“Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;
Parallel Translations
-
“Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;
-
Se that ye gaddre you not treasure vpon the erth where rust and mothes corrupte and where theves breake through and steale.
-
Lay not vp treasures for your selues vpon the earth, where the mothe and canker corrupt, and where theeues digge through and steale.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Matthew 6:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 13:5 Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.”
- 1 John 2:15-16 Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.
- Luke 12:21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
- Proverbs 23:4-5 Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint. Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.
- Proverbs 11:4 Riches don’t profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
- Proverbs 16:16 How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! Yes, to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.
- James 5:1-3 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
- 1 Timothy 6:17 Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be arrogant, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy;
- Luke 18:22 When Jesus heard these things, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have, and distribute it to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
- 1 Timothy 6:8-10 But having food and clothing, we will be content with that. But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
- Luke 12:33 Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that doesn’t fail, where no thief approaches, neither moth destroys.
- Ecclesiastes 5:10-14 He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity. When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to its owner, except to feast on them with his eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep. There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand.
- Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.
- Psalms 39:6 “Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
- Psalms 62:10 Don’t trust in oppression. Don’t become vain in robbery. If riches increase, don’t set your heart on them.
- Luke 18:24 Jesus, seeing that he became very sad, said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom!
- Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
- Ecclesiastes 2:26 For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Job 31:24 “If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, ‘You are my confidence;’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (24 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Those men’s labors are shown to be vain which…
Those men’s labors are shown to be vain which pass not for the assured treasure of everlasting life, but spend their lives in scraping together frail and vain riches.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,…
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
Ver. 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth] This is the fourth common place handled here by our Saviour, of casting away the inordinate care of earthly things, which he presseth upon all, by nine various arguments, to the end of the chapter. By treasures here are meant worldly wealth in abundance, precious things stored up, as silver, gold, pearls, &c. All these are but earth, and it is but upon earth that they are laid up. What is silver and gold but white and yellow earth? And what are pearls and precious stones but the guts and garbage of the earth? חספא בספא Dan 2:45. The stone brake in piece’s the iron, the brass, the clay, and silver, &c. The prophet breaks the native order of speech, for clay, iron, brass, silver, &c., to intimate (as some conceive) that silver is clay by an elegant allusion in the Chaldee, Should we load ourselves with thick clay? surcharge our hearts with cares of this life? Luk 21:34. It is said, "Abraham was very rich in cattle, in siiver, and in gold," Gen 13:2. There is a Latin translation that hath it, "Abraham was very heavy," בבז. And the original indifferently beareth both; to show, saith one, that riches are a heavy burden, and a hindrance many times to heaven and happiness. They that have this burden upon their backs can as hardly get in at the strait gate as a camel or cable into a needle, Mat 19:24, and that because they trust in their riches (as our Saviour there expounds himself), and here plainly intimates when he speaketh of laying up treasures, providing thereby for hereafter, for tomorrow {a} (so the word signifieth), and thinking themselves simply the safer and the happier for their outward abundance, as the rich fool did. The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, saith Solomon, Pro 10:15; his wedge, his confidence; his gold, his god; therefore St Paul calleth him an idolater, Eph 5:5; St James, an adulterer, Jas 4:4; because he robs God of his flower, his trust, and goeth a whoring after lying vanities: he soweth the wind and reapeth the whirlwind, he treasureth up wealth but also wrath, Jas 5:3; and by counting all fish that cometh to net, he catcheth at length the devil and all. Hence it is that St James bids such (and not without cause) "weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon them." He looks upon them as deplored persons, and such as the philosopher could call and count incurable and desperate. {b} For the heart that is first turned into earth and mud will afterwards freeze and congeal into steel and adamant. "The Pharisees that were covetous derided Christ," Luk 16:14, and perished irrecoverably. And reprobates are said by St Peter to have their hearts "exercised with covetous practices," 2Pe 2:14, which they constantly follow, as the artificer his trade, being bound apprentices to the devil, 2Co 2:11; "Lest Satan should get an advantage against us, or overreach us," as covetous wretches do silly novices. {c} These as they have served an ill master, so they shall receive the "reward of unrighteousness and perish in their corruptions," 2Pe 2:12-13. Their happiness hath been laid up in the earth, nearer hell than heaven, nearer the devil than God, whom they have forsaken, therefore shall they "be written in the earth," Jer 17:13; that is, in hell, as it stands opposed to having their names written in heaven. Those that are earthly minded have damnation for their end, Php 3:19. God, to testify his displeasure, knocks his fists at them, Eze 22:13; as Balak did at Balaam. And lest they should reply, Tush, these are but big words, devised on purpose to frighten silly people; we shall do well enough with the Lord; he addeth, Mat 6:14; "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it." Oh that our greedy muck moles (that lie rooting and poring in the earth, as if they meant to dig themselves through it a nearer way to hell) would consider this before the cold grave holds their bodies and hot Tophet burns their souls! the one is as sure as the other, if timely course be not taken. O saeculum nequam, saith St Bernard; O most wretched and miserable world, how little are thy friends beholden to thee; seeing thy love and friendship exposeth them to the wrath and vengeance of God, which burneth as low as the nethermost hell! {d} How fitly may it be said of thee, as Solinus of the river Hipanis: they that know it at first commend it; they that have experience of it at last, do not without cause condemn it! {e} Those that will be rich are resolved to get rem, rem, quocunque modo rem, as he saith, these fall necessarily into many noisome lusts that drown men in destruction: {f} desperately drown them in remediless misery (as the word signifieth). "Christ must be prayed to be gone," saith that martyr, "lest all their pigs be drowned. The devil shall have his dwelling again in themselves rather than in their pigs. Therefore to the devil shall they go, and dwell with him," &c. They feed upon carrion, as Noah’s raven; upon dust, as the serpent; upon the world’s murdering morsels, as those in Job: {Job 20:15} "They swallow down riches," and are as insatiated, as the Pharisees, Luk 11:41. But they shall vomit them up again, God shall cast them out of their bellies. {g} Their mouths that cry, Give, give, with the horse leech, shall be filled ere long with a shovelful of mould, and a cup of fire and brimstone poured down their wide gullets. It shall be worse with them than it was once with the covetous Caliph of Babylon, who being taken, together with his city, by Haalon, brother to Mango the great Cham of Tartary, was set by him in the midst of the infinite treasure which he and his predecessors had most covetously heaped up together, and bidden of that gold, silver, and precious stones take what it pleased him to eat, saying by way of derision, that so rich a guest should be fed with the best, whereof he willed him to make no spare. The covetous wretch, kept for certain days, miserably died for hunger in the midst of those things whereof he thought he should never have had enough, whereby he hoped to secure himself against whatsoever dearth or danger. God loveth to confute carnal men in their confidences. They shall pass on "hardly bestead and hungry; and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth" (where they have laid up their happiness, but now lost their hopes), "and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven into darkness," Isa 8:21-22, utter darkness, where their never enough shall be quitted with fire enough, but a black fire without the least glimpse of light or comfort.
Read full note →
Where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves, &c.] A powerful dissuasive from earthlymindedness, by the uncertainty of riches, ever subject to a double danger or waste; 1. Of vanity in themselves; 2. Of violence from others: rust or robbery may undo us. As the fairest flowers or fruit trees breed a worm oftentimes that eats out the heart of them; as the ivy killeth the oak that beareth it; so of the matter of an earthly treasure grows moth or rust that rots it. All outward things are of a perishing nature, they perish in the use, they melt away between our fingers. St Gregory upon those words in Job 38:22, Qui ingreditur in thesauros nivis? "Who hath entered into the treasures of the snow?"-showeth that earthly treasures are treasures of snow. We see little children what pains they take to rake and scrape snow together to make a snowball, which after a while dissolves and comes to nothing. Right so the treasures of this world, the hoards that wicked men have heaped, when God entereth into them, come to nothing. "He that trusteth to his riches shall fall," Pro 11:28, as he shall that standeth on a hillock of ice or heap of snow. David, when gotten upon his mountain, thought himself cocksure, and began to crow that he should never be moved. But God (to confute him) had no sooner hidden his face but he was troubled, Psa 30:6-7. What is the air without light? The Egyptians had no joy of it: no more than a Christian have of wealth without God’s favour. Besides, what hold is there of these earthly things, more than there is of a flock of birds? I cannot say they are mine because they sit in my yard, "Riches have wings," saith Solomon, Pro 23:5; "great eagles’ wings to fly from us," saith a father; but to follow after us, Ne passerinas quidem, not so much as small sparrows’ wings. Whereupon Solomon rightly argues, "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" that hath no real subsistence, that is nothing, and of no more price than mere opinion sets upon it? The world calls wealth substance, but God gives that name to wisdom only. Heaven is said to have a foundation, earth to he hanged upon nothing, Job 16:7. So things are said to be in heaven, as in a mansion; but on earth, on the surface only, as ready to be shaken off. {h} Hence the world is called a sea of glass, frail and fickle, mingled with fire of temptations and tribulations, Rev 15:2. The very firmament (that hath its name from its firmness) shall melt with fervent heat, and the whole visible fabric be dissolved by the fire of the last day, 2Pe 3:10. Solomon sets forth the world by a word that betokeneth change, for its mutability. {i} And St Paul, when he telleth as "that the fashion of the world passeth away," useth a word of art that signifieth a bare external mathematical figure, " Cui veri aut solidi nihil subest, " saith an interpreter, that hath no truth or solidity in it at all. Gelimer, king of the Vandals, being conquered, and carried in triumph by Belisarius the Roman general, when he stood in the open field before the Emperor Justinian, and beheld him sitting in his throne of state, remembering withal what a high pitch himself was fallen from, he broke out into this speech, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." That was Solomon’s verdict, long since delivered up, upon well grounded experience. But men love to try conclusions; and when they have done, "What profit," saith he, "hath a man of all his pains?" what residue and remaining fruit (as the word signifieth) to abide with him? Ecc 1:3. When all the account is subducted (his happiness resolved into its final issue and conclusion) there resteth nothing but ciphers. A spider eviscerateth himself and wasteth his own bowels to make a web to catch a fly; so doth the worldling for that which profiteth not, but perisheth in the use: or say that it abide, yet himself perisheth, when to possess the things he hath gotten might seem a happiness; as the rich fool, Alexander, Tamerlane, and others. Most of the Caesars got nothing by their adoption or designation, but ut citius interficerentur, that they might be the sooner slain. All, or most of them, till Constantine, died unnatural deaths and in the best of their time. "He that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool," Jer 17:11. God will make a poor fool of him. As he came forth from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand, Ecc 5:15. Say his treasure escape both rust and robber, death as a thief will break in, and leave him not worth a groat. Who would not then set light by this pelf, and put on that Persian resolution, Isa 13:17; "Not to regard silver, nor be desirous of gold?" ( Animo magno nihil magnum, With a great spirit nothing is great. Senec.) Who would not tread in the steps of faithful Abraham, and answer the devil with his golden offers, as he did the king of Sodom, "God forbid that I should take of thee so much as a shoe latchet?" When great gifts were sent to Luther, he refused them with this brave speech, " Valde protestatus sum me nolle sic satiari a Deo, " I deeply protested that God should not put me off with such poor things as these. The heathenish Romans had, for a difference in their nobility, a little ornament in the form of a moon (to show that all worldly honours were mutable), and they did wear it upon their shoes, to show that they did tread it under their feet, as base and bootless. {j} This is check to many Christians, that have their hands elbow deep in the world, and dote as much upon these earthly vanities as Xerxes once did upon his plane tree, or Jonah upon his gourd. There is a sort of men that say of the world as Solomon’s dealer, "It is naught, it is naught:" but when they are gone apart they boast and close with the world. St Paul was none of these; for "neither at any time," saith he, "used we flattering words, as ye know; nor a cloak of covetousness, God is my witness." No, he looked upon the world as a great dunghill, and cared to "glory in nothing, save in the cross of Jesus Christ," whereby the world was crucified to him and he to the world, Gal 6:14. So David, "My soul," saith he, "is even as a weaned child," that cares not to suck though never so fair and full a breast. So Luther confesseth of himself, "that though he were a frail man, and subject to imperfections, yet the infection of covetousness never laid hold of him;" now I would we were all Lutherans in this, saith one.
{a} Θησαυρος παρα του εις αυριον θειναι.
{b} Aristotdes hoc iudicat αναιτους. Ethic. iv. 1.
{c} ινα μη πλεονεκτηθωμεν. Metaph. ab avaris illis sanguisugis viduarum domos devorantibus.
{d} Quod solos tuos sic solet beare amicos, ut Dei facias inimicos. Bern.
{e} Qui in principiis eum norunt praedicant: qui in fine experti sunt, non iniuria execrantur. Sol. c. 24.
{f} Βυθιζουσι. In profundum exitium demergunt, ita ut in aquae summitate rursus non ebulliant.
{g} τα ενοντα. Quia divitae insident avari animo. Beza.
{h} Εν ουρανοις, επι της γης.
{i} חלוף Pro 31:8; hoc est, עולם mundi, sic dicti quod transeat, nec quicquam in eo stabile sit. Kimchi.
{j} Baytacen habitantes odio auri coemunt hoc genus metalli, et abieciunt in terrarum profundo, ne polluti usu eius, avaritia corrumpant aequitatem. Sol. cap. 68.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain A treasure (according to the notation of the word)…
A treasure (according to the notation of the word) signifieth something laid up for tomorrow, for future time; more largely it signifieth any riches, or what we judge a valuable portion. Make not the things of the earth your riches, or portion, with reference to future time; for all the riches of the earth are perishing, contemptible things; silver and gold is what rust will corrupt, clothes are what moths will spoil, any other things are subject to casualties, and, amongst others, to the violence of unreasonable men, who, though they have no right to them, will ordinarily take them from you. But let your riches, your treasure, be that which is heavenly, those habits of grace which will bring you to heaven, the things which accompany salvation, Heb 6:9, which make you meet to be partakers of the saints in light, Col 1:12; be rich in good works, laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may lay hold on eternal life, 1Ti 6:18,19; Mt 19:21; 25:34; Luk 18:22. Those treasures will not be liable to such accidents as all earthly treasures are. Wherever you fix your treasure, your heart will be there also, thinking upon it, delighting in it. &c.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. Something implied; namely, that every man…
Observe here, 1. Something implied; namely, that every man has his treasure; and whatsoever or wheresover that treasure is, it is attractive, and draws the heart of men unto it: for every man’s treasure is his chief good.
2. Something permitted, namely, the getting, possessing, and enjoying, of earthly treasure, as an instrument of doing much good.
Read full note →
3. Something prohibited; and that is, the treasuring up of worldly wealth as our chief treasure; Lay not up treasure on earth; that is, take heed of an inordinate affection to, of an excessive pursuit after, of a vain confidence and trust in, any earthly comfort, as you chief treasure.
4. Here is something commanded; But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven: treasure up those habits of grace which will bring you to an inheritance in glory; be fruitful in good works, laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that ye may lay hold of eternal life.
Observe, 5. The reason assigned, 1. Why we should not lay up our treasures on earth; because, all earthly treasures are of a perishing and uncertain nature, that they are subjct to moth and rust, to robbery and theft; the perishing nature of earthly things ought to be improved by us, as an argument to sit loose in our affections towards them.
2. The reason assigned, why we should lay up our treasures in heaven, is this; because, heavenly treasures are subject to no such accidents and casualties as earthly treasures are, but are durable and lasting.
The things that are not seen, are eternal. The treasures of heaven are involable, incorruptible, and everlasting. Now we may know whether we have chosen these things for our treasure, by our high estimation of the worth of them, by our sensible apprehension of the want of them, by the torrent and tendency of our affection towards them, and by our laborious diligence and endeavours in the pursuit of them. Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Worldly-mindedness is as common and as fatal a symptom…
Worldly-mindedness is as common and as fatal a symptom of hypocrisy as any other, for by no sin can Satan have a surer and faster hold of the soul, under the cloak of a visible and passable profession of religion, than by this; and therefore Christ, having warned us against coveting the praise of men, proceeds next to warn us against coveting the wealth of the world; in this also we must take heed, lest we be as the hypocrites are, and do as they do: the fundamental error that they are guilty of is, that they choose the world for their reward; we must therefore take heed of hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness, in the choice we make of our treasure, our end, and our masters.
I. In choosing the treasure we lay up. Something or other every man has which he makes his treasure, his portion, which his heart is upon, to which he carries all he can get, and which he depends upon for futurity. It is that good, that chief good, which Solomon speaks of with such an emphasis, Ecc 2:3. Something the soul will have, which it looks upon as the best thing, which it has a complacency and confidence in above other things. Now Christ designs not to deprive us of our treasure, but to direct us in the choice of it; and here we have,
Read full note →
1. A good caution against making the things that are seen, that are temporal, our best things, and placing our happiness in them. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Christ's disciples had left all to follow him, let them still keep in the same good mind. A treasure is an abundance of something that is in itself, at least in our opinion, precious and valuable, and likely to stand us in stead hereafter. Now we must not lay up our treasures on earth, that is, (1.) We must not count these things the best things, nor the most valuable in themselves, nor the most serviceable to us: we must not call them glory, as Laban's sons did, but see and own that they have no glory in comparison with the glory that excelleth. (2.) We must not covet an abundance of these things, nor be still grasping at more and more of them, and adding to them, as men do to that which is their treasure, as never knowing when we have enough. (3.) We must not confide in them for futurity, to be our security and supply in time to come; we must not say to the gold, Thou art my hope. (4.) We must not content ourselves with them, as all we need or desire: we must be content with a little for our passage, but not with all for our portion. These things must not be made our consolation (Luk 6:24), our good things, Luk 16:25. Let us consider we are laying up, not for our posterity in this world, but for ourselves in the other world. We are put to our choice, and made in a manner our own carvers; that is ours which we lay up for ourselves. It concerns thee to choose wisely, for thou art choosing for thyself, and shalt have as thou choosest. If we know and consider ourselves what we are, what we are made for, how large our capacities are, and how long our continuance, and that our souls are ourselves, we shall see it is foolish thing to lay up our treasures on earth.
2. Here is a good reason given why we should not look upon any thing on earth as our treasure, because it is liable to loss and decay: (1.) From corruption within. That which is treasure upon earth moth and rust do corrupt. If the treasure be laid up in fine clothes, the moth frets them, and they are gone and spoiled insensibly, when we thought them most securely laid up. If it be in corn or other eatables, as his was who had his barns full (Luk 12:16, Luk 12:17), rust (so we read it) corrupts that: brōsis - eating, eating by men, for as goods are increased they are increased that eat them (Ecc 5:11); eating by mice or other vermin; manna itself bred worms; or it grows mouldy and musty, is struck, or smutted, or blasted; fruits soon rot. Or, if we understand it of silver and gold, they tarnish and canker; they grow less with using, and grow worse with keeping (Jam 5:2, Jam 5:3); the rust and the moth breed in the metal itself and in the garment itself. Note, Worldly riches have in themselves a principal of corruption and decay; they wither of themselves, and make themselves wings. (2.) From violence without. Thieves break through and steal. Every hand of violence will be aiming at the house where treasure is laid up; nor can any thing be laid up so safe, but we may be spoiled of it. Numquam ego fortunae credidi, etiam si videretur pacem agere; omnia illa quae in me indulgentissime conferebat, pecuniam, honores, gloriam, eo loco posui, unde posset ea, since metu meo, repetere - I never reposed confidence in fortune, even if she seemed propitious: whatever were the favours which her bounty bestowed, whether wealth, honours, or glory, I so disposed of them, that it was in her power to recall them without occasioning me any alarm. Seneca. Consol. ad Helv. It is folly to make that our treasure which we may so easily be robbed of.
3. Good counsel, to make the joys and glories of the other world, those things not seen that are eternal, our best things, and to place our happiness in them. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Note, (1.) There are treasures in heaven, as sure as there are on this earth; and those in heaven are the only true treasures, the riches and glories and pleasures that are at God's right hand, which those that are sanctified truly arrive at, when they come to be sanctified perfectly. (2.) It is our wisdom to lay up our treasure in those treasures; to give all diligence to make sure our title to eternal life through Jesus Christ, and to depend upon that as our happiness, and look upon all things here below with a holy contempt, as not worthy to be compared with it. We must firmly believe there is such a happiness, and resolve to be content with that, and to be content with nothing short of it. If we thus make those treasures ours, they are laid up, and we may trust God to keep them safe for us; thither let us then refer all our designs, and extend all our desires; thither let us send before our best efforts and best affections. Let us not burthen ourselves with the cash of this world, which will but load and defile us, and be liable to sink us, but lay up in store good securities. The promises are bills of exchange, by which all true believers return their treasure to heaven, payable in the future state: and thus we make that sure that will be made sure. (3.) It is a great encouragement to us to lay up our treasure in heaven, that there it is safe; it will not decay of itself, no moth nor rust will corrupt it; nor can we be by force or fraud deprived of it; thieves do not break through and steal. It is a happiness above and beyond the changes and chances of time, an inheritance incorruptible.
4. A good reason why we should thus choose, and an evidence that we have done so (Mat 6:21), Where your treasure is, on earth or in heaven, there will you heart be. We are therefore concerned to be right and wise in the choice of our treasure, because the temper of our minds, and consequently the tenor of our lives, will be accordingly either carnal or spiritual, earthly or heavenly. The heart follows the treasure, as the needle follows the loadstone, or the sunflower the sun. Where the treasure is there the value and esteem are, there the love and affection are (Col 3:2), that way the desires and pursuits go, thitherward the aims and intents are levelled, and all is done with that in view. Where the treasure is, there our cares and fears are, lest we come short of it; about that we are most solicitous; there our hope and trust are (Pro 18:10, Pro 18:11); there our joys and delights will be (Psa 119:111); and there our thoughts will be, there the inward thought will be, the first thought, the free thought, the fixed thought, the frequent, the familiar thought. The heart is God's due (Pro 23:26), and that he may have it, our treasure must be laid up with him, and then our souls will be lifted up to him.
