? Of what we shall eat and what we shall wear — the things we need for daily life. We do need them. But it is exactly because we need them that our Lord says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." Are we listening to this word? What is first in our souls?
"First" is easily misread as a timetable — deal with God, then get on with life. One commentator cuts that reading off directly:
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." We are not to seek first the kingdom of God and then seek these things. We seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the rest will come.
The issue is not how much time something takes. It is which claim comes first. One writer wrote this to a man deciding whether to take up a job alongside his preaching:
The thing that I fear is not seeking FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is not the time only that a similar occupation takes, but its having the prior claim, which is important. It alters the whole tone of the mind.
One writer sums the kingdom up in two words — God's interests — and draws a conclusion about worry:
Seek the kingdom of God, that is, God's interests, and all these things will be added to you. So, dear friends, not one of us needs to be troubled by a single care. We will not be troubled if we only take this into our hearts: God loves us, He cares for us, and He watches over us because He cares for us. So He will never let one of His children go without, if that child seeks first the kingdom of God.
The verse names two things, not one, and the second is not decoration. One writer explains what makes this second thing hard:
"His righteousness" is added to this. Everything in the world is stained by man's unrighteousness. So it takes real purpose of heart to seek the purity of God's righteousness in surroundings that pull the other way. This does take time and thought.
Another writer asks where this seeking shows itself day by day:
Do we make our decisions, small or great, in dependence on Him — praying and waiting on Him? Do we let Him rule our lives in this way? This is the only way to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The righteousness of God here is not the same as the righteousness spoken of in Romans. It is practical conduct. It answers to the authority and rule of God through the Lord Jesus in our lives.
The promise is real. But one writer warns that it collapses the moment it becomes the reason we seek:
We are to make the things of God our main aim, and He promises to take care of all our needs. But note this. We are not to seek "the kingdom of God" so that "all these things may be added." That would be a fatal mistake. If I give myself to the Lord's work so that my everyday needs will be met, I will soon come to ruin. But if I make the Lord's work my first aim, God will fully meet my needs.
One writer points out who does the adding:
Before all else, consider the rights of God. Our habit is to seek food and clothing first, along with everything else we count as a need or comfort in this life. But the Lord puts all of that well outside the range of our worry. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." The promise is that all these things will be added — that is, that God will add them.
One writer ties the promise back to what it rests on:
If we make God's kingdom and righteousness our first concern, we can expect Him to add all the good things we need. Our God and Father never overlooks our needs. If faithful in the greatest and deepest things, He loves that we should trust Him as to our least things. Do we believe the Lord, that "all these things" — the ones unbelief worries about — "will be added to us"? Let us not forget the condition: "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."
- First — not a sequence, but a ranking. Seek the kingdom and everything else follows. Let another claim take first place and it changes the whole tone of the mind.
- Kingdom — God's interests. Seeking it means making His concerns our own.
- Righteousness — doing what is right under His rule, in dependence on Him, in decisions small and great.
- Added — God does the adding. The moment the promise becomes the motive, the seeking is ruined. Make the Lord's work your first aim, and every need is met.
- Condition — the promise does not stand alone. Faithful in the greatest things, we are invited to trust Him with the least.
Be not careful therefore for the morrow, for the morrow shall be careful about itself. Sufficient to the day [is] its own evil.
Jesus closes His teaching on worry by drawing a line around the day you are actually living in. It raises a practical question. Is planning ahead forbidden, or the fear that eats away at the heart?
The command treats fear of a coming evil as a failure of trust. One writer notes that the feared thing often never arrives — and that even when it does, God is there:
"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself." Our Lord is preparing us for this. The anxiety that dreads some evil thing tomorrow is nothing but unbelief. When tomorrow comes, the evil may not be there. If it does come, God will be there... Often, when the heart bows to God's will about a sorrow we dread, God takes the sorrow away and meets us with unexpected kindness and goodness.
Anxiety also has a direction. It looks forward:
And there is another characteristic about anxiety. It looks ahead without faith. Unbelief draws dark pictures of despair and fills the mind with a day that may never come.
The second half of the verse sets a boundary on how much a person is meant to bear at once. Take on tomorrow's load and you carry weight that God has given you no grace for:
He also sets a limit on care, and that limit by itself rules most care out. How much of the burden we carry really belongs to tomorrow? It is a burden that is not ours yet. Who can tell what tomorrow will bring? Each day will have enough evil of its own. It is never too much, because a careful hand has measured it out. But when we borrow trouble that has not come yet, we make the day's burden too heavy, and we cannot count on God's grace for what has not come... How often has His love disappointed all our fears in ways we never dreamed of!
Commentators are careful not to turn this verse into a ban on forethought. One writer looks at the word behind "take thought" and finds the idea of a heart pulled in two directions:
In all this, what is forbidden is not thinking about tomorrow, but anxious care. The word itself comes from one that suggests "division," and so a "distracted" heart... James blames only the confident tone of that speech, not all planning for tomorrow. That should be plain: if the opposite were true, the whole course of our lives would have to change.
The same distinction shows up in ordinary family duties:
We believe the Christian must provide for his family, day by day. He must educate his children and set them on the way to earning an honest living... But those duties are one thing. Hoarding money and speculating are another... We believe that hoarding covers the soul with rust and speculation fills the heart and mind with care and anxiety.
Verse 34 is not simply a repeat of what came before. One writer finds the command sharpening at the end:
The disciples were not to make anxiety about food and clothing a habit. Even a brief look at the birds, or at the lilies, might well correct it. They were not to be anxious at all, said the Lord — not for the morrow. It is a stronger statement, excluding even a single instance.
The command has a foundation under it. The one who holds tomorrow is the believer's Father:
But why should the child of God give way to anxiety about tomorrow? He can be glad and bold, sure of his Father's love, and free to do His will today, whatever the trial. God is above tomorrow's anxiety too, and the believer can cast it on Him if it comes. "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Christ is our burden-bearer.
Experience confirms it. One writer adds another reason the dreaded day may never come:
How often have we worried about what tomorrow would bring, and then, when it came, found that the Lord stepped in... To remember that your Father knows, is to put the heart at peace. And we might never have to face tomorrow at all. The Lord may come before it arrives.
There is a reverse application. The same uncertainty that makes worry pointless makes delay dangerous:
If a warning to believers does not include you, you are in special danger. You are putting off until tomorrow the call of the gospel that God makes to you today... Delay will only increase your sins and harden your heart... How many have put off to a tomorrow that never came!
- Today's evil — each day carries a measured portion. A careful hand set the size. It is enough, and never too much.
- Today's grace — God gives grace for the day He gives it. You cannot draw on it early for a trouble that has not come.
- Today's work — providing, teaching your children and earning are duties. Jesus forbids the distracted heart, not planning.
- Today's Father — tomorrow is in His hands, and Christ carries the burden. Not even one moment of anxiety is called for.
- Today's decision — never postpone the gospel call. Many have put it off to a tomorrow that never came.