Do We Seek God for Worldly Rewards?

Mat 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

While Christ usually refers to the kingdom of heaven, but here he refers specifically to the kingdom of God (basileia theos in Greek). Why the change? Because here wants us not only to seek the dominion of God, but also his completion of his work in us (autos dikaiosune). We have discussed the term dikaiosune several times before. While it is translated in the Bible of "righteousness," this doesn't mean a lot to most people. The term means the state in which we were meant to exist. It also means justice, the integrity and virtue that gives everyone their due. So we are seeking what God intends for our lives and what we are meant to be. This conforms very much with the sense of "becoming" on earth and the spiritual evolution that is the basis of the Beatitutde.

If we are completed spiritually, Christ says that something else is added. The Greek term, tauta, does not mean "all things." It a a pronoun refering meaning "these." Does the pronoun refer to the food, drink, and clothing? Or does he mean the kingdom of God and righteousness?

The key to the meaning of "these" is in the term translated as "added." If really meant "added," this verse would clearly mean that physical things would be given as well as spiritual. However, the Greek term prostithema is complicated. It means "to apply," "to deliver," "to impose upon," "to add" in the sense of making additions or mathematics, "to side with," "to associate with," or "to repeat an action." A lot of possible meanings for this phrase can be taken from prostithema humin (you).

It could mean that if we seek after God and his justice that these charactertistics are what we will be associated with. It could mean that if we seek God, God will side with us. Or if we seek God and his justice, his justice will be delivered to us.

Even the term "first" doesn't help us know which because the Greek term used, proton , doesn't only means first in time, which would indicate that something is added later in time. Protom also means "first in rank," "principally." These idea indicates that we should put the seeking spiritual goals before other goals, both in time and priority. This idea very much conforms with the idea that it is our "treasure in heaven" that matters, not what we get here on earth.

So Christ isn't absolutely promising that we will be rewarded physically for pursuing the spiritual. To do so would undermine his message because people would then seek spiritual goals not for their own sake, but for worldly gain. Christ teaches that worldly gain is a distraction. If we focus on following God's plan for us and seeking to emulate him, we will be increased in some way. It is for God to decide what increase is appropriate. After all, the definition of dikaiosune, what completes us, is in God's hands, not our own.

Your Heavenly Father Knows

Mat 6:31 Therefore do not worry and say, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, What shall we wear?
Mat 6:32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things: for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.

I am instantly reminded of Matthew 6:8, where Christ reminds us that God knows what we want before we ask for it in prayer. In that verse, Christ said that God knows what (hos, in Greek) we have need (chreia) of. Indeed, every term in this verse has been used in the previous verses in this chapter. The contrast here is between our uncertainty over our physical needs, and God's certain knowledge that we need physical things to survive.

However, the mention of the Gentiles (or rather, foreigners, ethnos) brings in the element of society. The Gentiles don't merely need (chrezo) these things, they seek them. The Greek term is epizeteo, which means desire or demand as well as searching for something. The sense here is the the Gentiles feel that they have lost something, that something is missing. The response is that they desire and search for it.

What Christ is saying is that nothing is missing. Everything is here. The Gentiles are wrong. God has provided, but we don't know how to see it. Certainly, as humanity has learned more of the universe, we have discovered how abundant the world is. However, we still have the Gentiles among us who doubt God's ability to satisfy us despite all the progress we have made.

Christ Threatens Us Not With Hell, but with Being Baked into Bread

Mat 6:30 Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, [shall he] not much more [clothe] you, O ye of little faith?

Here, Christ continues his contrast of the physical and the spiritual. The relevant phrase describes the grass of the field as today (semeron--same word use for "give us this day" in the Lord's Prayer) existing (on) and tomorrow destroyed. In other words, the physical world is changing from one thing to another, which is how Christ describes both the physical and spiritual world.

This transition is more clear in the Greek, in which the term translated as "grasses" is chortos, which means "an enclosed place" with the sense of a feed lot. Christ is using this idea of a feedlot as a metaphor for the temporal physical world. However, chortos means even more. It means food as well, specifically the raw material of Christ's most important food, bread.