This direction about laying up our treasure, may very fitly be applied to the foregoing caution, of not doing what we do in religion to be seen of men. Our treasure is our alms, prayers, and fastings, and the reward of them; if we have done these only to gain the applause of men, we have laid up this treasure on earth, have lodged it in the hands of men, and must never expect to hear any further of it. Now it is folly to do this, for the praise of men we covet so much is liable to corruption: it will soon be rusted, and moth-eaten, and tarnished; a little folly, like a dead fly, will spoil it all, Ecc 10:1. Slander and calumny are thieves that break through and steal it away, and so we lose all the treasure of our performances; we have run in vain, and laboured in vain, because we misplaced our intentions in doing of them. Hypocritical services lay up nothing in heaven (Isa 58:3); the gain of them is gone, when the soul is called for, Job 27:8. But if we have prayed and fasted and given alms in truth and uprightness, with an eye to God and to his acceptance, and have approved ourselves to him therein, we have laid up that treasure in heaven; a book of remembrance is written there (Mal 3:16), and being there recorded, they shall be there rewarded, and we shall meet them again with comfort on the other side death and the grave. Hypocrites are written in the earth (Jer 17:13), but God's faithful ones have their names written in heaven, Luk 10:20. Acceptance with God is treasure in heaven, which can neither be corrupted nor stolen. His well done shall stand for ever; and if we have thus laid up our treasure with him, with him our hearts will be; and where can they be better?
II. We must take heed of hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness in choosing the end we look at. Our concern as to this is represented by two sorts of eyes which men have, a single eye and an evil eye, Mat 6:22, Mat 6:23. The expressions here are somewhat dark because concise; we shall therefore take them in some variety of interpretation. The light of the body is the eye, that is plain; the eye is discovering and directing; the light of the world would avail us little without this light of the body; it is the light of the eye that rejoiceth the heart (Pro 15:30), but what is that which is here compared to the eye in the body.
1. The eye, that is, the heart (so some) if that be single - haplous - free and bountiful (so the word is frequently rendered, as Rom 12:8; Co2 8:2, Co2 9:11, Co2 9:13; Jam 1:5, and we read of a bountiful eye, Pro 22:9). If the heart be liberally affected and stand inclined to goodness and charity, it will direct the man to Christian actions, the whole conversation will be full of light, full of evidences and instances of true Christianity, that pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father (Jam 1:27), full of light, of good works, which are our light shining before men; but if the heart be evil, covetous, and hard, and envious, griping and grudging (such a temper of mind is often expressed by an evil eye, Mat 20:15; Mar 7:22; Pro 23:6, Pro 23:7), the body will be full of darkness, the whole conversation will be heathenish and unchristian. The instruments of the churl are and always will be evil, but the liberal deviseth liberal things, Isa 32:5-8. If the light that is in us, those affections which should guide us to that which is good, be darkness, if these be corrupt and worldly, if there be not so much as good nature in a man, not so much as a kind disposition, how great is the corruption of a man, and the darkness in which he sits! This sense seems to agree with the context; we must lay up treasure in heaven by liberality in giving alms, and that not grudgingly but with cheerfulness, Luk 12:33; Co2 9:7. But these words in the parallel place do not come in upon any such occasion, Luk 11:34, and therefore the coherence here does not determine that to be the sense of them.
2. The eye, that is, the understanding (so some); the practical judgment, the conscience, which is to the other faculties of the soul, as the eye is to the body, to guide and direct their motions; now if this eye be single, if it make a true and right judgment, and discern things that differ, especially in the great concern of laying up the treasure so as to choose aright in that, it will rightly guide the affections and actions, which will all be full of the light of grace and comfort; but if this be evil and corrupt, and instead of leading the inferior powers, is led, and bribed, and biassed by them, if this be erroneous and misinformed, the heart and life must needs be full of darkness, and the whole conversation corrupt. They that will not understand, are said to walk on in darkness, Psa 82:5. It is sad when the spirit of a man, that should be the candle of the Lord, is an ignis fatuus: when the leaders of the people, the leaders of the faculties, cause them to err, for then they that are led of them are destroyed, Isa 9:16. An error in the practical judgment is fatal, it is that which calls evil good and good evil (Isa 5:20); therefore it concerns us to understand things aright, to get our eyes anointed with eye-salve.
3. The eye, that is, the aims and intentions; by the eye we set our end before us, the mark we shoot at, the place we go to, we keep that in view, and direct our motion accordingly; in every thing we do in religion; there is something or other that we have in our eye; now if our eye be single, if we aim honestly, fix right ends, and move rightly towards them, if we aim purely and only at the glory of God, seek his honor and favour, and direct all entirely to him, then the eye is single; Paul's was so when he said, To me to live is Christ; and if we be right here, the whole body will be full of light, all the actions will be regular and gracious, pleasing to God and comfortable to ourselves; but if this eye be evil, if, instead of aiming only at the glory of God, and our acceptance with him, we look aside at the applause of men, and while we profess to honour God, contrive to honour ourselves, and seek our own things under colour of seeking the things of Christ, this spoils all, the whole conversation will be perverse and unsteady, and the foundations being thus out of course, there can be nothing but confusion and every evil work in the superstructure. Draw the lines from the circumference to any other point but the centre, and they will cross. If the light that is in thee be not only dim, but darkness itself, it is a fundamental error, and destructive to all that follows. The end specifies the action. It is of the last importance in religion, that we be right in our aims, and make eternal things, not temporal, our scope, Co2 4:18. The hypocrite is like the waterman, that looks one way and rows another; the true Christian like the traveller, that has his journey's end in his eye. The hypocrite soars like the kite, with his eye upon the prey below, which he is ready to come down to when he has a fair opportunity; the true Christian soars like the lark, higher and higher, forgetting the things that are beneath.
III. We must take heed of hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness in choosing the master we serve, Mat 6:24. No man can serve two masters. Serving two masters is contrary to the single eye; for the eye will be to the master's hand, Psa 123:1, Psa 123:2. Our Lord Jesus here exposes the cheat which those put upon their own souls, who think to divide between God and the world, to have a treasure on earth, and a treasure in heaven too, to please God and please men too. Why not? says the hypocrite; it is good to have two strings to one's bow. They hope to make their religion serve their secular interest, and so turn to account both ways. The pretending mother was for dividing the child; the Samaritans will compound between God and idols. No, says Christ, this will not do; it is but a supposition that gain is godliness, Ti1 6:5. Here is,
1. A general maxim laid down; it is likely it was a proverb among the Jews, No man can serve two masters, much less two gods; for their commands will some time or other cross or contradict one another, and their occasions interfere. While two masters go together, a servant may follow them both; but when they part, you will see to which he belongs; he cannot love, and observe, and cleave to both as he should. If to the one, not to the other; either this or that must be comparatively hated and despised. This truth is plain enough in common cases.
2. The application of it to the business in hand. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Mammon is a Syriac word, that signifies gain; so that whatever in this world is, or is accounted by us to be, gain (Phi 3:7), is mammon. Whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is mammon. To some their belly is their mammon, and they serve that (Phi 3:19); to others their ease, their sleep, their sports and pastimes, are their mammon (Pro 6:9); to others worldly riches (Jam 4:13); to others honours and preferments; the praise and applause of men was the Pharisees' mammon; in a word, self, the unity in which the world's trinity centres, sensual, secular self, is the mammon which cannot be served in conjunction with God; for if it be served, it is in competition with him and in contradiction to him. He does not say, We must not or we should not, but we cannot serve God and Mammon; we cannot love both (Jo1 2:15; Jam 4:4); or hold to both, or hold by both in observance, obedience, attendance, trust, and dependence, for they are contrary the one to the other. God says, "My son, give me thy heart." Mammon says, "No, give it me." God says, "Be content with such things as ye have." Mammon says, "Grasp at all that ever thou canst. Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem - Money, money; by fair means or by foul, money." God says, "Defraud not, never lie, be honest and just in all thy dealings." Mammon says "Cheat thine own Father, if thou canst gain by it." God says, "Be charitable." Mammon says, "Hold thy own: this giving undoes us all." God says, "Be careful for nothing." Mammon says, "Be careful for every thing." God says, "Keep holy thy sabbath-day." Mammon says, "Make use of that day as well as any other for the world." Thus inconsistent are the commands of God and Mammon, so that we cannot serve both. Let us not then halt between God and Baal, but choose ye this day whom ye will serve, and abide by our choice.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,.... Meaning…
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,.... Meaning either treasures that are of an earthly nature and kind, the more valuable and excellent things of the earth, worldly wealth and riches; or the things and places, in which these are laid up, as bags, chests, or coffers, barns and other treasuries, private or public. Christ here dissuades from covetousness, and worldly mindedness; an anxious care and concern, to hoard up plenty of worldly things for themselves, for time to come, making no use of them at present for the good of others: and this he does, from the nature of the things themselves; the places where they are laid up; the difficulty of keeping them; and their liableness to be corrupted or lost.
Where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal. Garments, formerly, were a considerable part of the treasures of great men, as well as gold and silver; see Job 27:16. So according to the (m) Targumist, Haman is bid to go , "to the king's treasury", and take from thence one of the purple garments, the best, and raiment of the best silk, &c. and these were liable to be eaten with the moth, Jam 5:2. The word translated rust, does not here signify the rust of metals, as gold and silver; by which there is not so much damage done, so as to destroy them, and make them useless; but whatever corrupts and consumes things eatable, as blasting and mildew in corn, or any sort of vermin in granaries: for gold and silver, or money, with jewels and precious stones, which make a very great part of worldly treasure, seem to be more particularly designed, by what thieves break through into houses for, and carry away. So that here are three sorts of earthly treasures pointed at, which are liable to be corrupted, or taken away: garments, which may be destroyed, and rendered useless for wearing; provisions of things eatable, as all sorts of corn and grain, which may be so corrupted by smut and vermin, as not to be fit for use; and money and jewels, which may be stolen by thieves: so that no sort of worldly riches and treasure is safe, and to be depended on; and therefore it is a great folly and vanity to lay it up, and trust in it.
Read full note →
(m) Targum Sheni. in Esth. vi. 10.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Lay not up for yourselves - Our Lord here…
Lay not up for yourselves - Our Lord here makes a transition from religious to common actions, and warns us of another snare, the love of money, as inconsistent with purity of intention as the love of praise. Where rust and moth consume - Where all things are perishable and transient. He may likewise have a further view in these words, even to guard us against making any thing on earth our treasure. For then a thing properly becomes our treasure, when we set our affections upon it. Luke xii, 33.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon…
Verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth] What blindness is it for a man to lay up that as a treasure which must necessarily perish! A heart designed for God and eternity is terribly degraded by being fixed on those things which are subject to corruption. "But may we not lay up treasure innocently?" Yes.
1st. If you can do it without setting your heart on it, which is almost impossible: and
Read full note →
2dly. If there be neither widows nor orphans, destitute nor distressed persons in the place where you live.
"But there is a portion which belongs to my children; shall I distribute that among the poor?" If it belongs to your children, it is not yours, and therefore you have no right to dispose of it. "But I have a certain sum in stock, c. shall I take that and divide it among the poor?" By no means; for, by doing so, you would put it out of your power to do good after the present division: keep your principal, and devote, if you possibly can spare it, the product to the poor; and thus you shall have the continual ability to do good. In the mean time take care not to shut up your bowels of compassion against a brother in distress; if you do, the love of God cannot dwell in you.
Rust] Or canker, βρωσις, from βρωσκω, I eat, consume. This word cannot be properly applied to rust, but to any thing that consumes or cankers clothes or metals. There is a saying exactly similar to this in the Institutes of MENU: speaking of the presents made to Brahmins, he says, "It is a gem which neither thieves nor foes take away, and which never perishes." Chapter of Government, Institute 83.
Where thieves do not break through] διορυσσουσι, literally dig through, i.e. the wall, in order to get into the house. This was not a difficult matter, as the house was generally made of mud and straw, kneaded together like the cobb houses in Cornwall, and other places. See Clarke on Mt 7:27.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Mat 6:19-21. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon…
Mat 6:19-21. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth — Our Lord here makes a transition from religious to common actions, and warns us of another snare, the love of money and earthly things, as inconsistent with purity of intention as the love of praise: where moth and rust doth corrupt, &c. — Where all things are perishable and transient. “In the eastern countries, where the fashion of clothes did not alter as with us, the treasures of the rich consisted not only of gold and silver, but of costly habits, and finely-wrought vessels of brass, and tin, and copper, liable to be destroyed in the manner here mentioned.” But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven — Build your happiness on a more noble and certain foundation, where none of these accidents can happen; but the arms of everlasting power and love shall secure you from every calamity and invasion. “Nothing can be conceived more powerful to damp that keenness with which men pursue the things of this life, than the consideration of their emptiness and uncertainty; or to kindle in them an ambition of obtaining the treasures in heaven, than the consideration of their being substantial, satisfying, durable, and subject to no accident whatever. These considerations, therefore, were fitly proposed by our Lord on this occasion.” — Macknight. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also — A most undoubted truth, and a most weighty reason why we should not make any thing on earth our treasure: for whatever we make our treasure gains possession of our hearts; we set our affections upon it, and of consequence, according to St. John, (1Jn 2:15,) the love of the Father is not in us, and we are not his children.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth -…
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth - Treasures, or wealth, among the ancients, consisted in clothes or changes of raiment, as well as in gold, silver, gems, wine, lands, and oil. It meant an abundance of “anything” that was held to be conducive to the ornament or comfort of life. As the Orientals delighted much in display, in splendid equipage, and costly garments, their treasures, in fact, consisted much in beautiful and richly-ornamented articles of apparel. See Gen 45:22, where Joseph gave to his brethren “changes of raiment;” Jos 7:21, where Achan coveted and secreted “a goodly Babylonian garment.” Compare also Jdg 14:12. This fact will account for the use of the word “moth.” When we speak of “wealth,” we think at once of gold, and silver, and lands, and houses. When a Hebrew or an Orientalist spoke of wealth, he thought first of what would make a “display;” and included, as an essential part, splendid articles of dress. The “moth” is a small insect that finds its way to clothes and garments, and destroys them. The “moth” would destroy their apparel, the “rust” their silver and gold; thus all their treasure would waste away. The word rendered “rust” signifies anything which “eats into,” and hence, anything which would consume one’s property, and may have a wider signification than mere rust.
And where thieves break through and steal - The houses in the East were not unfrequently made of clay hardened in the sun, or of loose stones, and hence it was comparatively easy, as it was not uncommon, for thieves to “dig through” the wall, and effect an entrance in that way. See the notes at Job 24:16.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 4. Spurious worldliness of the Pharisees in their righteousness;…
4. Spurious worldliness of the Pharisees in their righteousness; or, the Pharisees’ sharing of the cares of the heathen
Mat_6:19-34
Read full note →
( Mat_6:24-34 the Pericope for the 15th Sunday after Trinity.)
19Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt 20[consume], and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt [consumeth], and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21For where your20 treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25Therefore I say unto you, Take no [anxious] thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink;21 nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly 27Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature [age]? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, Whatshall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;22 and all these things shall be added unto [to] you. 34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Connection.—Considerable importance attaches to the question as to the connection between this and the preceding section. According to Strauss and others, the two are wholly unconnected. De Wette remarks: “Hitherto the discourse proceeded upon a definite plan; but now the connection seems loose, and longer and shorter sayings follow each other.” Even Neander regards the verses under consideration as an interpolation of Matthew. Meyer misses only the connecting link with the preceding section, but maintains, against de Wette, the connection of what follows, without, however, tracing it out. [He adds, p. 154, that we must not confound the unity of the Sermon on the Mount with the unity of a modern sermon.—P. S.] Tholuck maintains, that while in all probability this section belongs to the context as given in Luk_12:22-34, it is impossible to deny that its position in the Gospel by Matthew is the correct one. “The transition was natural from the idea that good works should be done only with reference to Him who is invisible, to the conclusion expressed in Mat_6:33, that in all our aims and undertakings the mind should be set upon the things of eternity.” In our opinion (as expressed previously in the Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 619), the internal connection between the two sections appears from Mat_23:14 : “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.” The false spirituality of these hypocrites arose from the worldly-mindedness with which they are specially charged in the text. The external connection with the previous section lies in the relation between the μὴ θησαυρίζετε, and the ἀπέχουσιν τὸν μισθὸν αὐτῶν of Mat_6:2; Mat_6:5; Mat_6:16. Having shown how the Pharisees by their false spirituality sought to lay up for themselves treasures in a figurative sense, the Lord next exhibits their hypocrisy and worldliness in seeking to gather treasures in the literal sense. Thus far Tholuck is right in saying that the admonition to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven is closely connected with what was formerly said about doing good works in secret, which the Father would reward openly. But that our Lord refers to worldly-mindedness in the garb of hypocrisy, and not to ordinary worldly-mindedness, appears from the expression, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon;” and, again, from that most important declaration, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,” etc. The history of the Middle Ages, of monasticism, and of the hierarchy, has amply proved that false spirituality is closely connected with worldly-mindedness, long prayers with covetousness and ambition, almsgiving with avarice, and fasting with feasting. Indeed, this love of the world, while apparently fleeing from it, is the characteristic feature of monasticism.
Mat_6:19. Θησαυρούς, treasures.—Treasures of any kind, but more closely defined by the addition of the term upon earth, and by the possibility of their being corrupted by moth and rust, or carried away by thieves. The moth attaches itself principally to garments which are not used, especially to precious robes of office.—Consumption, βρῶσις (the Vulgate and our authorized version render it rust, Jam_5:2-3; Kuinoel and Baumgarten-Crusius refer it to a species of worms; Casaubonus and others speak of a ἓν διὰ δυοῖν, hence σὴς βρώσκουσα); a general expression, but points primarily to provisions, to accumulations of food and corn; while the breaking through of thieves refers to the possession of gold and silver. The meaning seems to be, that everything which is passing away has its own principle of destruction, suited to its special nature, whether vegetable, animal, or moral. In general, it exhibits the vanity of all earthly possessions, and the unsatisfactory character of the enjoyments which they yield. Irrespective of their use, these possessions are dead, exposed to the moth, to consumption, and to thieves,—to the organs of physical and moral annihilation. It scarcely requires to be added, that the place of these treasures, the kind of treasures, and the manner in which they are collected, are in this instance equally of the earth, earthy.
Mat_6:20. Treasures in heaven.—Our attention is first directed to the place where genuine treasures are to be found, viz., heaven, where God reveals Himself, and where all is eternal. The kind of treasures is in accordance with their place, or with heaven. Similarly, these treasures must be gathered in a heavenly manner—by kindness, by spiritual fellowship with God, by self-denial; in short, by a surrender to our Father who is in heaven. It is therefore quite erroneous (with Chrysostom and others) to apply it to almsgiving, in the expectation of a heavenly reward. On the other hand, it may be necessary to remind those who, like Meyer, seem to regard the kingdom of heaven as something external and future, that this heavenly life begins upon earth by faith.—The heavenly possessions are characterized according to their negative advantages, where no moth doth corrupt, etc.; comp. 1Pe_1:4.—These words are also directed against the carnal anticipations of the Jews, especially of the Pharisees and scribes.
Mat_6:21. For where your treasure is.—Our treasure, or dearest possession, forms the ideal on which our affections are set, and in accordance with which our feelings and desires assume shape. Hence, if our treasure is on earth, our heart will also be there, our inclinations and desires will be earthly; and, since this is contrary to our heavenly destiny, the consequence must be eternal sorrow and shame. But if the heart has its treasure in heaven, its affections will also be directed thither, and it will be transformed in accordance therewith.
Mat_6:22. The light of the body.—Connection Not: in order to fulfil this duty, you must “preserve your inner light or reason (Chrysostom: ὁ νοῦς) undimmed;” but: ye must preserve your mental eye undivided in its gaze. The Lord evidently alludes here to the Pharisees, whose attention and affections were divided between what was temporal and what was spiritual. Their state of mind is illustrated by the eye. The eye is the light of the body (lighted from the light of the sun). Everything now depends on a right condition of the eye. It must be ἁπλοῦς, i. e., simple, in opposition to the πονηρός, or bad, spoiled eye. If the contrast between a healthy and a diseased eye were intended (in the sense of any ailment affecting it), it would have been otherwise expressed. We conclude, therefore, that it refers to the contrast between proper sight and deceptive or double sight. “The word is never used to indicate healthy. Hence we might agree with Elsner and Olshausen in explaining it as an eye which does not see double—double sight being a disease; and, with Quesnel, apply it as meaning, that it knows only one object of love—even God. But if we inquire what Hebrew word corresponded to the Greek term, we find that Aquila and the Sept. translate ἁπλοῦς for the Hebrew יָשָׁר ,תָּם = ὁλόκληρος, which latter, like integer, is related to ἁπλοῦς. Thus Theophylact explains ἁπλοῦς and πονηρός by ὑγιής and νοσώδης.” Tholuck.—But we object to any translation of definite and distinct into more general terms, in order thus to give them a meaning which is not warranted by the context. The desire of serving at the same time God and mammon may be characterised as a moral double sight, as an evil eye, which is rightly designated by πονηρός, in direct contrast to ἁπλοῦς. But the eye is ἁπλοῦς, when it wholly, consciously, and calmly agrees with the state of the mind and heart,—when it is not wandering, and therefore not double-sighted nor untrue, and hence worse than blind. On the other hand, the eye is evil if it lose its power of perceiving, or begins to wander and miss the object set before it. Then the whole body will be full of darkness, or enveloped in night. But the darkening of the mind has more sad consequences than that of the body. If therefore—a conclusio a minori ad majus—the light that is in thee (the inward light) be darkness, etc.
Mat_6:23. The question as to the meaning of the light that is in thee, is of importance. Chrysostom: ὁ νοῦς. Calvin: Lumen vocat Christus rationem, quantulacunque hominibus reliqua manet post lapsum Adœ. Beza, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Calov: “The eye which is enlightened by the word and Spirit of God.”—Tholuck: That which is left of the Divine image in man, after Joh_8:47; Joh_18:37; or, as Gerhard has it, lumen naturœ, the light of nature.—Meyer: Reason, especially practical reason.—The capacity of the inner eye of reason to become the organ of knowledge is evidently here alluded to, although the expression has a more special meaning. It is not the inner eye itself, the νοῦς, but the light of the inner eye, or the Old Testament revelation so well known by the Pharisees and scribes, which had, by their carnal views, been perverted into error.—If the bodily eye is blind, the danger is less, because precaution will be used. The real peril lies in the eye seeing falsely or double, because in that case the light of the sun will only serve to blind, which is worse than utter darkness. The same holds true of the inner eye when it converts the light of revelation into a blinding and misleading light. This was the case with the Pharisees and scribes. They would have had God and a carnal Messiah,—they would serve the Lord and mammon.
