Matthew 6:32 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 6:32 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”

For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. The Gentile comparison: the people who do not know the Father as Father are driven by anxiety about provision because they have no Father to provide. The disciples have the Father — the heavenly Father who knows what they need before they ask (verse 8). The Gentile anxiety is not irrational given their theological situation; the disciple's anxiety is irrational given theirs. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all — the complete knowledge and the parental care combine to make anxiety both theologically wrong and practically unnecessary.

Church Fathers on Matthew 6:32

Having thus expressly cut off all anxiety concerning food and raiment, by an argument drawn from observation of the inferior creation, He follows it up by a further prohibition; 'Be not ye therefore careful, saying, What shall we eat, what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?'
Gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) · medieval compilation · non occ.

The Lord repeated this, that He might shew how highly necessary this precept is, and that He might inculcate it more strongly on our hearts.
Remigius · 9th century

It should be observed that He does not say, Do not ye seek, or be thoughtful for, food drink, and raiment, but 'what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.' Wherein they seem to me to be convicted, who, using themselves the usual food and clothing, require of those with whom they live either greater sumptuousness, or greater austerity in both.
Rabanus Maurus · 9th century

Read all 15 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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