![]() Without foreseeing their own wants, or making provision for them, they are preserved and nourished by the unwearied benignity of the divine providence. For they sow not, neither do they reap, &c. Is not the life more than the meat, needful to support it? And the body than the raiment, necessary to clothe it? and will not he, who has given the greater blessings, give the less also? Behold the fowls of the air - Learn a lesson from the birds that now fly round you. ![]() What Christ therefore here forbids is, not that thought, foresight, and care which prudent men use in providing sustenance and needful support for themselves, and those dependant upon them but it is such an anxious care, as arises from want of faith in the being, perfections, and providence of God, and in the declarations and promises of his word, and therefore such an anxious solicitude as engrosses the thoughts and desires of the soul, so as either utterly to exclude or greatly damp and hinder spiritual affections, pursuits, and labours or which prevents our receiving or our retaining and increasing in the love of God, and the true religion connected therewith. For we are not to suppose that our Lord here commands us absolutely to take no thought for our life, food, and raiment because, in other parts of Scripture, diligence in business is inculcated, and men are commanded to labour with their hands, that they may provide for the supply of their own wants, and also those of others, Romans 12:11 Ephesians 4:28 and that, instead of being useless loads on the earth, they may, at all times, have it in their power to discharge the several duties of life with decency, Titus 3:14. But the expression used by our translators, Take no thought, is too strong, and not warranted by the original, μη μεριμνατε, which properly signifies, Be not anxious, or, anxiously careful, as is evident from Luke 10:41 Luke 12:11 Luke 21:34 Php 4:6 and almost every other place, where μεριμναω occurs. Our Lord here proceeds to caution his disciples against worldly cares, these being as inconsistent with the true service of God as worldly desires. ![]() God has given you the greater, can you not trust Him to give you also the less? In some way or other there will come food to sustain life, and clothing for the body, and men should not so seek for more as to be troubled about them.īenson Commentary Matthew 6:25-27. We hear the language of One who speaks to peasants with their simple yet pressing wants, not to the wider cares of the covetous or ambitious of a higher grade. Matthew 10:39 Matthew 16:25 Mark 3:4, et at.) We note in the form of the precept the homeliness of the cases selected as illustration. To “take thought” in the modern sense is often the most effectual safeguard (next to the higher defence of trust in God) against “taking thought” in the older.įor your life.-The Greek word is the same as that commonly rendered “soul,” and the passage is interesting as an example of its use in the wider sense which includes the lower as well as the higher life. The changing fortune of words has now made it weaker, and it would be better to substitute “over-careful” or “over-anxious.” The temper against which our Lord warns His disciples is not that of foresight, which merely provides for the future, but the allowing ourselves to be harassed and vexed with its uncertainties. The usage of the time, therefore, probably led the translators of 1611 to choose the phrase, as stronger than the “be not careful” which in this passage stood in all previous versions. ![]() 220), who speaks of a man “dying with thought and anguish” before his case was heard. And this was, in the sixteenth century, the meaning of the English phrase “take thought.” Of this we have one example in 1Samuel 9:5 other examples of it are found in Shakespeare, “ take thought, and die for Cæsar” ( Julius Cæsar, ii. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(25) Take no thought.-The Greek word some times thus translated, and sometimes by “care” or “be careful” ( 1Corinthians 7:32-34 Philippians 2:20 Philippians 4:6), expresses anxiety, literally, the care which distracts us.
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