As the organ of light, the eye of the body is, so to speak, our light; occupying, so far as we are concerned, the place of the sun, and in that respect representing the whole body, as if the whole body were an eye. This makes it also the organ and symbol of the inner eye, or of reason, by which the light of the spiritual sun is communicated to the inner life, and which, if healthy, converts the whole inner life into a capacity of spiritual perception. But just as when the external eye is not simple or double in its light, the outward light only serves to dazzle, so also in reference to the inner eye and the light of revelation. How great is that darkness! The history of pharisaical Judaism has amply corroborated the truth of this statement.
The inward eye is intended to be the eye of the heart. Eph_1:18. The state of the heart and the state of the eye influence each other. If the heart is set on heavenly treasures, the eye must be directed toward the light. Comp. the biblical psychology of Beck, and Delitzsch.
Mat_6:24. No man can serve two masters.—Double sight of the spiritual eye is both the cause and the consequence of duplicity in reference to the desires of the heart (Jam_1:8, ἀνὴρ δίψυχος). But the Pharisees, in their false spirituality, reduced it to a system, and deemed themselves capable of combining the service of Heaven with their earthly inclinations. The Lord dispels in the text this delusion. It is plain that no man can at the same time truly serve two masters. One of the two services must necessarily be merely outward, or, what is worse, one of the masters must be hated or despised,—because true service presupposes love and attachment. But why two examples? Meyer: “He will either hate the one and love the other, or else hold to the one and despise the other.” This commentator correctly reminds us that, as in other places, so here, μισεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν must have their full meaning, and not be interpreted by posthabere and prœferre, as de Wette and others propose. But then there must have been some special object for giving two instances. Perhaps the difference between them may lie in this, that the real master cannot be despised, but may be hated, since he must be respected, and it is impossible to get away from him. But if the real master is loved, the servant will hold to him and despise the usurper, who has no real claim, and from whose power it is possible and easy to withdraw. The application of this to spiritual life is plain. Man can have only one master, or only one highest good and principle of life. But if he choose the world as his highest good, and, along with the worship of the true God, attempt the service of an idol, he must decide for himself. First, however, let him clearly understand that he cannot at the same time serve two masters, and that, in attempting this double service, he can only be a traitor and a hypocrite.
And Mammon.—Probably mammon was originally not the name of a mythological deity, but was gradually imported into mythology from common life, in a manner similar to that in which the term is still employed. Bretschneider: “Μαμωνᾶς, Hebr. מָמוֹן, fortasse significant id, cui confiditur, ut Sept. אֱמיּנָה Isa_33:6, θησαυρούς, Psa_37:3, πλοῦτον reddiderunt, vel est, ut multi putant, nomen Idoli Syrorum et Pœnorum, i. q. Plutos Grœcorum.” Augustine remarks on this passage: “Congruit et punicum nomen, nam lucrum punice Mammon dicitur.” “Money, in opposition to God, is personified and regarded as an idol, somewhat like Plutus, although it cannot be shown that such an idol was worshipped.”—Olshausen.
Luther: To have money and property is not sinful, provided it become not thy master, but remain thy servant and thou its master.23
Mat_6:25. Take no thought.24—Connection. Anxiety, which is distrust of God, is the source of avarice. Accordingly, the following sins follow each other in regular genealogy: 1. Anxious care, distrust of God, commencement of apostasy; 2. avarice, and service of mammon, along with spurious and merely external service of God; 3. hypocrisy, and further development of external service into religious parade before men.—Again, anxious care itself springs from evil inclination and vanity, from worldliness (What shall we eat, etc.?),—which marks the beginning of apostasy from God. The word μεριμνᾷν, to take thought, denotes not merely “anxious care” (de Wette), which would be a tautology, but inordinate or solicitous concern or grief beyond our immediate wants, calling, or daily occupation; hence it is in reality to weaken one’s hands in prospect of the work before us, or the direct opposite of carefulness. From its nature, care extends εἰς τὴν αὔριον, Mat_6:34.—By its solicitude the heart becomes divided, which is hinted in the word μεριμνᾷν (Tholuck).—Τῇψυχῇ, in reference to the soul as the principle of physical life.—Is not the life more?—He who has given the greater will also give the less.—Solicitude is entirely at fault; Christ teaches us to reason,—God gave me life, which is the greater; therefore also, etc.
Mat_6:26. The fowls of the air [literally: the sky or heaven].—עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, which fly along the heavens,—i. e., appear separated from earth and its provisions, and yet fly so cheerily; like the lily, שׁוּשָׁן, which in its splendid apparel stands in the midst of a desolate and dusty plain.
Mat_6:27. Age [Com. Version: Stature], ἡλικία.—There are two interpretations of this term: First, nature of the body; Vulgate, Chrysostom, Luther [our authorized version, also Fritzsche, Conant]. Secondly, duration of life, age; Hammond, Wolf, Olshausen, Ewald, Meyer [de Wette, Tholuck, Stier, Alford, J. A. Alexander, Dav. Brown]. Both translations are warranted by the use of the language, but the context is decidedly in favor of “duration of life.” For, 1. our Lord refers to the preservation or the prolonging of life: 2. the adding of a cubit to the stature were not something very inconsiderable, as is implied in the text.25—A cubit (2 spans), a figurative expression, denoting that the duration of life has its fixed measure. Similarly also the provision for our life is fixed.
Mat_6:28. Consider the lilies, κατα μάθε τετὰκρίνα.
Very significant, as much as: learn to understand, study the symbolical language of the lilies.
Mat_6:29. In all his glory, δόξα, which may either mean his royal pomp, or the pomp of his royal army. The word περιεβάλετο, which follows, is in favor of the first of these explanations. Solomon was to the Jewish mind the highest representative of human glory (2Ch_9:15).
Mat_6:30. The grass of the field, or every kind of herb,—among them the lilies, which adorn and are cut down with them. Dried grass and the stalks of flowers were used for heating ovens. “A number of beautiful flowers grow wild on the fields and meadows of the Promised Land,—among them the splendid purple or bright yellow lily, of which the stem is three feet high, and of a dark red color, the flower forming a crown which is surmounted by a tuft of leaves. Son_4:5; Son_6:2; 1Ki_7:19. In Palestine, the grass withers in the course of two days under a strong east wind; when it is only fit for hay or fuel.” Gerlach. (Comp. Heubner, p. 90, on extravagance in dress and avarice.)
Mat_6:32. After all these things do the Gentiles seek.—Such is the essential feature of heathenism; and this worldliness led to their apostasy, polytheism, and idolatry. It deserves notice, that Christ here refers for the third time to the Gentiles, since the Pharisees made it their special boast that they were free from all heathen contamination. But the very extreme of their traditionalism led them into heathen views and practices.
Mat_6:33. Seek ye first.—Meyer: “Πρῶτον, first, before ye seek anything else; your first seeking. There is no room then for any other seeking, as their eating, drinking, etc., προστεθήσεται. Not seeing this inference, a few authorities have omitted the word πρῶτον, as in Luk_12:31. De Wette is mistaken in supposing that πρῶτον at least ‘indirectly’ implies the lawfulness of subordinately seeking other things. All other seeking, whether the πρῶτον be retained or not, is excluded by Mat_6:32 (πάντα γ. ταῦτα τὰ ἔθνη ἐπιζητ.) and by καὶ—προστεθήσεται.”—But in this case the word πρῶτον must mean not merely first in order of time, but refers to the principle which actuates us in seeking, on which our earnestness in our temporal calling, and the blessing upon that calling, depend. This principle of ever setting before us, even in temporal matters, the grand spiritual object, leads onward and upward, until that which is secondary and subordinate is wholly swallowed up in that which is spiritual.—The difference between the simple ζητεῖτε and its compound ἐπιζητοῦσιν deserves mention. The former refers to a seeking which in itself is healthy; the other, to that which is unhealthy and excessive.
The kingdom of God, and His righteousness.—The kingdom of heaven is here called that of God, because the former verses refer to God as the highest good. To seek the kingdom of God, is to seek those blessings which are expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, and of which the corresponding righteousness is delineated in the Sermon on the Mount.
Mat_6:34. The morrow, ἡ αὔριον, is personified. Every day brings its own evil—κακία, ταλαιπωρία, κακότης—from an evil world, but also its own help and deliverance from our heavenly Father.26
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The real nature of false spirituality appears in the dualism to which it leads, in the attempt violently to sever between God and the world; and in the false worldliness which it cherishes, in order to make up for this deficiency. Hence, fanum and profanum—holiday and work-day; priest and layman; cloister and the world; spiritual and temporal care; spiritual and temporal power (the two swords, as they are called); spiritual and temporal gain; spiritual and temporal possessions; spiritual and temporal enjoyment (Carnival and Lent). Or rather, more correctly, it is not spiritual and temporal, but temporal and spiritual.
True Christianity, on the other hand, combines spiritual with temporal life, by viewing the world itself as the symbol of God, and by sanctifying everything in it for the service of the Holy One.
2. Moths, consumption, and thieves corrupt the possessions and the enjoyments of the world, if we regard the world as our lasting habitation. See in this respect the whole Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preaching of Solomon.
3. Science, natural philosophy, and even the highest poetry, have only recognized at a comparatively late period the sun-like nature of the eye, while here it is painted as with a sunbeam. To each of us, the eye is his sun, provided it be calm and single. Thus our vision depends on two conditions,—the outward sun in the heavens, and the inward sun of the mind. And thus the outward eye is at the same time a symbol and a medium of the inward eye, or of intelligence, the νοῦς. Our intelligence serves as the organ of the sun of revelation, and becomes light, if it reflect not merely our own finite understanding, but our higher reason, and transmit divine revelation to the inmost soul. Otherwise the light itself becomes darkness. And such night is the most dense,—more so than ordinary night, which is only black, implying the absence of light, or ignorance. Less guilt attaches itself to this than to the grey of mist—the interruption of light by folly or prejudice. But worst of all is that splendor of false light, when the light of revelation is perverted by the worldly mind into error, and truth itself converted into a lie.
4. Christ unmasks the worldliness which hides under the garb of false spirituality, and traces it to its ultimate source: hypocrisy, avarice, solicitude, and worldly lust. He next invokes, against this spirit of solicitude in its spiritual garb, the testimony of the Spirit of God in nature, which the Pharisees, in their ultra-piety, had overlooked. Throughout, nature discloses its symbols to the Lord; and they all serve as symbols for the faithfulness of God and the trustfulness of man.
5. Christ Himself first sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness, in the fullest and most perfect sense; and everything else has been added to Him, Isaiah 53. So shall it also be with His people (Romans 8).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
How false spirituality always has its root in worldliness: 1. Its source is secretly cherished worldliness; 2. it is essentially a manifestation of the carnal mind, and hence worldliness (Col_2:18); 3. it seeks in vain to conceal the worldliness which it everywhere betrays. Or, 1. Proof from the nature of the thing; 2. from history; 3. from experience of the twofold temptations with which every Christian is familiar.—Temporal possessions: 1. What they are in themselves; 2. what they become by faith; 3. what they become to the carnal mind.—“Treasures upon earth.” A contradiction, when viewed in connection with our never-dying souls: 1. As being outward treasures; 2. as being transient; 3. as liable to loss.—Treasures upon earth,—so unsubstantial, and yet so dangerous: 1. Because they are spoiled by moths, consumption, and thieves; 2. because they bring moths, consumption, and thieves into the heart.—The worm of death in its threefold ravages: 1. In inanimate nature; 2. in physical life; 3. in human society, or in the moral world.—A thief, or a deceiver, the moth and consumption of the moral order of things.—The treasures in heaven.—The treasures in heaven, in their unchangeable character: 1. They cannot be corrupted from within; 2. they cannot be consumed from without; 3. they cannot be taken away from beneath.—The treasures of earth and the treasures of heaven.—Gathering in appearance and gathering in reality.—False gathering is a casting away, under the appearance of gain.—Real gathering is gain, under the appearance of loss.—True and false gain.—Wondrous character of the possessions of heaven: 1. They are hidden, yet manifest; 2. infinitely far, yet infinitely near; 3. one treasure, yet innumerable treasures.—Only in connection with heaven can we again acquire earth as God’s earth.—“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 1. The truth of this saying (the heart ever lives in its highest good). 2. Inferences from this saying: (a) As the treasure is, such shall the heart become: the heart will become heavenly or earthly according as its treasure is; (b) strictly speaking, our heart cannot become earthly,—it rather becomes devilish, a prey to the passions of hell; (c) our heart is of heavenly origin, and cannot find rest or satisfaction in earthly possessions.—“The eye is the light of the body:” 1. The truth; 2. the symbol.—The body in its relation to the mind: 1. It is an instrument of the mind, by which man is to serve and glorify God; 2. a symbol of the mind, by which God admonishes man.—The eye and the light, in their physical and spiritual import: 1. The eye is also of the light, and shares the nature of light; 2. the eye itself becomes light by receiving light; 3. the eye gives light to the whole body.—The eye and the sun: 1. The eye is sun-like; 2. the sun is the eye of heaven; 3. the eye and the sun combined give light to the body.—A single eye and an evil eye, in their respective bearing on the inner life: 1. The eye, if single, has an undivided, and hence true vision; it beholds what is right, because it rightly beholds. 2. The eye that is evil is an ignis fatuus: its vision is divided, and hence false; it beholds what is false, because it falsely beholds.—The difference between a diseased eye and an evil eye, or him who is really blind and him who is blinded.—Not the blind, but the blinded, fall: for, 1. in their carelessness, they do not see; 2. in their excitement, they do not behold the principal object; 3. in their confusion, they see everything in a dim and disordered manner.—The inward eye and its object: 1. Its nature: to perceive that which is eternal. 2. Its light: the revelation of God in its widest sense. 3. Its giving of light: truthful application of the light which it has received.—An evil eye in our hearts, or perverted reason, may turn even the light of revelation into darkness.—The most dense darkness is that which the hypocrite makes to himself from the light of revelation.—The threefold night: 1. The blackness of night: want of light, ignorance. 2. The grey of mist: obstruction of light, prejudice. 3. The blinding light,27 or abuse and perversion of light, superstition and hypocrisy.—An evil heart changing the inward light into darkness: 1. By its spiritual pride; 2. by its carnal security; 3. by its treating the flesh as if it were spirit, and perverting the spirit into flesh.—“How great is that darkness!” 1. When the inner eye is not only blind, but blinded; 2. when the inner light is not only obscured, but misleads; 3. when the day of salvation is changed into the night of destruction.—“No man can serve two masters:” 1. The truth of this statement; 2. its import and weight.—Earthly possessions as mammon.—Mammon the greatest of all idols: 1. The idol of all times; 2. the idol of all nations; 3. the idol of all unconverted hearts; 4. the origin of all idolatry; 5. the first and the last among all the hidden idols of God’s people, both under the Old and the New Testament.—The service of mammon converts the service of God into a lie.—True service of God excludes the service of mammon.—It is impossible to disown the service of our Lord and Master, by serving Him unfaithfully: we may hate, but we cannot cast off His authority.—If we despise him who falsely claims mastery over us, we shall soon be free from his service.—Solicitude is the mother of avarice.—Anxious care the certain consequence of worldly lust.—“Take no [serious or anxious] thought:” 1. Neither for your life (your maintenance); 2. nor for your body (your attire); 3. nor for what may befall you (for to-morrow).—Spiritual reasoning calculated to extinguish our solicitude. 1. God has already given us the greatest and best gift: (a) The life of the body is more than its nourishment; (b) the life of the mind is more noble than that of its instrument, the body; (c) the life of life, or the divine life, is the highest gain. 2. God will also give us all other things in addition: nourishment for the body; preservation of the body, and spiritual sustenance for the life which is from Him.—The birds of the air and the lilies of the field, preachers of trustfulness.—The difference between solicitude and lawful providence.—What solicitude cannot achieve and what it can achieve: 1. What it cannot achieve: (a) It cannot pray; (b) it cannot work; (c) it cannot create anything; (d) it cannot alter anything. 2. What it can achieve: (a) Conceal heaven from our view; (b) spoil earth; (c) open hell.—Solicitude the main principle of heathenism. It springs, 1. from the ignorance of the heathen, who know not the living God; 2. from their deifying the things of the world.—“Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”—God will not only nourish, but also adorn us.—How strange, if the little bird were to attempt sewing, or the lily spinning?—What solicitude loses, and what it gains: 1. It loses, (a) the present moment; (b) to-day; (c) all eternity. 2. It gains, (a) foolish projects; (b) anxious dreams; (c) a terrible awakening.—Christianity the source of highest order: 1. It restores proper order in our affections and desires; 2. it sets objects before us in their proper order; 3. it sets our daily work in order; 4. it sets time and eternity in their proper order.—Solicitude, as indicating a divided heart, is closely connected with the eye that is evil, and with the attempt to serve two masters.—Carefulness and freedom from care.—Solicitude and everlasting negligence.—Solicitude a sinful distrust: 1. Of God; 2. of our neighbor; 3. of ourselves.—We need not be concerned for what is least, since we may obtain what is highest.—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” How do we learn it? 1. From the succession of things (Lord’s day first, then work-day; prayer first, then work);28 2. mainly from our wants; 3. in a unique manner, when we surrender ourselves to God.—Our earthly calling is included in our heavenly calling.—He who prays well, will also work well.—All the wants of the children of God are supplied.—Nourishment and raiment are supplied without money in the kingdom of God.—Do not allow thoughts of the morrow to interfere with the duties of to-day: 1. Let them not distract you; 2. not tempt you; 3. not terrify you.—Wait each day upon God for to-day.—Let to-day’s duty engross to-day’s attention.—Preparation for to-morrow forms part of the duty of to-day.—Every day brings’ its burden from beneath, but also its help from above.
Starke:—Parallel passages: Mat_19:21; Heb_11:26; Heb_13:5; 1Ti_6:9-17; Jam_5:3; Psa_62:10.—We ought not to gather treasures from distrust of God’s providence, nor from a desire to become rich; but to save, in the fear of God, to gather the crumbs , to make provision for our children, 2Co_12:14, is not displeasing to God.—Hedinger: What does it profit a man though he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mat_16:26; Php_3:7-8; Php_3:19-20; Col_3:1-2.—Not to have treasures, but yet to desire them is also sinful, 1Ti_6:9; Psa_49:17.—This warning applies also to the poor; for a beggar may set his heart as much upon one crown-piece as a rich man upon thousands, Luk_12:19; Sir_11:17-19; Tob_4:7-9.—The heart, which is created only for God and for eternity, is dishonored and degraded if we set it on things which perish, and, so to speak, convert it into a moth, Jam_5:1-2.—Quesnel: Avarice, 1Ti_6:9.—God has given man earthly possessions for use, 1Co_7:31 : he who is unwilling to employ them for that object, will frequently experience that they may either be taken from him, or disappear in his hands, Psa_39:6.—If we forsake our earthly possessions for the sake of Christ, we lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, Mat_19:29. The best of all riches is the kingdom of God in the soul, Luk_17:21.—If we frequently contemplate the reality, the continuance, and the excellency of heavenly treasures, our minds will not be engrossed with transient and contemptible things, Col_3:1-2; Psa_73:25.—The heavenly treasures, which are entrusted to God’s keeping, are best kept, Luk_12:21; Gal_6:9.—Passing possessions become everlasting, if they are employed for the glory of God, and in almsgiving. In this kind of exchange we cannot be losers, Pro_11:4; Psa_41:1-2.—For where your treasure is, Php_3:20; Col_3:1-2.—What we love and esteem is always in our mind.—He whose every desire is in heaven, seeks nothing upon earth.—Majus:—Totum mundum debet contemnere, qui sibi thesaurizat in cœlo; Augustine, Psa_73:25. Everything depends upon the heart, Isa_26:8-9; Mat_12:35; Psa_7:10.—Be careful that your heart be single, sincere, and honest, or else all is lost.—Say not, in your carnal confidence, I have a good heart, Jer_17:9; rather pray, Search me, O God, and try my heart, Psa_139:23-24.—Remain Thou, O God, in my heart, and let my heart remain in Thee; since it is created only for Thee, and Thou alone deservest it, Psa_132:13-14.—The light of the body is the eye. There is nothing more single than the eye of faith; follow that light, and you are safe.—The eyes are the road into the heart.—Hedinger, 1Co_13:1.—The way of the righteous is a way of light, but that of sinners is only darkness. Cramer, Pro_14:8.—The service of mammon, Hab_2:9.—Much here depends on the little word serve.—Whoso seeks heaven in the world, acts contrary even to nature and sound reason, 1Ki_18:21; 2Co_6:14-15.—The service of mammon an abominable bondage. Majus.—A covetous person renounces God, for covetousness is idolatry, Eph_5:5; Col_3:5.—Not cared, well cared for, 1Pe_5:7.—All nature and every creature is like a ladder by which we may ascend to our heavenly Father.—The birds of the air are only the creatures of God, yet they are nourished. How much more shall we be provided for, who are not only His creatures, but called to be His children! Isa_63:16; Psa_103:13.—If we would only consider our high origin, we should trust more to infinite goodness and wisdom, Isa_44:2; Sir_11:23.—Just as solicitude is the punishment of unbelief, so much complaining is the fruit of unbelief.—Christians must differ from the heathen not only in respect of their faith, but also of their use of earthly things.—All the requirements of this life are added along with the one great possession of the kingdom of heaven.—Anxiety for the kingdom of God makes rich, since it bestows God Himself and all His blessings, Psa_84:12; Psa_73:25.—The future belongs to God alone.
Gossner:
Mat_6:21. What man loves attracts his heart like the magnet the iron. If your treasure is in the earth, your heart is in the earth also; if your treasure is in God and in heaven, your heart is in God and in heaven. Braune:—Every man has a master. Being freed from the service of sin, we become servants of righteousness.
Lisco:—Only one direction of the heart is right; to seek earthly things betrays inward defilement.—To serve, means to dedicate all that we are and have to another; in this sense we ought to serve God alone.—Prayer and labor.—Solicitude is foolish, being useless.
Gerlach:—Our minds and hearts must be fully directed toward God, so that everything else may be subordinate.—“Lord, Thou hast created us in Thine image, and our heart is without rest till it finds rest in Thee.” (Augustine.)—In this and the following passage, care means anxious and distracting solicitude; not that carefulness which our calling demands (Php_4:6; 1Pe_5:7; Heb_13:5).—Psa_104:27; Psa_145:15. The circumstance, that many birds and other animals die of cold and hunger, does not affect the argument, since this is not the consequence of their want of solicitude.
