O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

more than what one eats and wears. A point which Jesus not only teaches but livedout radically in Matthew 4 when He was tempted and went hungry in the desert.Secondly He points to creation and argued that if God is concerned for lessercreatures He will surely be concerned for His disciples which are of more value. Indoing so He does not dismiss prudent economic activity but affirms trust in God’sgoodness for provision. In affirming God’s goodness to His disciples He teachesthem that God is their Heavenly Father, the implication of which is that He isintimately involved in their lives and so is aware of their needs.Thirdly, the points were made that worry is useless. It is also perhaps ridiculous andamounts to an attempt to control areas that in reality belong to God’s sovereignty.Thus it amount to a lack of trust.Fourthly, again Jesus argues from the lesser creation to the greater, this timepointing to flowers and grass as an example. In doing so Jesus makes a contrastbetween Solomon and the flowers of the field. His point that even Solomon the mostfinancially prosperous in Israel’s history couldn’t compete with the way God clothesflowers. And if God clothes flowers like that surely He will look out for the clothingneeds of His disciples.The second part, like the first began with a command not to worry. Again, not toworry about food, drink and clothing. This time two reasons related to the prohibitionwere given. The first being that to worry about and thus run after these things ispagan behaviour. Pagans are idol worshipers who live in anxiety and fear of theirgods. Thus anxious worry over items related to survival is idolatry.Distinctions were made between the ways ethne is used in Matthew in order to arriveat pagan as a better translation for ethne in Matthew 6:32. This has addedimportance as it enables the reader to the reconcile the universalistic appeal ofMatthew’s gospel and the fact that sometimes Gentiles are displayed in a positivelight within this gospel with the condemnation of gentile behaviour in this passage.The second reason was that disciples have a Heavenly father and so they need not66