There is also a specific connection in Greek between this throwing of chortos in an oven and making bread. Bread is Christ's first symbol for physical life (appearing in his first temptation). Another meaning of chortos is grain or feed. The oven it is being put into is specifically a klibanos (clibanos), which is Greek for a small, clay oven used for baking bread. In a klibanos, the fire is on the outside, but the bread is on the inside. So when Christ says that the chortos is thrown inside, he is describing it being baked, not burned up in a fire. So the metaphor here is not people being thrown into hell, as this phrase is often portrayed, but the baking of bread in an oven.

The original Greek says nothing about clothing people better than plants, which you might buess from the brackets we inserted above, but which are often left out. The original phrase is ou (not) polus (much) mallon (more) humas (you) and it isn't referring just to the clothing. It refers to the entire phrase, and even more closely, to the baking as well. Christ is saying that God is clothing us while we are here today AND preparing us to be baked into something different. This is also the process he describes in the Beatitudes, which began this sermon. When he describes his listeners as oligopistos, trusting too little, he is echoing the first blessed group in the Beatitudes, the ptochos pneuma, those lacking faith.

Christ Teaches that Nature is Easy while Society is Hard

Mat 6:28 And why are you worried about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not toil, neither do they spin:
Mat 6:29
And yet I tell to you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The word translated as "consider" is katamanthano, which means "to examine closely" or "to learn thoroughly." What we are to consider is how the lilies of the field (translated very literally) increase (auxano) in size and number. Yet, despite growing in size and number, lilies do not grow weary. The term translated as "toil" is kopiao, which means "to tire" or "to grow weary" and only secondarily refers to the hard work that makes you tired.

This continues with the theme of contrasting what is natural with what is social. Here, the lilies are nature. Doing what is natural for them is easy, requiring no effort. Only human skills, in this case, spinning cloth (netho, in Greek), require effort.

The term used for Solomon's glory, duxa, also emphasizes social roles. The primary meaning of duxa is reputation, that is, the opinion that others have of us. So Christ is clearly connecting our social standing with the clothes we wear. Worrying about clothing is the same as worrying about our reputation. Despite Solomon's high social standing, he was not clothed as beautifully as the lilies, which no nothing of society and its expectations. ("Expectation" is another meaning for duxa.)

Also interesting is the word used for "arrayed." It is periballo, which literally means "to put around" or "to throw around." You can put clothes around your self, but you also surround yourself with your reputation. Again, few of us are surrounded by reputations as good as those of the simple lilies of the field.

Measuring Age By Height

Mat 6:27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit unto his stature?

Even in the different standard versions of the Bible, this phrase has a dizzying array of translations, from adding time to your life, or adding height to your stature, and so on. The problem arises from the Greek.

Let's start with "worrying." In Greek, the word is merimnao, which means "to care for," "to be anxious about," or "to meditate on." We don't have a word in English that combines caring for something, being anxious, and meditation. When you care for something, you also worry and think deeply about it.

The word translated as "add" is even more complicated. It is prostithemi, which is formed from two root words that mean "to put towards." It means a lot of things including means "to put to," in the sense of holding something close or applying medicine to a wound. It also means "to hand over" or "to give something more." It also means "to impose upon" or "to attribute to." It means "to add," but it also means "to agree" or "to associate with" or "to bring upon oneself" or "to apply to oneself." You get the idea, that of adding one thing to another.

The word translated as "cubit" means "forearm," which is the measure of length used in a cubit.

The word translated as "stature" is helikia, which means "age." It also means "the prime of life," "manhood" or "maidenhood," others of the same age, that is, a generation, and time. It only means "stature" in the sense that people grow up and attain their full stature.

So we have a conflict here between a measure of length, the forearm, being added or applied to a measure of age. This is why some Bibles translate this phrase as adding inches to height, others adding time to our lives. There seems to be a conflict.

Even if we accept the idea that helikia means stature, why would Christ suggest that someone would want to add twenty inches to their height? After all, by worrying, we cannot add an inch, much less twenty inches. Why the extreme statement?

The key, at least for me, is in the underlying theme of this whole section of the sermon, the conflict between the physical and spiritual. Yes, we can interpret this as meaning adding some measure to our height, but the phrase also translates as "Which of you through meditation (or caring, or worry) can apply (touch) one forearm to your age?" The forearm is, after all, a metaphor for a man's strength, and the physical. But our age is not a physical thing. It cannot be touched or interfered with by any physical force. We can move our body through space, but our body moves through time of its own accord, or rather, by God's plan. "Applying one forearm" might also be a description of arm wrestling. So the phrase might well describe arm wrestling with your age, another impossibility.