Heubner:—If the heart and inclinations are at fault, the whole life shall be at fault.—But if the will is directed toward that which is good, everything will bear reference to that one grand object: there will be harmony and light within and without; man will understand his wants, and where they may be satisfied.—God demands our whole heart.—The service of the world is slavery and idolatry, that of Christ, liberty.—The tendency of materialism toward heathenism.—Difference between the absence of solicitude in a Christian and in a worldly man: 1. In the former, it springs from earnestness for the great concern; 2. in the latter, from thoughtlessness.—What is the right state so far as care is concerned: 1. Not to place what is heavenly on the same level with what is earthly ( Mat_6:24); 2. not to assign the first place to what is earthly ( Mat_6:25-32); but 3. to assign the first place to what is heavenly ( Mat_6:33-34).—Wretched folly of earthly cares.—The great care of the Christian.—The decisive question: The world or Christ?—How Jesus leads to true freedom from care.29
Sermons on the pericope, Mat_6:24-34, by Schleiermacher, Erdmann, Liebner, Reinhard, Dräseke, Steinmeyer, and Claus Harms.
Footnotes:
[20] Mat_6:21.—Recepta: ὑμῶν. [Lachmann, Tischendorf, Fritzsche, Meyer, and Alford give the preference to σου, thy treasure.—P. S.]
[21] Mat_6:25.—Lachmann ἤ, following Cod. B., etc., ἢ τί πιητε. The addition is omitted by the later authorities and Tischendorf.
[22] Mat_6:23.—[Cod. B.: τ. δικαιοσύνην κ. τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ.]
[23][The same idea is expressed by St. Jerome in loc.: “Non dixit (Dominus), qui habet divitias, sed qui servit divitiis; qui divitiarum servus est custodit ut servus; qui servitutis excussit jugum, distribuit eas ut dominus.”—P. S.]
[24][Μὴ μεριμνᾶτε: Take not thought, be not concerned about, care not for, be not solicitous, be not distracted (from μερίζω). English interpreters generally take the word thought of the Com. E. Vers. in the old English sense for solicitude, anxious care (Bacon and Shakspeare; e. g., “Queen Catharine Parr died of thought”). Hence Campbell and others translate: “Be not anxious,” laying the stress wholly on the excess of care or solicitude. Jos. Addis. Alexander, ad Mat_6:25 : “The idea of excess is here essential, so that ordinary thought or care is not excluded.” Alford: “The E. V., ‘Take no thought.’ does not express the sense, but gives rather an exaggeration of the command, and thus makes it unreal and nugatory. In Luk_12:29 we have μὴ μετεωρ ζεσθε.” But the prohibition has reference rather to the future (comp. Mat_6:34 : “Take no thought for the morrow”), and to all that exceeds our actual wants, as expressed in the petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Meyer says: “Care is here generally understood emphatically of anxious care (which the word does not mean even in Sir_34:1), but this is an arbitrary assumption. Jesus prohibits to his disciples all concern about eating, drinking, etc. (das Besorgtsein überhaupt).” Yet some limitation is obviously suggested by Mat_6:34, as already remarked, and required by the nature of the case as well as the consistency of Scripture teaching, which plainly enjoins forethought and proper care in temporal things, and condemns only that care which springs from unbelieving doubt and distrust in Providence; comp. 1Ti_5:8; 2Th_3:10; Joh_12:6; Joh_13:29.—P. S.]
[25][The only objection to the version age, is that cubit is a measure of space, and not of time. But this objection is easily removed if we remember the frequent representation of human life as a journey, and the familiar phrase: length of life. “Lebenslänge.” Comp. Psa_39:5; 2Ti_4:7, etc. Meyer: “Die von Gott geordnete Lebensdauer wird im Bilde eines bestimmten Längenmaasses, gedacht.” The primary meaning of ἡλικία is age and corresponds better with the parallel passage. Luk_12:26 : “If ye then be not able to do that which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?” For to add a cubit, i. e., eighteen inches or a foot and a half, to man’s stature would be doing something very great.—P. S.]
[26][Dr. Dav. Brown, in loc.: “Sufficient unto the day is the exil thereof. An admirable practical maxim, and better rendered in our version than in almost any other, not excepting the preceding English ones. Every day brings its own cares; and to anticipate is only to double them.” Dr. Wordsworth, in loc.: “This adage is found in the Talmud Berachot, fol. 9, 2. Verst, De Adag. N. T., p. 806. Here it may be observed, that our Lord adopts and spiritualizes several proverbial sayings in succession, which were known to the Jews. In the same manner as in the Lord’s Prayer He adopted and spiritualized petitions from the Jewish Liturgy. He thus exemplified His own precept concerning new wins and new bottles (Mat_9:16-17), and on bringing out of the storehouse things new and old (Mat_13:52). In all those cases He animates the old letter with the new Spirit of His own.”—P. S.]
[27][Dr. Lange calls the three nights: black night, gray night, and white night, or Lichtmangel, Lichthemmung Lichtzersetzung.—P. S.]
[28][Remember the familiar adage: “Ora et labora;” “Bete und arbeite.”—P. S.]
[29][Wordsworth: “Our Lord does not forbid provident forethought (comp. 1Ti_5:8), as was imagined by the Euchites (‘qui volebant semper εὺ́χεσθαι et nunquam laborare’), against whom St. Augustine wrote his book: ‘De opere monachorum.’ But He forbids anxious, restless, and distrustful solicitude about earthly things, and this He does by seven considerations: 1. The care which God shows for our life and bodies; 2. for the inferior creatures which exist for our sake; 3. because all our care is vain without God; 4. from a consideration of the flowers and grass which God clothes and adorns; 5. because such solicitude is unchristian and heathenish; 6. because God adds everything necessary to them who seek first His kingdom; 7. because sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Comp. Php_4:6; 1Pe_5:7.”—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS AND…
CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS AND FILIAL CONFIDENCE. (Mat. 6:19-34)
Lay not up for ourselves treasures upon earth--hoard not.
Read full note →
where moth--a "clothes-moth." Eastern treasures, consisting partly in costly dresses stored up (Job 27:16), were liable to be consumed by moths (Job 13:28; Isa 50:9; Isa 51:8). In Jam 5:2 there is an evident reference to our Lord's words here.
and rust--any "eating into" or "consuming"; here, probably, "wear and tear."
doth corrupt--cause to disappear. By this reference to moth and rust our Lord would teach how perishable are such earthly treasures.
and where thieves break through and steal--Treasures these, how precarious!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Our treasure not on earth, but in heaven.
1. Our treasure not on earth, but in heaven.
19. Treasures — The first thought of a superficial reader of these words is likely to be, that our Saviour actually forbids all acquirement of wealth or property, real or personal. And objectors to the Scriptures endeavour to maintain this as the true construction, and so to prove that Jesus teaches a monkish kind of piety. But, first, it to be marked that the very basis on which our Lord gives this precept presupposes that earthly goods are good in their place. His doctrine is that, if we seek first the higher good, all these things, constituting the lower good, shall be subordinately added unto us. Mat_6:33. And, second, the word treasures does not mean simply riches. The term is not to be literally limited to material wealth alone, but is a symbol for whatever we hold to be our main good, whatever has our predominant affection, whatever is our aim of life. The sentiment, then, is, Make heavenly, not earthly good supreme in your heart. So also moth, rust, and thieves are symbols of whatever can destroy our treasures. If our treasures are wealth, riches take wings and fly away; if beauty, disease may impair it; if learning, idiocy; if strength, paralysis; if talent, insanity, and of all our treasures, m whatever form, the grand thief is death.
Read full note →
For yourselves — Making gratification of self your end.
Moth — The moth is a worm which breeds in neglected clothes, eats their substance, and destroys their texture. So Isa_50:9; Isa_51:8; Ecclesiastes 19:3.
Rust — Corrosion, or wear and tear of any kind. Corrupt — Destroy.
III. CHRISTIAN PIETY DISTINGUISHED FROM GENTILISM, Mat_6:19 to Mat_7:27.
Fallen Judaism is the impure service of the true God; Gentilism is the true service of a false god. That god is the world-god Mammon. Gentilism has lost its divine parent; it has become orphaned of our Father who is in heaven. In his place it has substituted the Mammon service and the earthly goods. After all these things do the Gentiles seek. Mat_6:32.
It is perfectly plain that with Mat_6:18 our Lord closes his treatment of fallen Judaism. Thereafter he takes a wider scope over the world, and treats, throughout the remainder of the chapter, upon the world-wide substitution of the earthly good for the heavenly good, (Mat_6:19-23,) of the rivalry of Mammon before the heavenly Father, (Mat_6:24,) and the dominion of Care in the place of the kingdom or dominion of God over us. (Mat_6:25-30.) He calls us back beneath the paternity of God, promising that if we will make him our sole Supreme, all earthly goods shall be subordinately added.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain (d) Earthly possessions and daily cares, 19–34.
(d) Earthly possessions and daily cares, 19–34.
19. treasures upon earth] Love of amassing wealth has been characteristic of the Jews in all ages.
Read full note →
moth and rust] Oriental wealth consisted to a great extent in stores of linen, embroidered garments, &c., which were handed down and left as heir-looms.
moth] The English word = “the devourer.”
rust] Money was frequently buried in the ground in those unsettled times, and so would be more liable to rust. Banks in the modern sense were unknown. Rust, lit., an eating away, it is not confined to corrosion of metals.
break through and steal] An expression applicable to the mud walls of Oriental huts.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (19) Lay not up for yourselves treasures.—Literally, with a…
(19) Lay not up for yourselves treasures.—Literally, with a force which the English lacks, treasure not up your treasures.
Where moth and rust doth corrupt.—The first word points to one form of Eastern wealth, the costly garments of rich material, often embroidered with gold and silver. (Comp. “Your garments are moth-eaten” in Jas_5:2.) The second word is not so much the specific “rust” of metals, as the decay which eats into and corrodes all the perishable goods of earth.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Ver. 19-Mat_7:12. (3) General principles regarding the relation of…
Ver. 19-Mat_7:12. (3) General principles regarding the relation of the disciples to wealth and to men.
Vers. 19-34. (1) The principle of regarding God alone in our religious actions is also to be maintained in the relation that we hold to wealth in the broadest sense. Vers. 19-21: seek true wealth, because earthly wealth, though gathered, may be rendered useless by earth"s chances. Vers. 22, 23: further, because it is the single eye that receives the light. Ver. 24: in fact divided service is impossible. Vers. 25-34: place God first, and he will provide.
Read full note →
Vers. 19-21. Ver. 19 comes here only, but vers. 20, 21 have much in common with Luk_12:33, Luk_12:34. They are there in the middle of a long discourse (vers. 22-53), which immediately follows the parable of the rich fool, itself spoken on the occasion when a man wished his brother to divide the inheritance with him. There seems no reason to believe that that discourse is at all necessarily in historical position, and that our verses belong originally to it and to its occasion rather than to the present place in Matthew.
Lay not up... but lay up (ver. 20). Lay up treasure indeed, but in the right place; (cf. a still more striking case in Joh_6:27) observe that in both cases it is "for yourselves." Lightfoot ("Hor. Hebr.," on ver. 1) quotes an interesting Haggada from Talm. Jeremiah," Peah," 15b (equivalent to Talm. Bob., "Baba Bathra," 11 a), in which "Monobazes, the king," when blamed for giving so much to the poor, defends himself at length: "My fathers laid up their wealth on earth; I lay up mine in heaven," etc. But our Lord here does not mean to limit his reference to almsgiving. He thinks of all that has been mentioned since Mat_5:3 (cf. Weiss) as affording means of heavenly wealth. Upon earth; upon the earth (Revised Version). Our Lord here wishes to emphasize the locality as such (epi thv ghv): in ver. 20 rather the nature and quality of the locality (en ouranw). Where moth. (cf. Jam_5:2, 3 Isa_51:8, especially LXX) Either directly or by its larvae, whether the treasure be clothes or food. Or rust. Any power that eats, or corrodes, or wastes (brwsiv). Doth corrupt; Revised Version, doth consume. "Corrupt" "has now a moral significance, which does not in any degree appertain to the Greek" (Humphry). Afanizei (cf. ver. 16, note) is here used of the complete change in the appearance or even of the complete destruction caused by these slow but sure enemies of earthly wealth. And where thieves. Before, physical or non-responsible agents; here, human beings. Break through (diorousousin); "dig through". (cf. Mat_24:43 Luk_12:39 Job_24:16) Where the houses are so frequently made of mud or sun-burnt bricks, this would be comparatively easy.
Vers. 19-34. The fourth part of the sermon: self-consecration.
I THE WHOLE MAN MUST BE GIVEN TO GOD.
1. The heart. God asks for it. "Give me thy heart," he says to each of us. The heart will be where the treasure is. Where is our treasure, our chief good, the object of our strongest desires? If it is on earth, it will fail us at the last. "I must leave all this! I must leave all this!" was the sad cry of the great French statesman, Cardinal Mazarin, when, stricken already by the hand of death, he took his last view of the treasures of art, the costly adornments of his earthly home. God bids us trust our precious things to him. He is able to keep that which we have committed unto him against that day. He asks it for our sake; it is safe in his keeping. Then lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven the treasure of holy thoughts, holy aspirations, holy deeds. Above all, let Christ himself be the Treasure, the dearest Possession of our hearts, the Joy of our souls. Earthly treasures are but as dross to those who win Christ, the heavenly Treasure. If our treasure is heavenly, our heart will become heavenly too filled with heavenly affections, heavenly hopes; and this hope maketh not ashamed.
2. The intellect. The eye receives the light of the sun. If it is blinded, all is dark; if it is diseased, the image presented to the mind is no longer clear, distinct, single, but confused, distorted, double. The intellect is the eye of the soul; but earthly affections distort and pervert it. If the heart is set on low, carnal objects, the intellect cannot discern clearly things high and heavenly; it cannot receive the light of the Sun of Righteousness; its vision is obscure, darkened. And if the intellect cannot see with a single eye the blessedness of religion, still more, if it becomes dark, how great must be the darkness of the whole soul! The consecrated heart enlightens the intellect; for God dwelleth in the heart that is given to him, and his presence is the light of the soul.
II THE GIFT MUST BE ENTIRE, THE SURRENDER COMPLETE.
1. The two masters. "God spake these words, and said; I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none other gods but me." It was the first of the commandments of Mount Sinai; the Lord repeats it from the Mount of the Beatitudes. There are two masters who divide the allegiance of mankind. Some serve the living and true God; some serve mammon riches, earthly things. No man can serve both; it is impossible. The heart cannot be divided between the two; its chiefest affection must be set on one great centre. The true Master cannot be despised; he may be hated. Those who set their love on mammon will end in hating God. "The friendship of the world is enmity with God." He who clings to God, the heavenly Treasure, will despise the good things of this world. There is nothing upon earth that he desireth in comparison with God. To serve mammon is to desert the true God, to set up an idol in the heart. Covetousness, Holy Scripture tells us, is idolatry. There is no escape from this solemn, this awful, alternative God or mammon, Jehovah or Baal, heaven or the world. There is no middle way, no compromise. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thing heart;" "Love not the world.
2. The one Master: his loving care for his servants.
(1) Those who serve him must not be divided in mind; they must not allow over-anxiety concerning their earthly needs to distract their heart. They have been taught to address God as their Father; they must trust his fatherly love, his gracious providence. It is over-anxiety, not carefulness, that Christ forbids; he does not commend the thoughtless and careless. Holy Scripture bids Christian men to "work with quietness, and eat their own bread;" it condemns those who provide not for their own, and specially for those of their own house. What Christ forbids is distracting anxiety for the future. We must do our duty in the present and leave the future to God, trusting him with loving faith. The body, the life, come from him. He made the body; he breathed into the nostrils the breath of life. He who gave the greater will give the less; he will give the things needful for that human life which is his gift.
(2) Examples of his care.
(a) The fowls of the air. The Lord of nature, he by whom the worlds were made, directs us to the study of nature: "Behold the fowls," "Consider the lilies." lie loved to contemplate the works of God, and to draw from them lessons of holy, heavenly wisdom. The vine, the fig tree, the corn-land, the sheep of the pasture, the fishes of the sea, supplied subjects for his parables. He has sanctified the love of nature, and elevated it by his own example. Doubtless in his early life he had watched the countless birds in the clear skies of Palestine, from the soaring eagle to the humble sparrow. He watched them not in vain; he draws lessons of holy trustfulness from their free, wild life. "They sow not, neither do they reap; your heavenly Father feedeth themyour Father. He is not the Father of the irrational creature in the same holy, blessed sense in which he bids us call him "our Father." Yet he careth for the birds of the air; how much more doth he care for us, his children by adoption and grace! Therefore let us trust him. We cannot by the most anxious thought add to our lives a cubit"s length, a day or an hour. Let us imitate the birds of the air in their happy, bright contentment, in their freedom from distracting care.
(b) The lilies of the field. God has shown his love not only in providing for our actual needs by flocks and herds and harvests. He has clothed the earth with beauty; mountain and valley, sunlit seas and waving woods and gleaming rivers, bear witness to the goodness of the Lord. "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The sin of man has marred the primeval loveliness of creation. But there are yet traces of that first beauty left. The flowers of the fields are relics of Eden"s bowers"As pure, as fragrant, and as fair As when they crowned the sunshine hours Of happy wanderers there.
The Lord gazed on the wealth of gorgeous flowers that deck the hills of Galilee in the spring; they were very fair in his sight; more delicately beautiful, more radiant in their bright colours, than any work of human art or skill. He draws a holy lesson from them: "They toil not, neither do they spin;" but God clothes them with beauty. He bids us learn the happy secret of their calm loveliness. He bids us trust in God with quiet faith; he will give us food and raiment who feeds the ravens when they cry, and adorns the lilies of the field with brilliant colour.
3. We must trust him. He knoweth our needs; he bids us ask him for our daily bread; he listens to our prayer. His children must not be like the heathen. They have far higher privileges; they must live a higher life. The heathen seek eagerly after the good things of this world; Christians must "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness that kingdom of grace in the heart, which is "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." That must be the first and paramount object of the Christian"s hope and earnest effort; the glad submission of his whole heart, with all its fears and hopes, all its joys and sorrows, all its desires and all its thoughts, to the heavenly King, who would make that heart his dwelling-place, reigning there with undivided sovereignty. Seek that first, above all things else above riches, honour, comfort, ease, even above the love of those who are nearest and dearest. Seek that first, seek it of God with unresting, unwearied energy of supplication; and for other things trust his love. He bids us ask him for our daily bread, not to be over-anxious for the morrow. We must not allow distracting fears for the morrow to interfere with the calm performance of the duties of the day. Each day has its burden, its difficulties, its temptations; each day, too, brings its help from God, its grace, its mercies, to his children. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Give your whole energy, all your thoughts, to the work of the day, the duty which is present: "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Do not allow the day to be darkened, and its work to be marred, by gloomy forebodings of possible troubles in the future. They may never come; we may pass away before they come; if they should come, God will give his people strength and wisdom. Do your duty; and then leave the future in his hands, to whom alone the future is known; who has promised to make "all things work together for good to them that love him.
LESSONS.
1. "Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.
2. Make no compromises; give the whole heart to God.
3. God careth for his children; trust in him, be not over-anxious.
4. The present is yours; the future is God"s. Do your duty, and trust.
Vers. 19-21. The two treasuries.
The earthly and the heavenly treasuries are first compared together, and then the reason is given for preferring the latter.
I THE EARTHLY TREASURY.
1. Its locality. A treasury on earth. The thought is of the accumulation of material wealth. This may be of the choicest kind works of art, gold, and jewels. Still, it is all earthly, and it does not imply any share in heavenly things, any portion in the unseen world.
2. Its imperfection. Even while its treasures remain in it they may be spoiled. The moth devours the Babylonish garment; the rust corrodes the bright steel and tarnishes the polished silver. Shares depreciate in value while we hold the scrip. Worse than all this, the value to us of earthly treasure may be corrupted; because we may toil successfully for wealth, and yet when we have got it we may discover to our dismay that we have lost the capacity to enjoy it.
3. Its insecurity. What cannot be spoiled by insect or atmosphere may be stolen. Without waiting for the slow action of rust and moth, riches may take themselves wings and flee away. The thief may dig through the mud-built house; (see Job_24:16) the skilled burglar may break open the iron-safe; the trusted banker may abscond with the stock that is lodged with him. At last the great thief death will rob us of all our earthly store by one irresistible stroke.
II THE HEAVENLY TREASURY.
1. Its nature. What is this heaven in which we are to store our treasures? Heaven is not an astronomical locality, nor is it simply the abode of the blessed dead; it is wherever God"s presence is manifested and enjoyed. Therefore to lay up treasure in heaven is to store it with God; to have our possessions in him; to entrust our all to him; to know that when we go to God we shall find our wealth.
2. Its riches. The nature of the treasury determines the sort of wealth that is to be stored in it. Possessions of land cannot be kept in a cash-box; works of art must not be stowed away in a wine-cellar. If heaven is our treasury, only heavenly riches can be collected there. It will not do for us to reckon our property by gold or any material things, for heaven has no room for such sordid wealth. The "unsearchable riches of Christ" are there faith and love, pardon and peace, life and gladness, purity and power.
3. Its security. This heavenly treasury is safe. No corruption can breathe in the pure atmosphere of heaven; no thief can break open its mighty gates; death is powerless to enter its realm of eternal life. Nothing can destroy or rob us of our spiritual possessions in Christ.
III THE GROUNDS OF CHOICE. Enough reason for preferring the heavenly treasury might be found in the great contrast between its security and the deceptive insecurity of all earthly treasuries. But Christ introduces a much higher consideration. "Where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also." Therefore if the treasury is on earth, the heart will dwell in this lower region; but if the treasury is in heaven, the heart will soar to the heights of God. Our thoughts, our very selves, dwell with what we prize most highly. Here is a greater danger than that of the disappointment of loss viz. that of the permanent degradation of a low affection. The chief reason for choosing heavenly treasures is that we may not set our affections on things of the earth, that we may have our thoughts and desires drawn up to what is heavenly. Thus only shall we escape from the sordid mind that gloats over sordid treasures, and win the pure and heavenly mind that aims at highest good. W.F.A.
Vers. 19-21. The treasure laid up on earth.
