A Warning Against Worry
A WARNING AGAINST WORRY
LUKE 12:25-34
If we have a God who cares for his creatures and who is our Father, we can trust him to look after us.
The thought flows on from the parable just told, and some teaching from the Sermon on the Mount is introduced. Life is more than food and mere physical necessities. All such matters must be kept by the Christian in due proportion. This is no call to a hermit’s life and the spectacular abandonment of all possessions and modes of normal living, as the authorities of later centuries perversely regarded it. “God knows that we have need of all these things” is the closing thought.
Two points must always be borne in mind when reading the Bible. The first is that it is an Eastern book, and speaks in poetry as readily as in prose. For the same reason, it must also be expected that paradoxical and striking statements will be made.
Secondly, text must be balanced with text, and Scripture with Scripture. 12:33 seems a drastic statement until it is measured against fact. The disciple John had a home, for thither he took Mary when bidden by the Lord on the cross to treat her as his mother. The family at Bethany had a house and a competence wherewith they entertained Christ. What then did Christ mean? Look at the whole context of his remark. He began with comment on the rich fool who thought that the end of all life and activity was an abundance of food and drink. He passed from this to the preoccupation with the necessities of daily living, which excludes and quenches higher and more vital concerns.
With the rich farmer the acquisition of material goods was a lifelong and absorbing passion. There are poorer and more enlightened men who also think too much about such things. Cast care and anxiety aside, Christ urges them. After all, does worry effect much? A “three-cubit man” and a “four-cubit man” were common terms for short and tall, and one of the twain cannot make himself into the other by anxiety. Who will deny that worry is a problem? None the less we should seek to quench it by faith; it is unreasonable for the Christian (12:22-24), useless (12:25) and irreligious (12:28).
Notes 12:29: “anxious mind”—the Gk. expresses the tossing of a ship—literally, “raised between heaven and earth.” 12:34: “heart”—a comprehensive term; thoughts, affections, actions. For the idea of being “rich toward God,” see Matthew 6:19-21; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; James 2:5.