Christ is talking about work in the previous passage, work we do with our arms. Here he notes that the real work, our passage through time, isn't work that we can do. It is only work that God does for us. The phrase may not translate into English, but the meaning is much deeper than it looks at first.

Of Birds, Angels, and People

Mat 6:26 Behold the birds of the air: they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?

When I first looked at this verse, I thought that I would learn little from looking at the Greek. It seems so straight-forward. However, as always, Christ surprised me. Hardly a single word here as used in Greek is what it seems in English. When I encounter phases like this, I am in awe of what the English leaves out and frightened by how much I have to learn.

First, the Greek word used for "birds" is not the word for "birds." It is peteinon, which means "the ability to fly." It also means "fully fledged" referring to young birds that are ready to take wing. It is combined here with ouranos, heaven, to make up the literal phrase, "the ability of heavenly flight." A good translation of the first phrase would be "Look at the ability of heavenly flight." Is Christ refering to birds? Yes, but as always, he is saying much more than that. He takes a spiritual ability, the ability to move through heaven, and changes it into a physical metaphor, the ability to move through the air.

We then have a list of activities that birds and heavenly angels do not or cannot do. The term used for "sow" is speiro, which means "to sow," and "to beget offspring." The term for "reap" is therizo, which means "to do summer work." It infers mowing and reaping, but it is also used as a metaphor for "to cut off." The term for "gather" is sunago, which means "to unite" or "bring together," and it is used primarily for assembling people or groups of animals. It also means leading others. And finally, the term used for "barns" is apotheke, which is any place things are preserved including a burial ground or refuge. My head spins at all the ways these terms could be put together in meaningful ways referring to the those with the ability of heavenly flight. Taking the phrase a very different direction, we could translate it as "Look at the ability of flying through heaven: it doesn't beget offspring, perform summer work, or gather into graveyards." In this version, it offers a clear contrast between the spiritual and physical.

The contrast between the physical meaning (birds dont sow, reap, or gather) and the spiritual sense (angels don't beget, work, or socialize) is consistent with the theme here. This section of Christ's sermon is contrasts the physical and the spiritual. Here we have a very straightforward statement about the physical world which parses into an very interesting statement about the spiritual world. While Christ spoke in Aramaic, it is amazing that those who translated his words into Greek chose words so full of meaning. It seems miraculous at times I least expect it. I could be imagining these shades of meaning but I don't think so. They arise when I least expect them.

The word used to describe the way God feeds the birds also has several levels of meaning. The word is trepho, which doesn't mean "to feed" at all. It means "to cause to grow or increase," "to rear," "to bring up." It is used both as a term of caring for children, animals, and slaves. In includes the idea of nurturing, maintaining, and supporting dependents.

Again, why is this term chosen instead of a simple term for feeding animals? Because feeding the birds is just one small aspect of keeping and caring for them. Angels with the ability to fly through heaven do not eat, but they grow, increase, and are nourished.

We come at last to the final phrase, "Are not you much better than they?" In my NIV Bible this is translated as "Are you not more valuable than they?" When I was reading this phrase last night, I thought the word "valuable" might be the only interesting term in this whole verse. Needless to say, it doesn't mean either of these things at all.

The word is diaphero, which means "to carry across" or "to carry in different ways," or (most interesting) "to differ." Like almost all the terms in this verse, it is a very common word. It only means "better," the way it is translated in the Gospel, through a real stretch. We might say in English, "That man knows how to carry himself." The word diaphero can mean "excel" in the a sense, but the common meaning for "carry" or diaphero isn't being better or more valuable.

However, diaphero's "to carry across" sense does mean "to go through life" and to "bear through to the end." So when combined with the term for "much" (mallon, "to a greater degree), we get the sense that Christ is saying that we go through life and bear to the end to a greater degree than birds do. However, the meaning doesn't infer on some internal superiority, but rather to our greater physical journey through life, especially in the sense of the burdens that we carry. In a physical sense, Christ is saying that we bear across, in our journey of life, much more than birds do.