It is most unimportant, in meditating on the succeeding portions of this wonderful discourse of our Lord, to insist on tracing some imagined connection between them. If on the surface it be plain, or if by careful examination it becomes plain, let us love to notice it, and to learn its continual contribution to the instructiveness and beauty of the teaching. Otherwise there is no incumbent necessity or advantage in stringing such pearls as these, at any rate. With this proviso, it is possible to suggest that there is a connection to be traced, not fanciful, between what we have here and the foregoing eighteen verses that whereas the solemn refrain of each of the three examples which they comprise has been that no heritage of human praise be sought, but only that surest intrinsic reward, the approving eye of him who sooth in secret, now the subject launches out into the open; he who speaks, lovingly admonishes all, at all times, under all conditions, whether they give alms, or pray, or fast, or whatsoever they do," to take heed and beware, not only of the lust of human praise one particular shape of earthly treasure but of seeking or storing in any sort the unsafe treasures of earth. The ground now rested upon for this admonition is, in one general word, the untrustworthiness of treasures laid up on earth. But this untrustworthiness has deepening shadows and a deepening suspicion as it is deeper looked into. The place, indeed, Jesus Christ says, of treasure laid up upon earth lays it open to suspicion, and to more than suspicion, to condemnation, in the matter of a right and wise investment. For of such treasure it is to be said that
I IT IS INSECURE. By the perfection of figurative language, in brevity, force, and clearness, this insecurity is set forth by the operation of:
1. Rust; an agent so silent, so constant, so natural, so certain, that nothing seems wanting to perfect the figure, for all that wide sweep of earthly wealth which iron, the king of metals, may be held to typify.
2. The moth; the stealthy destroyer of all the vesture and texture by which, again, another such wide stretch of earthly wealth is typified; but not only so, such a wide field of human vanity of wealth displayed.
3. The thief; who the more precious and less destroyable what remains may be, so much the more eagerly and skilfully compasses the grasping of it. So earthly treasure is cumulatively insecure by its unconscious and inanimate enemy, by its unconscious but animate enemy, and by its very conscious and very animate enemy.
II IT IS TEMPORARY, EVEN WHEN AT THE SECUREST. If it is laid up on earth, it is bound to be left down on earth. The whole wide world of men all always have known that earth is not their abiding country; that if they are to be always, it is just the opposite of fact that they are to be always on earth; and that if the earth, in a sense, "abideth for ever," its fleeting generations the very opposite.
III IT Is LOWERING INSTEAD OF ELEVATING, IMPOVERISHING INSTEAD OF ENRICHING, EVEN WHEN LEAST "TEMPORARY," AND EVEN WHEN MOST "SECURE." This is not said of a right use of earthly advantages, a use that does not abuse. But neither is it this at which Christ aims when he says, "Lay not up treasure on earth." No; the "for" which Christ uses here so emphatically, and the most weighty clause which it leads in, tells his most significant meaning. A treasure laid up on earth chains the heart with it to earth; "for" wherever the treasure is the heart is; whatever the treasure is, it is fashioning the heart to it. "What folly to store your treasure in the place you must soon leave!" What folly to have as treasure that which enslaves but never ennobles! What folly to have as treasure that which condemns thought never to think high, and which dooms affection"s growth to be opposite of lasting in any upward direction, and, so far as its downward direction goes, the deeper its roots, the deeper its torments! Human nature and character only then rise, grow, purify, and are blessed as the heart of man rises and becomes purer, till its upward tendency is secured and its sanctification safe. B.
Vers. 19-34. Sermon on the mount: 5. Thought for the morrow.
There has been set before us a righteousness, perfect in its outward expression and in its root, and if now we ask How are we to attain this? we are told By loving it. That is the only way. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Your likings are the eyes of your inner man; if they are rightly placed your whole life will be right. Just as a man has an organ to guide him in the physical world, so he has an organ for his guiding in the moral and spiritual world. If the eye is sound, the whole body is full of light, that is, every member receives through the eye all the light it requires. But if the eye be unsound, no other organ can play its part. It is vain for you to give the blind man more light; it is not more light but other eyes he needs. And so, says our Lord, it is vain to profess that your heart is where in fact you see no treasure at all. Rather humbly own that you do not see as you ought, and seek to have your vision cleared by him "who came into this world that they that see not might see." In the remainder of the passage our Lord addresses himself to those who, though not drawn by the attractiveness of the heavenly treasure, yet wish to have it along with the earthly. He had seen how the fear of poverty influenced men, and seeks, by a variety of arguments, to root out undue thought for the morrow.
I IF GOD GIVES YOU LIFE, HE WILL ALSO GIVE YOU SUITABLE FOOD AND CLOTHING. The greater gift implies the less. The heavenly Father who could produce so marvellous a work as the body, and who could originate life, has certainly power for the common, everyday achievement of providing you with food and clothing.
II YOU ARE MORE VALUABLE IN GOD"S ESTIMATION THAN THE LOWER ANIMALS, and, if even they are well provided for, much more will you be cared for. The strength of the argument lies in two points. First, we are better equipped for providing against the future than the birds are, and should therefore be more free from care. No doubt their cheerfulness arises from ignorance, but our ability to look forward is abused if it only makes us despondent and fearful. Second, it is your heavenly Father who feeds them. The other creatures are only a kind of step-children. And if God delights in the happiness of myriads of creatures who cannot know and thank him, is it justifiable that we should in any circumstances question his desire to bless us? Clearly this amounts to an assertion of the doctrine of special or particular providence, and there is no one who may not from our Lord"s words draw encouragement to expect providential care and intervention.
III UNDUE SOLICITUDE ABOUT THE FUTURE DOES NO GOOD. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?" There is a legitimate and necessary consideration of the future with which our Lord has no quarrel. Reckless improvidence is a fault no less than over-providence. The taking thought which our Lord rebukes is a vain inoperative brooding over possible disasters a brooding to which the mind returns for the very reason that nothing is effected by it; were anything effected by it, it would cease.
IV EACH DAY HAS SUFFICIENT BURDEN OF ITS OWN. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." If the evil that should be met to-day is not to lie over and follow on into to-morrow, then your whole strength is needed for immediate duty. You must adopt the great military rule if you are to be successful; you must break up your life into small portions, and conquer in detail. The best preparation for to-morrow is to do the duty of to-day. This is a great practical rule which, if followed, eases life of most of its burden. For what causes anxiety is commonly something that has not happened, which belongs to to-morrow rather than to to-day. Are you sufficient for the duty of today? Then be satisfied, and leave to-morrow till it comes. Learn to live one day at a time.
But all these considerations only serve to lead up to the great precept, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." All men would be willing to make the kingdom of God the second thing, but each man would like to choose his own first thing. Every man has some first object, it may be life, or honour, self-respect, or a pure conscience which he would rather preserve than anything else. But the demand here made is no more than saying we are moral creatures, made in God"s image; and morality, if not supreme, is not morality. To put it in the second place is to annul it. Further, we all admire the men who have conspicuously practised this precept; who have shown themselves superior to the world, that they might be free to find the truth or to relieve the miseries of their fellow-men. Such men have shown us bow independent of the world a man of free spirit can be, and how he can give himself to the highest work of man as freely and effectively here and now as in any conceivable world. Greatness of character in this respect is nothing else than greatness of love. Practically this precept is in most cases reversed. We must secure food and raiment; we shall welcome righteousness afterwards. The earthly is the essential, the heavenly the supplementary. Our earthly interests are so pressing, we must in the first place put them on a satisfactory basis, and we do not recognize the highest conceivable morality as that which can alone put our business on a satisfactory footing. But righteousness is not to be postponed to anything else; and if the spirit of Christ cannot be carried into the forms which business has taken, these forms must go. Those who would postpone the kingdom of heaven to other interests should consider whether it is likely that, after they shall have lived for the world for a few years longer, they will be more inclined than now to seek the kingdom of God. D.
Vers. 19-21. Hoarding.
The all-absorbing desire of humanity is happiness. A depraved heart naturally seeks this in the world. Money, which "answereth all things," is the exponent of the world"s good. Hence the feverish desire to accumulate money. Wealth comes to be loved and laid up because it is loved. This hoarding is sin.
I MAKING PROPER PROVISION FOR THE FUTURE IS NOT HERE CONDEMNED.
1. God commends this prudence in his system of nature.
(1) He has so ordered the seasons that one harvest yields enough to serve us until the next. The elements that ripen fruits in the soil tend to rot those gathered the preceding year. God cannot be displeased at our following his providence.
(2) He impresses his providence upon the instincts of animals. Thus the bee stores in summer the honey that will serve it for the winter. The morals of nature are for our profit.
2. He commends it in the economy of grace.
(1) The term of our natural life is given as a probation to be utilized for eternity. It is the seedtime which, if neglected, will leave us to reap a harvest of thorns and thistles.
(2) The God of grace is also the God of providence. The principles of grace, therefore, have their lessons of providence for us.
3. He commends it in the lessons of providence.
(1) History and experience teach us that not only in Egypt in the days of Joseph, but in all lands and in all ages, seasons of plenty are followed by seasons of scarcity. Hence the proverbial "rainy day.
(2) We see the sufferings of improvidence. The artisan, in times of plenty thrifty, will not need in duller times to sing through the streets for charity. While the asylum of the workhouse is no disgrace to the unfortunate, it is a disgrace to the improvident. The injunction of the text is that we are not so to lay up treasures upon the earth as to deprive us of the more precious and enduring treasure in heaven.
II HOARDING IS DEPRECATED AS SINFUL AND PERNICIOUS.
1. The hopes of riches are delusive.
(1) They do not give immunity from anxiety. The moth, the rust, and the thief, like spectres, haunt the dreams of the wealth-lover. He finds more anxiety in preserving than he found in acquiring his treasure. Men are killed by money.
(2) They do not raise us above the fear of want. Millionaires have been so haunted with this fear, that to relieve them their friends procured for them parish relief, and have set them to work for wages on their own estates.
(3) Gold cannot purchase health.
(4) It cannot remove the terrors of a guilty conscience.
2. The love of riches is degrading.
(1) The heart will be with its treasure. Its treasure, therefore, should be worthy of it. If heaven be the treasure, then the heart will be ennobled; for the God of purity is its glory. No moth, no rust, no thief, can deprive us of that treasure:
(2) If the hoard be the treasure of the heart, degradation is inevitable. The heart cannot be separated from its treasure. Upon this principle it is that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," etc. (Mat_19:24)
(3) It hardens the heart. Monopoly is selfishness. The heart of the miser is hardened by a systematic resistance to the promptings of benevolence. We may challenge the world to produce a tender-hearted miser. (see 1Jn_3:7)
3. Riches invest death with additional terrors.
(1) For they have to be relinquished. Garrick conducted Johnson over his mansion, and, directing his attention to valuable pictures and other articles of treasure, expected to be praised for his taste; but the moralist said, "Ah, David, these are the things that make death terrible!" A clergyman walking with an elder brother through his grounds in Yorkshire remarked, "This is a lovely place. You ought to be happy here." "Yes, man," was the reply, "but there is that damned death!
(2) The guilty steward is also haunted by the terror of the account he will have to render to his judge. (see Jam_5:1-4) The wail, not of the poor only, but of lost souls who might have been saved had the Lord"s money been invested in Christian enterprise, will pierce and alarm his conscience when death stares him in the face.
4. Hoarded treasure is often a pernicious inheritance.
(1) How often is such an inheritance dissipated in prodigality! Young men who hope to inherit fortune are seldom disposed to grapple with the difficulties of gaining a profession. Habits of indolence lead to dissipation.
(2) Sometimes the hoard inherited becomes the nucleus of a greater. To become a millionaire, or something like it, the inheritor will sell his very soul for gain.
(3) How different is the history of the youth who has to rely upon his education and the blessing of God, and who helps the cause of God and humanity with the fruits of his industry! His heart is light. He dies in faith.
III HOW DOES THE GOOD STEWARD MANAGE HIS ESTATE?
1. He claims no absolute right of acquisition.
(1) He owns the Source of his prosperity. (see Deu_8:17, Deu_8:18)
(2) He confesses that God could instantly reverse the tide of his success.
(3) He never says, "I can do what I like with my own.
2. He accepts his maintenance from God.
(1) He is entitled to his food, raiment, and habitation, for himself and those depending upon him.
(2) He is, moreover, entitled to a provision against sickness and old age.
(3) He is authorized in giving his family an education and a start in life.
(4) God will himself add to all this the spiritual rewards of well-doing.
3. With the rest his problem is to secure the maximum of good.
(1) To this end he will study the needs of men. This may be troublesome; but it is the business of the steward. God will not approve a slovenly disbursement of his money.
(2) He will also study the best means of meeting the needs of men. The merits and claims of the great evangelical and philanthropical societies will have due consideration.
(3) He will cultivate the spirit of Christ, so that he may relieve the needs of men without wounding their sensibilities or injuring their self-respect.
(4) In all things he will seek direction from God in prayer. J.A.M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John A. Broadus 1886 · Public Domain Mat 6:19-34.
Mat 6:19-34.
Single-Hearted Devotion To God, As Opposed To Worldly Aims And Anxieties
Read full note →
Having urged that good deeds should be performed, out of regard, not for human approbation and reward, but for that of God, (Mat 6:1-18) our Lord now passes to the kindred topic of inculcating, in general, an exclusive and entire devotion to God, as opposed to worldly aims and anxieties. (Mat 6:19-34) (See Analysis at the beginning of chapter 5.) This section of the great discourse naturally divides itself into four parts, viz., Mat 6:19-21, Mat 6:22 f; Mat 6:24, Mat 6:25-34. We can discern between these an internal, though not a formal connection. The sayings are gnomic in form, and only an internal connection could be expected.
Mat 6:19-21. He begins with the thought that as the believer’s heart ought to be in heaven (which is here taken for granted), and as the heart will be where the treasure is, therefore we should treasure to ourselves treasures in heaven, not on earth; and to this he encourages by contrasting the treasures of earth and heaven as respectively perishable and imperishable. The same idea occurs in Luk 12:33 f., as used on a different occasion. The Jews of our Saviour’s age were very largely a trading people, possessing much the same characteristics as at present, and among them an uncommon love of money. What is here said was therefore especially appropriate to them, but fully applies to men of all ages. It is also naturally understood as extending to all the other objects after which men long and seek; in general, we are to have regard to, and strive to obtain, heavenly rather than earthly things, (compare Col 3:1 ff.) because the heart will be fixed on that which we are labouring to possess.
Lay not up for yourselves—literally, Do not treasure to yourselves treasures. The English idiom is disinclined to this immediate repetition of the same word, and hence our popular versions express it otherwise. Jesus does not mean absolutely to forbid the accumulation of wealth. It is a peculiarity of the Hebrew style, often occurring in Scripture, to make an absolute statement (especially a prohibition), which is designed to be understood relatively. See other instances in Luk 14:12; Joh 4:21; 1Pe 3:3 f. This makes the expression more striking and impressive, like hyperbolical phrases, etc., and such statements were not meant, or expected to be taken literally and absolutely, any more than hyperboles are so taken. This principle of interpretation is capable of being abused, as all others are; but it requires to be applied in such passages as the present. 1Pe 3:20 is the opposite of Mat 6:19, expanded for greater impressiveness. Compare Mat 6:15, and see on "Mat 5:30". Men lay up treasures in heaven by righteousness in general, both in doing and suffering for Christ’s sake; (Mat 5:12, Mat 5:46, Mat 6:6, 1Co 4:17) and among other things, by a right use of earthly possessions, as proposed to the rich young man, (Mat 19:21) and as taught in Luk 12:33, and in the parable of the unjust steward. (Luk 16:1) Remember also the cup of cold water, (Mat 10:42) the awards of the judgment, (Mat 25:40) and the remarkable passage in 1Ti 6:17-19; also Rev 14:13. These heavenly rewards are not deserved by our good deeds, being a gift of free grace; but God chooses to connect them with, and proportion them to, our deeds of kindness to others, and devotion to him.
Moth, rust. The garments of the Jews, as of other Oriental nations, seldom changed their fashion; and hence great store of garments, perhaps in part inherited, would often form an important item in one’s possessions. (Gen 45:22; 2Ki 5:5; Job 27:16) These were liable to be destroyed by moth. The term rendered ’rust’ signifies ’eating,’ and so consumption in whatever way. It may be understood here in the general sense of whatever consumes or destroys property; or in the special sense of rust, just as we say that rust eats. Compare Jas 5:2 f., in which, as in various other passages, James seems to be referring to the Sermon on the Mount. The word rendered corrupt—in Rev. Ver., consume—is literally ’cause to disappear,’ and in Mat 6:16 is rendered disfigure. ’Corrupt’ does not correctly express the idea. Thieves. As to the other word sometimes rendered ’thief,’ but more properly ’robber,’ see on "Mat 27:38". Break through is literally ’dig through,’ as in margin of Rev. Ver., following Geneva and Rheims. It doubtless refers to the clay walls which many houses had. (compare Job 24:16) "The houses in Mexico are chiefly built of adobes (large sun-dried bricks), and in the attack on Monterey (1846), the American troops advanced into the heart of the city by digging occasionally through the walls of courts and houses." Gen. D. H. Hill. It is sometimes objected that the precious metals do not rust. But they can be stolen. The heart is spoken of in Scripture, not according to our modern view, as the seat of the affections only, but as the seat of all the powers of the soul, both intellect, sensibilities, and will. (To speak of the head as the seat of intellect, is a thing unknown to the Bible.) Many passages of Scripture are popularly misunderstood, from failure to keep this usage in view. The connection in the present case leads us to think of the affections as especially meant, but not exclusively. The thoughts, as well as feelings, will be where the treasure is; (compare Col 3:2) and it is the power of knowing truth that is especially referred to in the next two verses. Your—R.V., thy—(twice) in Mat 6:21. The singular represents the correct Greek text, which was changed to ’your’ by copyists who observed the plurals of Mat 6:19 f, and did not think of that impressive change to the singular which is so often made in this discourse (compare Mat 6:2, Mat 6:6, Mat 6:17; and see on Mat 5:23).
Mat 6:22 f. This passage is in some respects obscure, and has given commentators much trouble; but by remembering the connections and carefully noting the precise meaning of the terms, the difficulty may be cleared up. Compare Luk 11:34-36, nearly the same passage, spoken on a different occasion. The light—literally, the lamp. The word is the same as in Mat 5:15, and denotes any portable light. The eye is the lamp of the body because it is that part which gives the body light, by means of which the body sees. The word single, or, ’simple,’ represents the eye as giving one image of an object; as opposed to an eye which sees double, which gives dim, flickering images that displace one another, so that the object is not seen clearly and steadily. This last is described by a more general term as a ’bad’ eye, the Greek word commonly expressing moral evil (and the phrase is so employed in Mat 20:15 Mar 7:22), but being sometimes found in the other, which is really its primary sense, as in the phrases ’bad diet,’ ’bad health,’ ’badness of eyes,’ all employed by Plato. (Some early expositors understood it to denote moral evil here, and hence Tyndale, Great Bible, Geneva, and Darby translate ’wicked.’) Many interpreters conclude that ’single’ should be here understood as meaning a sound, healthy eye in general, as opposed to a bad, diseased one, which does not see well. But there is no support in Greek usage for such an interpretation of the word, and the Latin versions render it simplex, the Peshito gives the same sense, while the Memphitie borrows the Greek word. It is very undesirable to abandon the specific meaning of this word, which precisely suits the whole connection, and in contrast with which the general term ’bad’ will naturally here take to itself a corresponding application. The ’single’ eye forms but one image of its object, and does not blend that with the images of other objects; the ’bad’ eye forms different images of the same thing, or blends different objects in its confused vision. So the single eye really sees; while the bad eye practically does not see at all. If the eye be single, the whole body will be ’full of light,’ thoroughly light; while if the eye be bad, the whole body will be ’full of darkness,’ thoroughly dark. The light that is in thee, the lamp of the mind, or as Plato calls it, "the eye of the soul" would be our inner power of perceiving truth and duty—what we commonly call reason and conscience; and would include both the natural light which these give, and their capacity to receive the light of revelation So Philo says (following Aristotle): "For what the intellect is in the soul, that the eye is in the body." Or we might recall (Weiss) the term ’heart’ from Mat 6:21, which would then represent the mind, and amount to the same thing. Now why is it that the good eye of the illustration is specifically described as a ’single’ eye? The reason lies in that general truth with which the whole connection is dealing, viz., the propriety and necessity of exclusive regard to God. Just before, we are taught to store up heavenly and not earthly treasure, that our hearts may be in heaven, not on earth. Just after, that we cannot be the servants of both God and mammon, but must serve God alone; that we must not be anxious about temporal wants, but must seek his kingdom and the righteousness he requires, and trust his providence for the supply of temporal necessities. And so in the present passage. If the ’heart’, (Mat 6:21) the "mind’s eye," the reason and conscience, is fixed partly on God and partly on mammon, sometimes on heavenly and sometimes on earthly things, then it resembles the bad eye, which mixes images of different objects, so that we really see nothing. Epictetus expresses a similar thought by a similar image: "If you strive after moral excellence, and yet at the same time clutch at power and pelf, you will most likely lose these last from having an eye to the former also; and most certainly you will lose the former." The general thought is therefore of reason and conscience darkened, blinded—as by inheritance of faults, by miseducation, by bodily excesses, by covetousness, ambition, or other strong passions—but with special reference here to a reason and conscience divided in aim and thus darkened. The heart must be directed with exclusive and steady gaze towards God, not distracted by worldly aims and anxieties, or we shall be sadly lacking in clear perception of truth and duty. (Compare Olsh.. Alex.. Plumptre.) How great is that (the) darkness! ’That’ is an imitation of the Latin, which has no article, and sometimes overstates its meaning by a demonstrative. In the similar passage, (Luk 11:34-36) the bright side of the illustration is finally made prominent, while here it is the dark side.
Mat 6:24. A further and very distinct illustration of the same great truth, viz., the duty and necessity of exclusive devotion to God. See a similar passage in Luk 16:13, as spoken on a different occasion. No man can serve two masters. All difficulty or cavil about this statement, on the ground that there are circumstances in which a person might serve two masters, is at once set aside by observing that the word rendered ’serve’ signifies to ’be the slave of,’ a relation which necessarily implies exclusive ownership, and demands exclusive service. True, a slave might belong to two masters in partnership; but here it is obviously implied that the two are altogether opposed to each other. For the different terms rendered ’serve’ and ’servant,’ see on "Mat 8:9"; and for the various words rendered ’master,’ see on "Mat 8:19". The next words are not tautological, but have been thus explained (Meyer): "for either he will hate—A and love—B, or (on the contrary) he will hold to—A and despise—B." The change of the verbs in the second clause (instead of simply saying, "will love—A and hate—B") seems to intimate that even if he should feel no positive hatred to either of the two, he will attach himself to one, and neglect, slight, despise, the other.—Our Lord does not simply furnish the illustration, leaving it to be understood of itself, but distinctly applies it to the subject in hand. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. The word mammon is Aramaic, signifying wealth, riches. It is here personified, in being contrasted with God-as the other of two masters; but there is no sufficient evidence that mammon was, as some assert, actually worshipped as a Syrian divinity.[1] Milton personified Mammon as one of Satan’s host. (Par. Lost, Book I.)
