8
exhortations to his disciples to pray. One time occurs in Matt 6:31-32, where we read
So do not worry, saying "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall
we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows
(oi=den) that you need them.
As Gundry points out,
16
in vs. 32 Jesus gives two reasons why believers should obey the
command of vs. 31 and not give in to worry. Both are introduced by the ga,r. The first reason is
that worry is pagan ("for the pagans run after all these things
17
). The second is the fact that the
Father knows what we need. Jesus' point is that on-going attitudes of worry (as expressed in the
three questions of vs. 31) are "an affront to God who knows the needs of his people."
18
And
when this divine knowledge of our needs is combined with the sovereign grace and mercy of our
heavenly Father,
19
and if the logic of Jesus' previous argument (from lesser to greater) holds,
then our anxious worry "can only result from lack of genuine belief in God's goodness and
16
Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church
Under Persecution: Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 118.
17
The verb evpizhtou/sin is a strengthened form of zhte,w, the verb translated "seek" in vs.
33. See D. A. Carson, Matthew (EBC, vol. 8; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 181.
18
Ibid.
19
Matthew includes the adjective ouvra,nioj to describe the Father, which is absent in the
parallel passage in Luke 12:30. See Gundry, Matthew, 118.