11
others, all good things.
25
It is important for our purposes to note the future orientation of this divine
knowledge. Jesus says that the Father knows our needs before we ask him. Thus Gundry says, it
is "the Father's foreknowledge of the disciples' needs [that] makes wordiness unnecessary."
26
But some might object to this designation of God's knowledge as foreknowledge.
All that Jesus says is that the Father knows our needs before we ask. But our needs may very
well exist before we ask God to meet them (or even know of them ourselves). Thus might it not
be the case that what God knows are the needs we currently have before we bring them to God in
prayer? In that case his would be a marvelously comprehensive knowledge of the present
circumstances of his children, but not foreknowledge.
25
John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
Vol. 1 (1558; reprint Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 314.
26
Gundry, Matthew, 104. We need not be overly concerned about Matthew's use of oi=da
as opposed to ginw,skw which forms the basis of the NT words for foreknowledge. oi=da
seems to be used to emphasize the completeness of God's observation of his children and
thus his complete knowledge of their need. Bultmann argues that "eivde,nai means 'to know
on the basis of one's own observations'" (TDNT, 1:691). Heinrich Seesemann notes that
although oi=da is the perfect of the root eivd-, ivd-, it has a present meaning ["to have realized,
perceived" = "to know"]. He argues that it "can be synonymous with ginw,skw; in the
absolute use in the Koine, it is hard to establish any distinction in meaning" (TDNT, 5:116).
See also MM, 439.