[1] The proper spelling of the Greek, as found in nearly all MSS., would give us mamon; but it is too late to alter the English form. The etymology is most likely, as usually given, from the Hebrew aman, meaning that which props, supports, or that which is relied on, trusted. (See Grimm, Bleek, Tholuck, Achelis.) There is probably an allusion to this, in the common text of Mar 10:24, B. U. Ver "those who trust in riches"; and the words may hays been omitted in a few of the earliest documents (followed by Tischendorf and Wescott Hort) for the very reason that this allusion was not understood, and the words were not found in the parallel passages Mat 19:23 and Luk 18:24. The different etymology of Gesenius (Meyer, Keil), is much less probable, though it yields the same meaning, viz., wealth.
The Saviour does not teach that the possession of wealth is inconsistent with piety. He delighted in the friendship of the little family at Bethany, whom the circumstances show to have been wealthy (compare on Mat 26:6), and he commended Zaccheus, who gave the half (not the whole) of his goods to the poor. But he has pronounced it an impossibility to be the servants (slaves) at once of God and of mammon. Yet this is what men are constantly attempting to do, and Christians are sorely tempted to the same course. Tile Israelites of Elijah’s time did not avowedly renounce Jehovah, but tried to worship both him and Baal; and the prophet calls on them (1Ki 18:21) to decide which of the two is God, and follow him—to be one thing or the other. (Compare another striking example in 2Ki 17:24-41) So we must choose between being the servants of God and Wealth; we cannot be both. Whatever efforts we make to obtain wealth must be in entire subordination to the service of God, and, in fact, a part of that service; he alone must be Master. Porteus : "Every one has his ruling passion. That of the Christian must be the love of his Maker and Redeemer." Observe carefully that the principle here presented applies not merely to those who have great possessions, but to all. "No one can serve two masters." The poor also are tempted to make wealth a master and an idol, (Col 3:5) and sometimes do so as grievously as the rich.
Three reasons have thus been given (Mat 6:19-24) why we should be exclusively devoted to God. (1) The things of the world are so perishable. (2) If our minds are directed at the same time towards earthly and heavenly things, our view becomes distracted, confused, darkened. (3) It is impossible to be God’s servants and the servants of mammon.
Mat 6:25-34 Here the duty of entire and exclusive devotion to God (see on "Mat 6:1"and Mat 6:19) is set in opposition to worldly anxieties, which are shown to be both unnecessary, unavailing, and unbecoming; to spring from unbelief, and augment the ills of life; and it is added that by following the other course we shall gain, without anxiety, the very objects in question. The paragraph is found in Luk 12:22-31, with slight variations, as on a later occasion repeated to the disciples in the hearing of a new audience. This passage "is one of the beauties of Scripture. Had it no other recommendation than its felicity of illustration and its graces of composition, it would deserve our warm admiration; and indeed it has received the tribute of admiration from men who were only in pursuit of literary’ beauties. But it has higher qualities of excellence than these; it speaks to the understanding, and the heart, on themes of deep and universal importance."—John Harris.
Mat 6:25. Therefore, viz., because of the truth he has been enforcing (in Mat 6:19-24, but with special reference to Mat 6:24), that single-hearted devotion to God is proper and needful. Consuming anxiety about the necessaries of life, instead of trusting God, betrays the same worldly-minded and ungodly feeling that is seen in the slave of mammon Trust in God would prevent all such worldly anxieties. So the suffering Hebrew Christians, who had been plundered of their possessions, (Heb 10:34) are urged to be free from the love of money, on the ground that God has promised never to fail nor forsake his people. (Heb 13:5 f.)
Food and clothing are the most urgent wants of our earthly condition; and if we ought not to be anxious about these, much less should we be anxious about other things. Take no thought—or,be not anxious—for your life—’Take no thought’ was a good rendering when King James’ version was made (so also in 1Sa 9:5), for in Bacon, Shakespeare, and other writers of that period, ’thought’ is used as including the idea of anxiety, as when a person is said to have died of thought. Tyndale and the succeeding English versions translate ’be not careful’ in this passage, but ’take thought’ or ’take careful thought’ in Mat 6:27, Mat 6:31, and ’care,’ in Mat 6:27, Mat 6:34. The Greek verb used throughout this passage is also found (besides Luk 12:22-26) in Mat 10:19 Luk 10:41, 1Co 7:32 Php 2:20 and Php 4:6, and a few other passages; and the corresponding substantive in Mat 13:22, 1Co 11:28 (Rev. Ver.) "anxiety for all the churches," 1Pe 5:7 (Rev. Ver.),"casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you" (where careth is a different verb); Ecclus Sir 30:24, "anxiety brings old age before the time." These passages show that the word sometimes expresses a lawful feeling of intense concern, which is directed towards proper objects, kept within due bounds, and stimulates efforts to do our duty; and that this feeling becomes wrong when misdirected—or when existing in greater measure than is expended upon action, and so eating like an acid into the soul—especially when it is a feeling which springs from lack of trust in God, this last being the idea of the present connection. The term care is used by us in a similar twofold sense, expressing sometimes a right and sometimes a wrong feeling. Our Lord of course does not mean that we are to exercise no forethought, and put forth no effort. Trust in God by no means implies the lack of these. Augustine refers to a sect in his time who called themselves Euchites, or Prayer-men, because they simply prayed for everything they wanted, without labouring to attain it. This grievous folly has been reproduced by some well-meaning persons in the present generation.
The first consideration by which Jesus seeks to restrain from the anxiety just forbidden is an argument from the greater to the less. (Mat 6:25) If God has given us the greater, viz., life, the body, is he likely to withhold the less, viz., the food and the raiment? Life is the word which often denotes ’the soul,’ but in many other cases, as here, simply the vital or animating principle (compare on Mat 16:25), to sustain which there is need of food.[1] Meat—lit. as in Rev. Ver., the food. The word ’meat’ formerly signified food, but is now restricted to a particular kind of food.
[1] Some early authorities omit ’or what ye shall drink,’ and W. H. place these words in brackets; but the omission is readily explained by desire to assimilate the passage to Luk 12:22 (where also some early documents insert the words by way of assimilation to Matthew).
Mat 6:26. The second consideration is an argument from the less to the greater, and this applied first to food, (Mat 6:26) and afterwards to clothing. (Mat 6:28-30) Behold the fowls of the air—or, as in Rev. Ver., the birds of the heaven, birds that fly free in the sky, and over which men exercise no care. (Compare Mat 8:20, Mat 13:32 Gen 1:26) ’Fowls’ formerly signified birds in general, but is now restricted to a certain variety of domesticated birds. Instead of the general term ’birds,’ the similar discourse in Luk 12:24, has the specific term ’ravens.’ As sowing, reaping, and gathering into barns are the three leading processes of agriculture, we thus have it very strongly affirmed that the birds perform no part whatever of the work which men have to perform in order to obtain their food. Of course we know that the birds exert themselves; God does not feed them in idleness. But they find their food without any of our elaborate processes. The inserted ’yet’ in the Com. Version enfeebles the simple and beautiful expression. Are ye not, better, not ye; the ’ye’ being expressed in the original, and thus shown to be emphatic. Much better, Of much more value, as Com. Ver. translates the same Greek phrase in Mat 10:31. The conclusion that much more will God feed those who are greatly more important than the birds, is here left to be understood, but in the similar argument of Mat 6:30 is stated. The Mishna says, "Have you ever seen brutes or birds that had any trade? and yet they are nourished without trouble."
Mat 6:27. Before passing to the argument as to raiment, (Mat 6:28-30) our Lord pauses to add another remark to the effect that it is quite unavailing for us to be anxious about food. The general meaning is plain, but the ablest scholars of every period have been divided in opinion as to whether the leading term of the sentence here signifies stature or age. Its primary meaning and usual sense in Greek writers is the latter (so in Joh 9:21 Heb 11:11); but it is sometimes used in the former sense (Luk 19:3, and probably in Luk 2:52; while Eph 4:13 may be understood either way.) The Septuagint uses it seven times in the sense of age, and only once in that of stature. The early versions, Latin, Peshito, Memphitic, Gothic, give ’stature,’ and so do most of the Fathers, followed by all the early English versions. Yet the American Revisers translate ’the measure of his life,’ with ’stature’ in the margin; and this sense of ’age’ is more appropriate to the connection. The object of the sentence is to show that it is in vain to be anxious about food. (Mat 6:25 f.) Now few men are anxious to obtain food that they may increase their stature, but all men that they may prolong their life. This also best suits the expression in Luk 12:26, "If then ye are not able to do that which is least," since a cubit added to one’s life would be very little, while a cubit (about nineteen inches)added to the stature would be an enormous addition. It is objected that ’cubit’ is nowhere in Scripture found in this metaphorical application to the duration of life; but it is supported by the analogous expression in Psa 39:5,"Thou hast made my days as hand-breadths; and mine age is as nothing before thee"; also by the expression of a Greek poet, "For a cubit’s time we enjoy the bloom of our youth"; compare also (Achelis) Job 9:25, and the Greek phrases "a span of life" and "a finger. long day." In this state of things it is not strange that the great mass of recent commentators prefer the sense ’age.’ Morison urges that we can add to our life by carefulness; "otherwise the medical profession is an absurdity." But our efforts to do this are fruitless without God’s blessing. He thinks the idea is that we cannot enlarge ourselves, into giants; but this overlooks Luk 12:26. Still, the other sense will yield the same general meaning for the passage. With all our anxiety about food, we cannot (apart from God’s blessing) make the smallest addition to our life—or to our stature.
Mat 6:28. In Mat 6:28-30, the argument from the less to the greater is urged with reference to raiment. The lilies of the field, like ’the birds of the heaven,’ are those which grow wild without human care, and thus all the more strikingly display the care of God. We cannot determine the kind of lily meant, and the argument holds for the plainest flower as well as the most gorgeous. The writer observed in Palestine lilies of a dark violet colour, looking like violet velvet, and these might very naturally have suggested a king in his rich purple robes. Solomon’s Song (__Son 5:13) indicates coloured lilies, and Dioscorides speaks of purple lilies (Smith’s Dictionary). Tristram describes purple flowers, which he says would be popularly called lilies. The various attempts made to "spiritualize" this reference to the lily, are, as usual, wholly unwarranted and out of place. They who are not satisfied with the simple beauty of our Lord’s teaching, but must be seeking some mystical meaning which they think more pleasing and instructive, are truly attempting "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily."
Mat 6:29. Solomon in all his glory, does not directly mean in glorious apparel, but in all the glory of his royal station, wealth, and fame, which involved the use of beautiful garments.
Mat 6:30. If God so clothe—translate, clothes—indicative mood, assuming it as a fact that he does. The grass of the field. The term rendered grass includes weeds and flowers. All these wither very rapidly in the East, especially when a hot south wind is blowing; (compare Psa 90:6) and owing to the scarcity of fuel, this dried vegetation is still often used to heat ovens for baking bread. The oven, This (Smith’s Dict.) was a large jar made of clay, wider at the bottom. It was heated by placing the fuel within, and the ashes being removed through a hole at the bottom, the flat cakes of bread were spread both on the inside and the outside, and thus baked. Sometimes it was not a movable jar, but a fixture; and the primitive contrivance was probably a hole in the earth, with compacted sides. O ye of little faith, represents a single compound adjective, somewhat like little-believing, used also in Mat 8:26, Mat 14:31, Mat 16:8; in all cases with reference to distrust of God’ s protection, providential or miraculous. Unbelief is the root of the anxiety our Lord is here rebuking, as it is of every other sinful feeling; and thus we see one of the ways in which unbelief leads to unhappiness. In Talmud of Babylon, R. Eliezer says: "Whoever has a mouthful yet remaining in his basket, and says, ’What shall I eat to-morrow,’ belongs to the number of those who have little faith."
Mat 6:31-32. Therefore, viz., in view of the argument just adduced. On the ground of this, the prohibition of Mat 6:25 is repeated, and the succeeding verses append further considerations to the same effect. In Mat 6:32 there seem to be two distinct reasons for avoiding this anxiety: (l) The Gentiles (or heathen) seek after all these things, and it is unworthy of God’s people to be like them (compare on Mat 5:47); (2) our Heavenly Father knows that we have need of all these things, and we may be sure he will not fail to supply our need. Some think, however, that the second clause furnishes the ground of the first; and explain by supplying a thought, thus: The heathen seek after these things, because ignorant that God knows and cares for their wants; but do not imitate them, for your Heavenly Father knoweth, etc. (Compare Mat 6:7 f.) But it is very rarely well to explain "for" by a supposed ellipsis, and the former explanation seems preferable. Luk 12:30 has ’but,’ which gives the same idea a little differently. The verb rendered seek is a compound of that in Mat 6:33, and denotes an over-intense or anxious seeking. All these things—all the things of the class to which these (food and raiment) belong, everything of this kind, i. e., all temporal wants.
Mat 6:33. But seek ye, etc. Do not, like the heathen, seek these things, but seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and these things (emphasis here on ’these things’) shall all be added unto you. Our Lord does not simply command us to avoid worldly anxiety, but gives us something positive to do instead, as a means of precluding it. So in Php 4:6, Rev. Ver.: "In nothing be anxious; but in everything.... let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God.... shall guard your hearts," etc. So likewise above in Mat 6:20 we are to lay up treasures in heaven, instead of laying them up upon the earth. ’His kingdom.’ This evidently means the kingdom of our Heavenly Father, who is mentioned in the preceding sentence. But the Greek phrase is not so entirely explicit as the Com. Version; so some one put the word God in the margin, to explain what is meant, and it crept into the text.[1] So likewise in Luk 12:31. Seek first his kingdom, and there will be no need of afterwards anxiously seeking food and raiment, etc., for they will be added, not indeed without seeking, but without anxious seeking; and so there will in this way be no occasion left for anxiety about them. Wünsche quotes from the Talmud: "If a man occupies himself always with the law, the Eternal supplies his wishes and needs." Our Father’s kingdom is here the Messianic kingdom or reign (see on "Mat 3:2"; Mat 6:10). To seek this kingdom is to endeavour to become admitted into it, and share the privileges and duties of its subjects. But not leaving us altogether to our own conclusions as to what is involved, the Saviour here adds (not in Luk 12:31) one point more specifically, and his righteousness. This means that personal righteousness which our Father requires in the subjects of the Messianic reign, which they ought to hunger and thirst after; (Mat 5:6) which ought to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, (Mat 5:20) extending not merely to outward acts, but to the inner life of purpose and desire; (Mat 5:21-48) which ought to be practised, not with a view to the praise of men, but to the approval and rewards of the Father in heaven. (Mat 6:1-18) We must not introduce here the idea of imputed righteousness, which is foreign to the tone of this discourse, and does not distinctly appear anywhere in the Gospels, being chiefly set forth in Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Philippians. The great fact of imputed righteousness must have existed from the beginning of human repentance and forgiveness, but it does not follow that the idea was always revealed.
[1] The word God is omitted by B à., three cursives, some copies of the old Latin, and of the Vulgate, the Memphitic and Ethiopic, and by one or two Greek Fathers. We readily see how the word came in, and cannot imagine why any one should have wished to exclude it. This consideration makes the evidence sufficient for omitting it. Tyndale and Geneva have kingdom of heaven,’ which is here found only in one cursive and three Greek Fathers. Whence did they derive it?
This saying sums up the great principles of the whole passage, Mat 6:19-34, viz., things spiritual first, and things temporal will follow. He does not forbid our desiring or seeking temporal good; but says it must always be held as secondary and subordinate, to be obtained as a minor consequence of the pursuit of a higher aim. (Compare Mar 10:30; 1Ki 3:11-13) In like manner the sayings in Mat 5:48 and Mat 7:12 form, as it were, a summing up of what precedes them.
Mat 6:34. This section of the discourse now ends with a renewed injunction not to be anxious, founded on the whole previous discussion (therefore), and directed especially to anxiety for to-morrow. It is concerning the future that we are most likely to be anxious, and to-morrow is the nearest future; and yet there is special reason for avoiding this, since to-morrow will have its own anxieties, and if we anticipate them, we uselessly add to the burden of to-day. Whether to-morrow’s anxieties will be proper or improper, is not here the question; they will be felt then, and so should not be borrowed to-day. The shall of Com. Version is somewhat misleading; the Greek is a simple future, and in this connection merely predicts. For the things, etc., better as Rev. Ver., for itself. ’For the things of itself’ represents a very feebly supported reading of the Greek. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. This means not moral evil, the ordinary sense of the term, but natural evil, i. e., suffering, trouble, etc., as in Amo 3:6 Ecc 7:14, Ecc 12:1 Luk 16:25; also in 1Ma 7:23; 1Ma 10:46.
A Jewish writer (Wet.) says, "Be not anxious about what is coming, before it takes place; for there is enough of vexation in its own hour." All men observe the folly of borrowing trouble from the future, and yet we continue to do it, and even to have a large part of our distresses spring from the dread of future evil, which likely enough will never come. A French proverb says, "The worst misfortunes are those which never arrive"; and a homely English proverb, "Never cross a bridge till you get to it." Anacreon : "I care for to-day; who knows to-morrow?" Horace : "What is to be on to-morrow avoid inquiring. Whatever sort of day fortune shall give, count it gain." But there is a broad distinction between our Saviour’s teaching and such Epicurean counsels. They mean that it is foolish to harass ourselves about an unknown and uncertain to-morrow and so we must simply enjoy to-day; he, that we ought to trust in the protection and blessing of our Heavenly Father, and thus, while not heedless of the future, we may be free from anxiety about it. They say, "Tomorrow depends on chance; therefore try to forget it, and enjoy life to-day." He says, "Tomorrow and all its wants will be provided for by your Heavenly Father; therefore think of it without anxiety, and try to do right and please God to-day." On the other hand, our Lord’s teaching is very different from fatalism. He does not say, the morrow is fixed by fate, and you cannot help yourself, but speaks of the personal God, our Father, who cares for us, (1Pe 5:7) and will supply our wants.
Homiletical And Practical
Mat 6:19-21. Laying up treasures in heaven.
(1) Meaning. (2) Motives. (a) These treasures are imperishable; (b) Thus our heart will be in heaven. A Roman poet says: "A cunning thief will break your chest and carry off your money..... whatever is given to friends is beyond the reach of chance." A Jewish writer tells of a king, who was reproached for expending in time of famine the treasures of his fathers, and who replied, "My fathers collected treasures on earth, but I in heaven." Augustine: "Why do you lay up where you may lose; and where, if you do not lose, you cannot always stay? There is another place to which I will remove you. Let what you have go before, and fear not lest you lose it; I was the giver, I will be the guard." Euthym.: "That which is distributed among the poor, where is it treasured up? In heaven. How? The rewards of all this are there stored up and kept safe." Calvin: "If honour is thought to be the summum bonum, then men’s minds must be wholly possessed by ambition; if money, then avarice will at once become sovereign; if pleasure, then nothing can prevent men from degenerating into brutal indulgence."
Mat 6:22-23. Blindness.
I. Lamentable evils, (1) of bodily, (2) of spiritual blindness.
II. Responsibility. (1) Blindness of the body is usually a misfortune. (2) Blindness of the soul always involves guilt.
III. Cure. (1) In physical blindness, cure seldom natural. (2) In blindness of the soul, cure always supernatural. (3) Yet this cure may be sought from God, and means employed for promoting it. Stier: "In a certain sense and measure, indeed, must our eye, from the very beginning, be singly fixed upon God, his kingdom, and his righteousness, upon the treasures in heaven; but is it not consummate holiness when this is perfectly realized, and there is no oblique or other regard?"
Mat 6:24. The service of Mammon.
I. Nature. (1) What it is not. (2) What it is.
II. Temptations. (l) For personal gratification—of appetite, taste, social and other ambition—love of possession—love of power. (2) For benefit of others—our families—the needy around us—the great good one hopes to do after a while.
III. Some of the ways in which men try to serve Mammon and serve God also.
IV. The two hopelessly incompatible. Compare serving Jehovah and Baal. (1Ki 18:21) Whenever trying to do both, a man is, in fact, only serving Mammon—not at all serving God, and not in the highest sense benefiting himself. "Religion must be everything, or it is nothing."
A Roman writer speaks of one who did not own riches, but was owned by riches; by title a king, but in mind a miserable slave of money. Seneca: "Wealth is the slave of a wise man, the master of a fool." Plutarch speaks of Pelopidas as relieving the needy, that he might appear to be truly master of wealth, not slave. Plato: "To prize wealth, and at the same time largely acquire wisdom, is impossible, for a man necessarily disregards the one or the other."demophilus (Wet.): "For the same man to be a lover of riches and a lover of God, is impossible." Luther: "To have money and property is not a sin, only you must not let it be your master, but you must he its master." Chrys.: "How then, saith one, did Abraham, how did Job, obtain a good report? Tell me not of them that are rich, but of them that serve riches. Since Job also was rich, yet he served not Mammon, but possessed it and ruled over it, and was a master, not a slave." Achelis: "The servant of Mammon estimates persons and things according to their money value; he regards loss of money as the highest loss, gain of money as the highest gain, and money as the highest aim of life." Lutteroth: "A man will obey the master he loves; God, if he loves God more than money; money, if he loves money more than God."
Mat 6:25-34. Anxiety about temporal wants. I. Reasons for avoiding anxiety. (1) Apart from God, it is futile, Mat 6:27. (2) Trusting in God, it is needless; (a) If he cares for the life and the body, he will care for the food and raiment, Mat 6:25; (b) If he feeds his birds, he will feed his children, Mat 6:26; (c) If he clothes the lilies, he will clothe human beings, Mat 6:28-30. (3) It makes God’s people no better than heathen, Mat 6:31 f. (4) It is adding to-morrow’s evils to those of to-day, Mat 6:34. II. Means of avoiding anxiety. (1) Remember that our Heavenly Father knows our temporal needs, Mat 6:32. (2) Seek spiritual good as supreme, and temporal good will, with due exertion on our part, but without anxiety, be amply supplied, Mat 6:28. A lesson from the birds and the lilies, Mat 6:25 f. and Mat 6:28 f. Mat 6:32. God’s children should be better than the heathen. (1) Why? (2) In what respect?
Mat 6:25. Chrys.: "tie that formed the flesh that is nourished, how will he not provide the nourishment?"
