Matthew 6:27 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 6:27 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?”

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? The futility argument: anxiety produces nothing. The hour added to the span of life (or cubit added to one's stature, in alternate translation) is the impossibility that anxiety strains toward: it cannot produce the outcome it seeks. Worry is not merely unpleasant but useless — it neither prevents the feared outcomes nor secures the desired ones. The person who worries all night does not achieve by worrying what could not be achieved by sleeping. The practical futility of anxiety is added to the theological argument from the Father's care: anxiety is both theologically wrong (not trusting the Father) and practically counterproductive.

Church Fathers on Matthew 6:27

Having confirmed our hope by this arguing from the greater to the less, He next confirms it by an argument from less to greater, 'Behold the fowls of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap.'
Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

Some argue that they ought not to labour, because the fowls of the air neither sow nor reap. Why then do they not attend to that which follows, 'neither gather into barns? Why do they seek to have their hands idle, and their storehouses full? Why indeed do they grind corn, and dress it? For this do not the birds.
Augustine · 4th century · De Op. Monach., 23

There be some who, seeking to go beyond the limits of their fathers, and to soar into the air, sink into the deep and are drowned. These will have the birds of the air to mean the Angels, and the other powers in the ministry of God, who without any care of their own are fed by God’s providence.
Jerome · 4th century

Read all 12 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

Publish a reflection on this verse

No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!