Mat 6:26. Chrys.: "Even though it is theirs by nature, yet possibly we too may attain it by choice. For neither did he say, ’Behold, how the birds fly’—which were a thing impossible to man; but that they are fed without being anxious, a kind of thing easy to be achieved by us also, if we will. And this they have proved, who have accomplished it in their actions." Quesnel (in Lukett.): "Nobody ever saw an earthly father feed his birds, and abandon his children, and shall that be believed of the Heavenly Father?" Bengel: "Not their Father, but your Father." Euthym.: "So the Old Scripture, when wishing to bit men hard, sends them to the bee and the ant..... What then? Must we not sow? He did not say, ’Do not sow;’ but, ’Do not be anxious.’" Luther: "We are commanded (Gen 1:28) to have dominion over all creatures, and yet we behave so shamefully that a feeble sparrow must stand in the gospel as doctor and preacher for the wisest of men, and daily hold forth before our eyes and ears, teaching us to trust God, though we have the whole Bible and our reason to help us."
Mat 6:28. Our Lord’s manner of teaching is remarkable for the frequency with which he draws illustration from the objects of nature, the pursuits of common life, and the ordinary experiences of mankind. Every preacher of the gospel, and religious teacher of the young, should be a close observer of common things, that he may he better qualified to imitate this example of the Great Teacher.
Mat 6:31. Theophyl: "He does not forbid eating; he forbids saying, ’What shall we eat?’" Luther: "The Lord says, ’Be not careful; working is your business, caring is mine!’"
Mat 6:32. Euthym: "But if we do not even surpass the heathen, though commanded to surpass the Scribes and Pharisees, (Mat 5:20) what punishment shall we not deserve?.... So the cause of your anxiety ought to be the cause of your freedom from anxiety. The more necessary these things are, the more cheerful ought you to be. For what father will endure not to supply his children’s necessities?"
Mat 6:33. Which first, spiritual or temporal good?
I. Suppose we seek the temporal first. (1) We shall be constantly less inclined to seek the spiritual. (2) We shall be constantly less prepared to find it. (8) Soon all temporal good must be abandoned, and for us there will be no spiritual good forever.
II. Suppose we seek the spiritual first. (1) We shall not seek it in vain. (Compare Mat 7:7) (2) We shall obtain temporal good also, not without seeking, but without anxious seeking.
Mat 6:34. To-morrow. (1) We must not forget tomorrow, thinking only of to-day. The importance of to-day for civilized man is felt to lie largely in yesterday and to-morrow. (2) We must not presume on to-morrow, for we know not what morrow a day may bring forth. (Pro 27:1) (3) We must not be anxious about to-morrow, but let each day bear its own sufficient burden. (4) We shall best provide for to-morrow, by faithfully performing the duties of to-day. (5) Trusting God for to-day, why can we not trust him for tomorrow?
Mat 6:33. Euthym.: "For we have not come into existence that we may eat and drink and wear, but that we may please God, and enjoy everlasting blessings." Theophyl.: "It is enough for thee that thou art afflicted for to-day; but if thou shalt be anxious for to-morrow, when wilt thou have leisure for God?" Talmud (Wünsche): "Be not anxious for to-morrow, for thou knowest not what to-day brings forth; perhaps to-morrow will not find thee, and so thou hast troubled thyself about a world which does not pertain to thee." Antoninus: "Cast the future upon Providence and direct your present care solely towards piety and justice." Henry: "The conclusion of this whole matter then is, that it is the will and command of the Lord Jesus, that his disciples should not be their own tormentors, nor make their passage through this world more dark and unpleasant by their apprehensions of troubles, than God has made it by the troubles themselves."Chrys.: "Let us not suppose his injunctions are impossible; for there are many who duly perform them." Oh, sweet, sustaining trust in God, that can enable us to bear present ills without repining, and to look at the unknown future without fear; that can reconcile contentment with aspiration, and blend activity with repose; that can discern everywhere in nature and providence the proofs that all things are indeed working together for our good! Lord, increase our faith.
John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Treasures upon earth.
Mat_6:19
Treasures upon earth.
Read full note →
-This does not discourage diligent endeavour for the body which is necessary; industry, which is one part of duty. We are not to over-value even these valuable possessions.
I. Here is an exhortation to duty.
1. What are these treasures?
2. What is implied by laying up treasures in heaven?
(1) By fleeing from the wrath to come, the Christian is laying up heavenly treasure.
(2) By endeavouring to secure an interest in Christ.
(3) By setting his affection on things above.
(4) By having his conversation there.
II. The encouragements reenforce the duty of laying up treasure in heaven.
1. No thieves deprive them of their property.
2. Are you trading for that better world? (Dr. Fisher.)
Treasures in heaven
The love of accumulation is a principle in our nature; no man free from its fascination. The only true investment for an immortal being must be in eternity. Everything done for Gods grace and glory is like something planted out of this world into the soil of another state. It is a deposit which will appear again. Take an instance of the way in which Christians may lay up treasures in heaven.
1. By selecting for our friends and companions those who are children of God, so that each departing one is an actual increase of the holy treasure which is awaiting us in another state. To Christian man, death only sweeps the field to house the harvest. The treasures of his heart are only locked up from him for a little while, to be opened presently, in greater loveliness, where everything is real, and every reality is for ever. It will be our greatest joy to meet in heaven those to whom we have been useful in this life.
2. The motive of any action will carry it higher than its present and visible scope. Every man has his time, talents, influence, and money, as working materials. If he so use these that he is constantly considering their value for eternity, he is putting treasure in Gods bank.
3. It is the power of faith to appropriate everything it grasps. You send on your affection to occupy heaven; you have a present enjoyment of your reversion. You increase your treasure in heaven by continued acts of faith in Jesus Christ.
4. By thus throwing yourself into another world this life will appear an impoverishment thing. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Earthly and heavenly treasures
I. The treasures referred to.
1. The treasures of earth are evanescent.
2. The lawful possession of earthly treasures is no sin.
3. The text does not object to your getting rich in a righteous way.
II. Lay up treasures in heaven.
1. Because its bank is strong in its independence. Banks and firms are much like ninepins with which children play; when one pin falls the others fall also. But as for the bank of heaven, it is strictly independent; it is the only bank of its kind in the universe.
2. Because the omniscience of the Banker is the very best security. Could men foresee financial disaster they would avoid it.
3. Because this bank can never be broken into.
4. It is the only bank that can help you at death. You cannot very well trade in France with English money. You must change it into French money. But no earthly bank can change its coin so as to ferry you across Jordan.
5. Bank not with evil any longer. (J. O. Davis.)
Toys must not be counted treasures
A lady once asked two little boys who were amusing themselves with some beautiful playthings, Well, boys, these are your treasures, I suppose-your greatest treasures. No, maam, said the elder boy, these are not our treasures, they are our playthings; our treasures are in heaven. A noble answer from a child. Oh, my congregation, let us treat gold and silver and precious stones as toys, and let us treat moral goodness, spiritual beauty, righteousness of heart, Christlikeness, Godlikeness, as our only treasures worthy the name! (J. O. Davis.)
Treasures in heaven
Have a deposit on earth, if you must or can; but let your chief banking be in heaven. (H. W. Beecher.)
Heavenly mindedness
I. The conduct prohibited.
1. The heart of man is the governing principle of his actions.
2. This too high estimation of the things of the world leads to an undue degree of solicitude for their acquisition, which the precept under consideration is designed to repress.
II. The opposite duty which we are required to discharge.
1. The objects exhibited to our attention-Treasures in heaven.
2. The exhortation to secure an interest in this felicity.
III. The satisfactory reasons on which these directions are founded.
1. The uncertainty of earthly good.
2. The reality of that which is Divine.
3. And the powerful influence which our possessions have over our affections. Learn:
1. The folly of the worldly-minded man.
2. The wisdom of true piety. (J. E. Good.)
Our treasures to be raised higher
The Rev. Ashton Oxenden quotes from an old writer an illustration of this precept. He says, We need not lose our riches, but change their place. Suppose a friend should enter thy house, and should find that thou hadst lodged thy fruits on a damp floor; and suppose he knew the likelihood of those fruits to spoil, and should therefore give thee some such advice as this-Brother, thou art likely to lose the things which thou hast gathered with great labour. Thou hast placed them on a damp floor. In a few days they will corrupt. You would inquire, What shall I do? And he would answer, Raise them to a higher room. If wise, you would instantly act upon this advice. So Christ advises us to raise our riches from earth to heaven.
No man ever went to heaven whose heart was not there before
These words.
I. As an entire proposition in themselves.
1. Every man has something which he accounts his treasure or chief good. This is apparent-
(1) From the activity of mans mind;
(2) From the method of his acting,
2. Whatsoever a man places his treasure in, upon that he places his heart also.
(1) A restless and laborious endeavour to possess himself of it.
(2) He places his whole delight in it.
(3) He supports his mind from it in all his troubles.
(4) For the preservation of that he will part with all else besides.
II. As an argument. Two rivals for the affections; man cannot fix on both.
1. Consider how far inferior the world is to mans heart. Its enjoyments are
(1) Indefectible;
(2) Endless;
(3) Not to be taken away. (Dr. South.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 19. Lay not up treasures on the earth. This…
19. Lay not up treasures on the earth. This forbids, not the laying up of treasures, but laying them up on the earth; that is, the piling up of worldly wealth for worldly purposes. Riches are no sin in themselves, but the improper use of riches is a sin. Where moth and rust corrupt. Unused garments often become moth-eaten; unused coin sometimes rust. All earth treasure will finally perish. Thieves break through. Literally, “dig through.” Often robbers in the East dig through the house walls of mud or unburnt brick.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Mat_6:19-20. Lay not up … lay up. An instance…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_6:19-20. Lay not up … lay up. An instance of “the idiom of exaggerated contrast.” A literal compliance with the negative half of this precept would discourage thrift, destroy commerce, and deprive the world of the manifold benefits of capital. It is plain that our Lord, in contrasting the two kinds of treasures, uses this emphatic idiom in order to point out in the most forcible way the kind which is beyond measure the more important (J. G. Carleton). Rust.—Money was frequently buried in the ground in those unsettled times, and so would be more liable to rust. Banks in the modern sense were unknown (Carr).
Read full note →
Mat_6:22. Light.—Lamp (R.V.). The eye is not itself the light, but contains the light: it is the “lamp” or candle of the body, the light-conveying principle (ibid.). Full of light.—As it were all eye (Benyel).
Mat_6:23. Evil.—I.e. affected with disease. The whole passage is on the subject of singleness of service to God (ibid.). How great is that darkness?—As the conscience is the regulative faculty, and a man’s inward purpose, scope, aim in life, determine his character, if these be not simple and heavenward, but distorted and double, what must all the other faculties and principles of our nature be, which take their direction and character from these, and what must the whole man and the whole life be, but a mass of darkness? (Brown).
Mat_6:24. No man can serve two masters.—The application of the foregoing. Mammon.—Or mamon, was a common word in the East, among Phœnicians, Syrians and others, signifying material riches or worldly wealth. It is here personified, as a kind of god of this world (Morison).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_6:19-24
The evils of covetousness.—The great Teacher passes here from one snare to another; from the danger of thinking too much of the praises of men to that of thinking too much of the riches of earth. When we make them our “treasure”—when we so delight in them that we always long to have more of them—that is the evil meant here. Against this “covetousness,” this craving for more, we are here warned, as being at once:
1. A great folly.
2. A greater danger.
3. A deadly offence.
I. A great folly.—This folly is shown, first, in regard to that which this spirit seeks. Is it not foolish, indeed, to make that our “treasure” which we can never reckon on keeping; which nature herself is bent on “corrupting” by all sorts of agencies which cannot be guarded against by our powers; and which the envy and covetousness of other men always desires to appropriate (Mat_6:19)? Probable disappointment, more probable loss, certain anxiety, are the necessary results of so doing. Next, in regard to that which it misses. It misses that “treasure in heaven,” which can always be attained through the gospel; which never decays because there is nothing to defile it (cf. 1Pe_1:4), and is never stolen because there are none to steal it. Here is the vital difference between these two aims. In earthly riches my gain is another man’s loss. In heavenly riches my gain is my neighbour’s gain too. As a mere question of prudence, therefore, seek earnestly for this heavenly treasure, and “covet” nothing beside.
II. A greater danger.—When men do bring themselves, notwithstanding all this, to prefer earthly riches to heavenly, how is it done? It is done, as it can only be done, by shutting their eyes to the truth. The “deceitfulness” of such “riches,” to use the Saviour’s own words (Mat_13:22), blinds their minds on the subject. In other words, they bring themselves to the conclusion spoken of, by contriving to see only what they wish to see in the matter; and so, in regard to it, are without that “single” eye of which the Saviour here speaks (Mat_6:22). But this is a kind of process which cannot be made to terminate when and as we desire. If we thus pervert the instrument we look through in order only to see what we wish to see in one direction, it will inevitably, of course, do the same when we look in another. There is no direction, in fact, in which we can rely upon it, where such is the case; and no use we can make of it which, in the end, will not rather obscure than enlighten. Such is the result of trifling, in any way, with the light; and of wilfully looking at things, as covetousness does, as they are not. No darkness can be at once more complete and more dense (Mat_6:22-23). Who can, in anything, trust a judgment which has brought itself thus to think of earth as being higher than heaven?
III. A deadly offence.—We say this because there is more in this matter than mere perversion of judgment. Such intellectual misjudging implies also perversion of will. Devotion to wealth is more than an error—more even than such an error as leads to worse error in turn—it is also a sin. It is a sin, first, because it robs God of His due. What we ought to live for—what we ought to devote ourselves to—is obtaining His favour. If we devote ourselves to money-getting instead, we make money-getting our “god.” This is why covetousness (or πλεονεξία) is so often spoken of in the Bible as idolatry (Eph_5:5); and why both it and idolatry are so often compared in the Bible to the sin of unfaithfulness in the marriage relation (ibid.; 1Co_5:11, etc.). It is like a man’s taking away from his wife that exclusive love which he has promised to give her wholly all the days of his life. Also, this covetousness is sin because it transfers to the creature what it thus abstracts from the Creator (cf. Rom_1:25); and because it does so, also, to a creature or idol of a peculiarly contemptible kind. Is not this true of this money-greediness, this craving to grasp, this utter concentration on self? And is not this proved, also, by the very name we give to a man utterly under its power. We call him—and we call him rightly—a “miser” or “wretch.” We call him so because it is to such a “wretch” of an idol that he bows himself down. Hence, therefore, the peculiar offensiveness of this kind of spiritual “adultery,” and the utter impossibility of combining it with the worship of God. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Mat_6:24). Even if such double worship were possible in other cases, it would be out of the question in this.
This very difficult lesson, for such it is to us, may be further confirmed by remembering:—
1. Who traversed it at the time.—Viz. about the most unreliable teachers ever known in the world (see Luk_16:14; Mat_23:16-17; Mat_23:19).
2. Who afterwards received it.—Viz. the wisest teachers, after Christ, ever known in the world. Not at first, indeed, even they, when only partly knowing the truth (Mat_19:23-25); but afterwards, when fully knowing the truth (Luk_24:44-48; Joh_16:12-13), acting on it in full (Act_3:6; 1Pe_1:18; 1Pe_5:2); also, through their example (Act_2:44-45; Heb_10:34; Heb_13:5); also in the case of one afterwards added to their number (1Ti_6:5-10; Php_4:11; Php_4:18). And thereby, indeed, only reviving, and as it were countersigning, that ancient deed and distinction of Psa_10:3, “blessing the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth.”
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_6:19-21. Warning against greed.—Christ does not speak against material wealth; rather He implies in the text and words of similar meaning, that His disciples are not forbidden to accumulate the things of this world. Capital and property are necessary to social progress, civilisation, evangelisation, and the temporal well-being of mankind. But He does speak against making a god of them, and in all His teaching strikes deeply at the worldly-mindedness and disposition of those who are absorbed in “greed of gain.” Observe:
I. The treasures referred to.—Two kinds—“treasures upon earth” and “treasures in heaven,” The words contain an antithesis—
1. As to their nature.—“The treasures upon earth” are not only earthly, but earthy. “They are but earth, and it is but upon earth they are laid up,” including costly dresses and all worldly possessions. In eastern countries they treasured up gold, silver, precious stones, corn, wine, oil, and garments. To gain these the most sacred things often were bartered. So now. Character and most sacred rights have been and are sold to gain earthly treasures. But “treasures in heaven” are absolutely different in nature and tendency, and inestimably more valuable, and hence should be more diligently sought after.
2. As to their influence upon character.—“For where your treasure is” etc. This is important, for it shows clearly that wherever the heart is the man is. The betting man is at the Derby, the mercenary in his office, the politician in the strifes of ambition, etc. But if the treasure be in heaven there is a transformation.
3. As to the nature of the places where these treasures are laid up.—Which is the best place to treasure up in—“earth” or “heaven”?
(1) Earthly treasures are precarious at best. Think of the risks, etc. Riches of grace and everlasting peace and happiness are in Christ, which are the true and lasting wealth and glory of the Christian man. Paulinus, when he was told that the Goths had sacked Noia and plundered him of all that he had, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Lord, Thou knowest where I have laid up my treasure.” It was in heaven—the right place, the only safe place.
(2) Earthly treasures are perishable—“moth and rust corrupt.” But spiritual treasures are absolutely secure and imperishable.
II. The exhortation enjoined.—“Lay up.” The love of accumulation is so strong in our nature that it behoves us to beware continually in “laying up earthly treasures” that we do not become avaricious and miserly. The prohibition, “lay not” has reference to that kind of spirit; for the more we gain and possess, the more we shall love that gain, until we become fully absorbed in it, make a god of it, and worship it. The whole of life is a treasuring up for eternity, either character “unto eternal life,” or “wrath against the day of wrath.” Use your time, your talents, your influence, your money, your life to this great and glorious end—the chief end of being.—J. Harries.
Treasures in heaven.—
I. The character of the covetous man.—He lays up for himself treasures upon earth, and not in heaven.
1. Our hearts are too much set on the world if we are strongly bent and resolved to be rich (1Ti_6:9).
2. If we make too much haste to be rich (Pro_28:20).
3. If we look on our neighbour’s thriving and prosperity with envy and discontent.
4. When we contemplate our own wealth and flourishing circumstances with too much complacence and delight. Good men delight themselves in God.
5. When we come to put our trust and confidence in our wealth; like the rich man in the Gospel, who trusted more in his full barns than in God.
6. When our time, thoughts, projects, etc., are spent chiefly on worldly things.
7. When upon any great losses, or even poverty itself coming upon us, we grow angry, peevish, and discontented.
8. Whenever, to save or increase our wealth, we betray our duty and conscience (1Ti_6:10; 2Ti_4:10).
II. Our Saviour’s dissuasive from this practice of the covetous man.—“Lay not up,” etc.
III. The reasons of this exhortation.—
1. The one is an earthly, the other a heavenly treasure.—
(1) The gross, earthly nature of these blessings. We may as well think to make fish feed upon grass and corn, and oxen live upon water and mud like fish, as to make men happy only with worldly things.
(2) But suppose they were ever so well fitted to make us happy during our stay in this world, how small a part of man’s immortal duration is included in this present life!
2. The earthly treasure is liable to perishing by divers accidents.—Some native, breeding in itself, such as moth and rust which corrupt it; some foreign, as thieves that break through and steal it; whereas the heavenly treasures are secure.
(1) They are fitted for our heaven-born souls.
(2) They last for ever.
(3) They are subject to no accidents, either of inward corruption or external violence.
3. If our treasures are upon earth they will draw our hearts after them and make them earthly too.—Consider:
(1) The influence our treasure has upon our hearts, to draw them after it. The heart runs out naturally after that which it loves best.
(2) The influence the heart has on the whole man, to govern all his thoughts, words, and actions. As the mainspring of the heart goes, the man thinks, contrives, speaks, and acts.
(3) From whence the conclusion follows very naturally, that the laying up our treasure on earth makes us worldly, and forgetful of heaven; and that the laying up our treasure in heaven makes us of a heavenly temper, and reforms the whole heart and life.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Treasure.—According to our Lord’s metaphor, His followers are to treasure up treasures in heaven. This cannot mean to wish for high seats in heaven, with great lustre and distinction for themselves, for such desires may indicate nothing more than a new form of selfishness. The treasure must be of a more spiritual character, and such as a lowly heart may crave. It must be riches towards God and in God. It must mean the satisfaction of longings of the human spirit which the world cannot meet. It must be treasure of a calm conscience and a holy mind, resting in the love of God and sustained by the fellowship of the Spirit. The portion of the wise deserves to be called treasure because it is:—
I. Precious, as meeting not the fancy of a day or even the wants of the passing years, but the most profound requirements of the human soul, and that, too, when Divine regenerating grace has made it capable of eternal life and joy.
II. Secure, as laid up in heaven above the risk of loss.
III. Capable of indefinite increase.—D. Fraser, D.D.
The passion for hoarding.—In one of the best of his essays Montaigne tells how a passion for hoarding money possessed him at one period of his life, and plunged him in continual solicitude. “After you have once set your heart upon your heap it is no more at your service; you cannot find in your heart to break it; ’tis a building that you fancy must of necessity all tumble down to ruin if you stir but the least pebble.”—Ibid.
Dr. South’s sermon.—In the year 1699, Dr. South preached on this theme before the University of Oxford. The sermon appears in his works under the title, “No man ever went to heaven whose heart was not there before.”—Ibid.
Mat_6:21. The heart and the treasure.—The heart follows the treasure, as the needle follows the loadstone, or the sunflower the sun.—M. Henry.
Mat_6:22-23. Singleness of aim in the kingdom of God.—The text bears on what went before, which is, that the supreme attraction of the heart should be spiritual and heavenly and not secular and earthly. And it bears also on what follows, viz. that right and acceptable service in the kingdom of God must be a single service.
I. The truth here taught.—“The light of the body is the eye.” This expression is misleading. Literally interpreted, it is not correct. The eye is not the light, but it is the medium of light to the body, it is the window that admits light. The human eye is the most striking feature in the human constitution. It is the closest to the soul. Hence, spiritually, the great truths suggested by the text. Notice:
1. The soul of man has perceptive faculties—the spiritual eye of his moral constitution. Some say that this “eye” is the intellect, whereby we discover causes and effects, and trace their logical relation, processes, and products. But it is not the mere intellect that is suggested by the figure “eye.” Some say it is conscience, whereby we arrive at the knowledge of things unseen, the conception of God, of moral truth, and spiritual force, by which we judge of acts as right or wrong, and by which we discover the reality of the moral law and determine our character according to that law. But it cannot mean any one faculty, but the seat of all faculties and affections, purposes and inclinations; the undivided spirituality of our being, represented again and again in Scripture, as the heart.
2. The heart, the organ of sight, requires light.—We have only to open our hearts and Christ, the Light, enters.
3. The organ of sight is subject to disease.—Spiritually, there is one word expressive of moral darkness and blindness, viz. sin. No man can see either earth or sky aright, God, truth, or man aright, if the coloured glass of self is always in the window.
II. The condition specified.—“If thine eye be single,” etc. The idea conveyed by the singleness of eye is threefold:
1. Oneness.—The contemplation of one object. The heart bent on one thing.
2. Clearness.—When the eye is directed singly and steadily towards an object, and is in health, everything becomes clear, distinct, and plain.
3. Concentration.—The eye is “single” when it not only sees or lives for one thing, but also when it concentrates all its power in one direction. All thoughts and all actions are focussed in one object.
III. The inevitable result.—“The whole body shall be full of light.”
1. The blessed state of those in the kingdom of God whose aim is single.—The light of personal knowledge of salvation. The light of holiness—purity of heart. The light of peace and joy.
2. The awful result of “the evil eye.”—Full of darkness. Dark in himself and dark to every good around. He may be a man of talent, and learning, and genius, and yet blind spiritually. Darkness is a symbol of misery, adversity, and death; of ignorance and alienation, from the darkness of death to the “outer darkness.”—J. Harries.
The single and the evil eye.—
I. There is an inward light of the mind and conscience, which is to direct the moral part of our actions, as the eye directs the external motions and actions of the body.
II. Every evil affection obscures this inward light, that it cannot so well perform its duty, but is apt to mislead us into sinful courses.
III. This is particularly verified in the evil affection of covetousness or worldly-mindedness.
IV. When the inward light of the mind and conscience is darkened, this occasions a vast number of other errors and follies in the life and conversation.
V. It is our duty to use our utmost endeavours, to keep that inward light free from all clouds of evil affections and inclinations, that it may give us clear direction in all duty; and to follow those good directions in our life and conversation.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Mat_6:22. The single eye.—The idea conveyed by a “single eye” appears to be, from its etymology, threefold. First, it means clear, with no film; secondly, it means in opposition to double, seeing one object at a time; and thirdly, it means concentration, centred upon a focus. These three thoughts mainly go to make up the word “single,”—distinctness, oneness, fixedness.
I. Many things may give a dulness to the moral sight.
1. If it be impaired by disuse.—If you do not exercise the spiritual perception which God has given you, by meditation, by prayer and religious thought, then the perception must grow weak.
2. Things coming in between, veil and darken that higher vision. A worldly life is sure to do it. Much care will do it. Luxury will do it. But, still more, any wilful unbelief or any strong prejudice.
II. A clear eye must be often cleared.—It is the great secret of a happy, holy life—to have made up your mind, once and for all, to live for one thing—to do what is right, and to live to the glory of God. And then upon that one object you must concentrate yourself.
III. There are two worlds around us—a seen world and an unseen world; and we move equally in the midst of both. And the unseen system is far more beautiful, and far grander and more important than the system that we see. The seen is mainly the type and the shadow of the unseen. It is the unseen which is the real, for that unseen is for ever and ever. But it is not all of us who see the unseen. Few of us are seeing the unseen very distinctly, and none of us are seeing it as we might; and the reason is the state of the eye of the soul, which is as really an eye to see the unseen as that natural eye by which you gaze upon a star or by which you admire a flower.—J. Vaughan, M.A.
Mat_6:23. The evil eye.—The eye which is sharp for self-interest is dimmed for moral insight.—W. Jackson, M.A.
Mat_6:24. One Master only in the kingdom of heaven.—These words of the great Teacher plainly indicate not only, as in the previous verses, that the aim of the true disciple in the kingdom should be “single,” but also that the service must be single, the motive single, the purpose single, the object single, and the Master single. The object we love most rules us. Robert Hall once wrote the word “God” on a small slip of paper, showed it to a friend, and asked whether he could read it. He replied “Yes.” He then covered the word with a guinea, and again asked “Can you see it?” and was answered “No.” He did this in order to show his friend how easy it is for the world to shut out of the mind a sight and sense of God.
I. The great principle here emphasised.—“No man can serve two masters.” “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” We desire to show the impossibility of serving two masters—God and mammon.
1. Philosophically.—Dr. Brown’s and Dugald Stewart’s proposition is irrefutable—“That the mind cannot exist, at the same moment, in two different states,” proving, so far, the great maxim of the text, that, if the mind cannot exist in two different states at the same moment, it cannot be heavenly and worldly at the same time. We cannot concentrate our mind, which is indivisible, upon more than one object. Sir Isaac Newton, it is said, was so absorbed in his endeavour to discover the law of gravitation that he knew not his surroundings; could not hear or recognise the voice and calls of his wife; and when one morning he was roasting before a big fire he called the servant to move the fire back. The servant said, “Please move back your chair, sir.” “Ah,” replied the great man, “I did not think about that!” A man must have two hearts, two souls, and two selves, before he can give a heart to God and a heart to the world too. The utter impossibility of serving two masters, God and mammon, is further shown:—
2. Morally.—
(1) God and mammon are absolutely opposites.
(2) The interests of the two are absolutely diverse.
(3) The effects of the two are absolutely different. “For either he will hate the one and love the other.” The chief point of our Lord is that the man of the world cannot be truly religious; that is, the man that makes worldly gain supreme—such a man, generally speaking, hates religion.
II. The important truths here implied.—The key-word is “serve.” A man may try to serve God and mammon, because self is so dear, and the world is so sweet; but Jesus Christ shows that even the attempt is an absurdity. The practical truths inferred are—
1. That religion is a spiritual service.
2. That religion demands one supreme object.—“Serve God.”
3. That religion requires wholeness of heart in its service.
4. That religion implies the power of choice.—God or mammon. Which?
5. That religion teaches and enforces the necessity of immediate and manly decision.—We act upon decisions. When Alexander the Great was asked how he conquered the world, he answered, “By not delaying.”—J. Harries.
Neutrality.—“Of all unsuccessful men in any shape, whether Divine, human, or devilish,” says a secular historian, “there is no equal to Bunyan’s ‘Facing-both-ways’; the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on earth, who sincerely professes one thing and sincerely does another, and from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the contradiction; he is substantially trying to cheat both God and the devil, and in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This, of all characters upon the earth, appears to us to be one of which there is no hope at all—a character becoming in these days alarmingly abundant.” Now, no one who. has learnt the lesson of the gospel will say of any character that there is no hope for it at all But it is true that this class of characters, the insincere professors, the Mr. Anythings, are hardest of all to deal with.
I. The characteristics of neutrality.—Scripture is full of indications of the peril and shame of this compromise—e.g. Samaritans, Israelites, Laodiceans, Balaam, Pilate, young ruler who made “the great refusal.” And Scripture being thus full of warnings, the significance of those warnings has not been lost upon the great Christian teachers—e.g. Dante, Bunyan (man with the muck rake). In the precincts of this insincere religion good and evil are not wrestling as they should be, shoulder to shoulder, in an irreconcilable antagonism, but they are feebly walking together, hand in hand, in futile amity.
II. The causes of neutrality.—Mainly two.
1. Indolence and unbelief.
2. Some besetting sin.—With one man it is drink, with another it is gold, with another it is envy, hatred, or refusal to forgive; with others it is impurity. And thinking that they can give the rest of their heart to God, men try to reserve this one dark corner, this one secret chamber of unhallowed imagery for their own idolatry. St. Augustine tells us, in his terrible Confessions, that in his unconverted days he used indeed to pray to God to deliver him from lusts of the flesh, but he prayed with the great desire that God would not hear him yet, because he still desired to live in their base indulgence.
III. The issue of neutrality.—Death. The poet saw in the lowest hell the soul of the Prior Elbrigo, and was amazed because he knew that the man was still alive; but when he asks for explanation he receives the awful answer that sometimes a man seems to live above, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and put on clothes, but in reality his soul is sunk down even in his life-time into the abyss; he has become that most fearful kind of ghost—not a soul without a body, but a body without a soul. Give up this shameful attempt to deceive God by semblances and shams! Be not like that Dead Salt Sea, of which it has been said that it reflects heaven on its surface and hides Gomorrha in its heart.—Archdeacon Farrar.
Mammon the greatest of all idols.—
1. The idol of all times.
2. The idol of all nations.
3. The idol of all unconverted hearts.
4. The origin of all idolatry.
5. The first and the last among all the hidden idols of God’s people, both under the Old and the New Testament.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Mat_6:24-34. Greed and care.—On the one side must be shunned the Scylla of greed, on the other the Charybdis of care.—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Section 4. (Mat 6:19-34.)
Section 4. (Mat 6:19-34.)
The way amid the temptation of the world.
Read full note →
4. We pass now out of the sanctuary into the world, but carrying with us the sanctuary still, as Israel did in their journey through the wilderness. The way is thus not merely marked out morally for us, but we are empowered also for it; and we need this, for, wilderness as it is, the trials of the way are real ones, and if they are not in the way of allurement, the allurements of Egypt are felt through them, as we see with Israel. "The leeks, and the onions and the garlic" - earthy enough and never much above the earth, - displace (for they only compete with by displacing) the "bread from heaven;" and it is to Egypt that the heart turns back.
(1) Here we have the remedy for it all: a word which, if it could be spoken to a Jewish remnant in view of millennial blessing, is so fully and transparently our own as Christians that the natural thing is to take it as if it had no other application. Yet, for those who are to inherit the earth, in the day to which all this looks forward, there will be abundant need to lay up their treasures in heaven, in the care of Him who is coming to give reward to His saints, and while the earth is yet vibrating with shocks of upheaval, such as the Old and New Testaments combine to assure us will be, and which God will use also to make the frightened hind to calve (Psa 29:9, see notes) - the nation of Israel thus to be born spiritually, as in one day (Isa 66:8).
From this, however, without losing sight of it, we may turn to consider our Lord’s words in the way most profitable to ourselves; and here, as I have said, all is transparent. Heaven is where we belong; the earth is simply what we are traveling through. Our need and our privilege are one - to have our treasures there where nothing decays or corrupts, and where nothing can deprive us of them. Not only shall we then not lose the treasures, but the heart too will rest in undisturbed security, outside all alarms, and our feet will not be endangered by a loss of balance.
Let us note well that the Lord says, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be." He does not say, "ought to be," but "will." We are not allowed to escape with the easy assurance that what we are diligently accumulating our hearts are not engaged with. Why, then, accumulate it? We should say of a man who was heaping up sticks and straws and rubbish, that he was a maniac. But to him, nevertheless, the worthless pile is valuable; and that you can argue most surely from the fact of the accumulation. Who would not change worthless paper into good security? and this we are privileged to do; while treasure in heaven will keep the heart there, and draw the feet on to where the heart is.
And this alone gives a single eye: there is no confusion, no distraction of vision; no unsteadiness therefore, or uncertainty. The eye is the lamp of the body; not the light, but what holds and fixes the light. The light comes from elsewhere: the organ of perception does not create the light, but receives it. The light for us is in the Word alone: it is this that judges and makes plain; but there must be spiritual reception and, for this, capacity of reception, which the Lord indicates here, as it is stated by the apostle (Eph 1:18, R.V.) to be in the heart and its condition. With the heart set on things above, the eye is single and clear: God is before it, and in His light we see light. Then the whole body becomes full of light:* the hands and feet have plenty of it for work and walk. On the contrary, if the eye be evil, the very light may blind one; and when the word of God becomes this, how great may the resulting darkness become.
{*Not "luminous," as it has been strangely taken: for this is never the effect of the eye receiving light.}
(2) Separate interests distract thus and divide the heart. God and mammon - that is, the treasures of earth personified and viewed as an idol, - each claim the man in ways entirely incompatible with one another. Such service, if attempted, can only be a form on one side. One master will be despised, if not hated. "He who will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God;" he who cleaves to God will despise all the world can offer. Yet how many are seeking to unite things that cannot be united! the result being only a halting inconsistency of life in which the Christian side is necessarily that which suffers eclipse.
(3) But are there not, in going through the world, necessities which demand one’s attention; from which one cannot escape, and which tend to such distraction as this, even when the heart would gladly be free? Yes, surely; but there is a remedy also, which is an effectual one, - a sanctuary-refuge which faith finds ever open: it is the apprehension of a Father’s care, of which His creatures preach incessantly. The birds of heaven are fed, and we are of more value: the life, indeed, of too great value to make it a question of the food by which it is sustained; or the body, of what it may be clothed with.
(4) The human impotence that we feel has its own instruction. All one’s anxiety cannot add a cubit to the stature; and how much there is in this way for which we are absolutely dependent on the will of another! why not, then, leave all things to Him to whom we have to leave so much, and who clothes the perishing lilies of the field with a glory greater than Solomon’s? The weakness of a man’s faith is the only really sorrowful weakness, after all.
(5) And here, the Lord appeals to us, whether those who know God are to find His presence with them count for anything or not. The Gentiles, away from God, seek after these things as His people do; but we have a Father in heaven who knows our need. We have but to set the heart on His things, and let Him take the burden of ours. Seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness, all these things shall be added to us.
(6) Finally, He gives us a limit for care, which by itself would very much exclude it. How much of the burden that we carry belongs really to the morrow, - a burden not yet legitimately ours: for who can really tell what shall be on the morrow? Each day will have its own sufficient evil - not too much, for a careful hand has apportioned it: but by borrowing trouble not yet come, we not only necessarily make the burden of the day too heavy, but we cannot reckon upon divine grace for that which is not come, and bear it thus so far without assistance. Nay, we have lost Him from our thoughts in all this calculation of the unknown future which is in His hands. How often has love in the most undreamed of way, disappointed all our fears!
In all this it is not taking thought for the morrow that is forbidden us, but taking care, (in the full sense of care). The word used has been claimed in these different senses by different interpreters; but it certainly is derived from one* which suggests "division," and so "distraction" of heart; and this is completely in accordance with the warning about singleness of eye and divided service. Moreover, James, where he is speaking explicitly of the boasting of those who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain," corrects such a speech in this manner, that "ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that" (Jas 4:13; Jas 4:15). He blames only the confident assurance of the speech, and not all "taking thought for the morrow." This, in fact, should be evident: the whole current of our lives would be changed by the contrary supposition, which those who make it have immediately and seriously to modify.
{*Merimnao from merizo.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XLII. F. Heavenly…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XLII. F. Heavenly Treasures].
XLII. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (A Mountain Plateau not far from Capernaum.) Subdivision F. SECURITY OF HEAVENLY TREASURES CONTRASTED \line WITH EARTHLY ANXIETIES. aMATT. VI. 19-34.
Read full note →
a19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal. [In our Lord's time banks, such as we have, were unknown, and in order to keep money its possessor frequently buried it, thus subjecting it to rust and corrosion. The havoc caused by moths is too familiar to need comment ( Jam_5:2). Costly and ornamental apparel was reckoned among a man's chief treasures in olden times. See Jos_7:21, 2Ki_5:5, Luk_16:19. Oriental houses were frequently made of loose stone or sun-dried bricks, so that the thief found it easier to enter by digging through the wall than by opening the barred door. A too literal compliance with this negative precept would discourage thrift. The precept is not intended to discourage the [255] possession of property in moderation, but it forbids us to hoard for selfish purposes, or to look upon our possessions as permanent and abiding. The lives of many men of our day seem to be employed to no other purpose than that of amassing an abundance of earthly treasure. But no true Christian can envy them, or follow their example]: 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal [As the impossibility of hoarding earthly treasures is in the Mat_6:19 urged as a reason against it, so in this verse the possibility of amassing perpetual possessions in heaven is set forth as the reason why we should do it. Thus the striking contrast between the two kinds of treasures is brought to our notice, so that it is the height of folly not to make a proper choice between them]: 21 for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. [Having contrasted the two treasures, Jesus here suggests the contrast between the two places where they are stored up. Since the heart follows the treasure, that it may dwell with the object of its love, we should place our treasures in heaven, even if the treasures there were no better than the treasures on earth; for it is better that our hearts should abide in the city of God than on this sinful earth.] 22 The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! [In these two verses there is a brief allegory, the meaning of which is to be ascertained from the context. The subject under consideration is the propriety of laying up treasures, not on earth, but in heaven, and the effect which treasures have upon the heart. Now, the heart or affection is to the soul much the same as the eye is to the body. If we do not set our affections upon spiritual things, the time quickly comes when we can not see them ( 1Co_2:14, Joh_3:19-21). Jesus therefore represents our affections as if they were an eye. If the eye is single--i. e., [256] if it sees nothing with a double or confused vision--then the man receives through it clear views of the outside world, and his inner man is, so to speak, full of light. But if his eye is diseased or blinded, then his inner man is likewise darkened. Applying the allegory to the spiritual man, if his heart is single in its love toward God and the things of God, then he has clear views as to the relative importance and value of things temporal and eternal, things earthly and things heavenly. But if the heart looks with a double interest upon both earthly and heavenly treasure, it makes the man double-minded ( Jam_1:6-8), and so spoils his life. God does not permit a double affection any more than he does a double service, and a man who seeks to continue in it will soon be visited with great darkness as to the things of God, and will become blind in heart and conscience-- Rom_1:21-25.] 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. [Mammon was a common Chaldee word used in the East to express material riches. It is here personified as a kind of god of this world. Jesus here assumes that we are framed to serve ( Gen_2:15); and hence that we must choose our master, for it is impossible to serve two masters whose interests are different and conflicting. They conflict here, for it is mammon's interest to be hoarded and loved, but it is God's interest that mammon be distributed to the needy and be lightly esteemed. God claims our supreme love and our undivided service.] 25 Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? [The word "anxious" is derived from a word which indicates a state of doubt or double-mindedness. It therefore indicates that sense of suspense or worry which comes from a mind in doubt. Compare Luk_12:29. Hence we may say that Jesus is here continuing the contrasts of the Mat_6:24, and that, having warned [257] against a double vision and a double service, he now warns against a double mind as to the comparative value of the benefits to be derived from the service of God or the service of mammom. Mammon can only supply food, but God gives the life; mammon can only furnish clothing, but God gives the body. By single-mindedness we can find peace, for God is to be relied upon. By double-mindedness we fall to worrying, for mammon may fail to supply those things which we feel we need.] 26 Behold the birds of the heaven they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they? [Literally, do ye not greatly excel them. The birds do not serve mammon at all, yet God feeds them. Surely, then, man who excels the birds both in his intrinsic value and in his capacity for temporal and eternal service, can expect to receive from God his sufficient food.] 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? [Peace and trust characterize the service of God. The rewards of mammon, on the contrary, are won by anxiety. But the rewards of mammon can not lengthen life as can God. Therefore we should not hesitate to choose God's service.] 28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [The magnificence of Solomon and of his court is proverbial in the East unto this day. To the Jew he was the highest representative of earthly grandeur, yet he was surpassed by the common lily of the field. Which lily is here meant can not be determined. Calcott thinks it was the fragrant white lily which grows profusely all over Palestine. Smith favors the scarlet martagon; Tristam, the anemone coronaria; and Thomson, the Huleh lily, a species of iris. It is likely, however, that scholars are trying to draw distinctions where Jesus himself drew none. It is highly probable that in popular speech many of the common [258] spring flowers were loosely classes together under the name lily.] 30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, i shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? ["This is the only term of reproach Jesus applied to his disciples" (Bengel). As to the grass and oven we may say that the forests of Palestine had been cleared off centuries earlier, and the people were accustomed to use the dried grass, mingled with wild flowers and weeds, for fuel. The oven was a large, round pot of earthenware, or other material, two or three feet high, and narrowing toward the top. This was first heated by fire within, after which the fire was raked out, and the dough put inside. Such is still the universal practice.] 31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? [God's care for the grass which lasts but for a day should teach us to expect that he will show more interest in providing for those who have been fashioned for eternity.] 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. [Christians having a heavenly Father to supply their wants, should not live like the Gentiles, who have no consciousness of such a Father. Of what use is all our religious knowledge if we are still as careworn and distrustful as the benighted heathen?]; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. [Here is the panacea for anxiety. Being God, the Supreme One knows; being a Father, he feels. Many repose with confidence upon the regularity and beneficence of his providential laws; but far sweeter is that assurance which arises from a sense of God's personal interest in our individual welfare--an interest manifested by the gift of his Son.] 33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. [The kingdom of heaven is the real object of our search. It must be sought first both in point of time and of interest, and it must be kept ever first in our thoughts after it is found. That Christian faith and obedience leads to worldly prosperity is proved by countless [259] instances which are multiplied with each succeeding day. The security of Christ's kingdom leads to that cheerfulness which renews the strength, and to that undistracted industry which brings success.] 34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. [Each day has trouble enough without adding to it by borrowing somewhat from the morrow. Serve God to-day with the strength you used to expend in carrying troubles which you borrowed from the future, and God will order the affairs of to-morrow.]
[FFG 255-260]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Warning against Covetousness and Care.
Warning against Covetousness and Care.
A new topic, introducing an exposition of the first table of the Law:
Read full note →
v. 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.
The question of hoarding, the service of Mammon, demanded discussion in connection with righteousness of works and self-righteousness. For it is the self-conceited that is liable to become addicted to covetousness. How foolish such hoarding! The Lord scourges the sin in bitter scorn: to hoard up hoards, treasures of this earth, tainted with the curse of this earth, subject to the corruption of the earth. Whether it be garments, tapestry, and carpets, moths would destroy them, rust, mildew, canker would eat them; and whether it be gold and silver and jewels, thieves would find a way to steal them, even if they must dig through the wall of the house. What uncertain treasures to place your trust upon!
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus begins to teach about money and possessions.
Read full note →
General Information:
Jesus is talking to a group of people about what they as individuals should or should not do. All occurrences of "you" and "your" are plural, except in verse 21, where they are singular. In some languages these occurrences of "you" and "your" may also need to be plural. (See: Forms of You)
treasures
riches, the things to which a person gives the most value
where moth and rust destroy
"where moth and rust ruin treasures"
moth
a small, flying insect that destroys cloth
rust
a brown substance that forms on metals
store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
This is a metaphor that means do good things on earth so God will reward you in heaven. (See: Metaphor)
there will your heart be also
Here "heart" means a person's thoughts and interests. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
heaven
heart
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.