However, diaphero also means "to differ," both in the sense of being different from something and in the sense of arguing with someone. So because of the word chosen, the translation "are you not much better than they?" is not as good as "are you not much different from them?" The second version contrasts the purely physical (birds), the purely spiritual (angels), and humans who combine the two and invented human society.

Eating, Drinking, and Wearing Something Nice

Mat 6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than clothing?

Christ continues in this verse with his ordering of the universe between the physical, social, and spiritual. The word translated here as "life" is psuche, a common word in Greek meaning "life," "soul," "consciousness," and "a sense of self." It is living in both the physical and spiritual sense, the idea that a living body is animated by spirit.

"Take no thought" is the Greek word merimnao, which means "to care for," "be anxious about," and "to meditate upon." For me, it comes down to Christ saying "don't worry about this." The things he doesn't want us to worry about very simple of idea of eating, drinking and putting on clothes.

However, Christ draws a line between the physical that matters, our lives and our bodies, and the physical pleasures of life, food and clothing. We let our concerns, especialy about food and clothing, grow well beyond what we need to keep alive physically. Our pleasure in them creates a bridge between our physical needs and social desires.

The Two Masters: God and Society

Mat 6:24 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. You cannot serve God and mammon.

"Mammon" is not from any Greek term, and there is some debate about both its source and its meaning. The most accepted view is that it is from Aramaic mamona, "riches" or "wealth," probably from Hebrew mamon, "security," "that which is trusted," or "deposit" or Hebrew matmon, "treasure." The term comes possibly from Akkardian "mimmu" meaning "property." Though supposedly Mammon was the name of a Syriac god of wealth, there is little evidence for this. The idea that Mammon was the god of avarice seems to arise in a much later period, probably from Milton. The best sense of the word seems to be "putting your trust in wealth."

Also important here is the term used for "serve," which is douleuo. This term means to be a slave and deriving from the term for slave or subject. Christ is saying that everyone is a slave to some master. We are either slave to the physical, looking for our freedom in wealth, or we are slaves to the spiritual, looking for our freedom in God. This opposition is completely consistent with Christ's analysis of the world as physical, social, and spiritual, where the physical and social are confused with each other.

My sense is that Christ used the term "mammon" because it reflects social wealth (that which is trusted) rather than physical wealth. For example, paper money is not physical wealth. It is just paper, but its value comes from the faith we have in the social institution, that is, the government, that issues that money. Christ never speaks against physical needs. He is always speaking against the social constructs that we mistake for our physical needs. He makes this point clearly in upcoming parts of this sermon.

The terms used here for hate and love are the same as those used elsewhere in the Gospel, mise0 and agapao. These terms however are echoed (as Christ often does to make his meaning clear) in the terms translated as "hold to" and "despise," which are much more complicated and represent the heart of what Christ is saying here about human nature.

"Hold to" is a complicated term, antechomai, which means literally to "hold against." It is a common word in Greek literature with the seeming contradictory meanings of "enduring" and "clinging to." It has some of the same sense of the way we use "stuck" in English, where there is a negative sense of being "stuck with" someone and a positive sense of being "stuck on" someone. The term of antechomai is contrasted here with the term kataphroneo, which means "to look down on" or "think poorly of." Notice that antechomai (future tense) describes a physical act, holding onto someone, while kataphroneo (present or past) describes a mental act, thinking poorly of someone. Both are compound words with a preposition. Ante means "over against" or "opposite" while echo means "to have" or "to hold." Kata means "down" while phroneo means "to think" or "to feel."

Christ is saving that when you love your master, you both endure and cling to that master, but, when you hate your master, you look down on that master. The first term conveys a sense of dependence while the second term conveys a sense of superiority. He is also saying that when you are torn between two masters, your attitude is split in this way: one master is depended on while the other master is looked down on. This is a tremendously insightful observation of human nature.

Interestingly, today we have people who look down both on God and physical wealth, but who cling desperately to "social wealth" of status among the elites. Wealth earned from social activities (acting in movies, writing popular books, politics, fashion etc.) has more status than wealth earned from meeting physical needs such as food service, selling ordinary cloths, and everyday goods. These are those who worship "mammon" in the sense that Christ meant it.

The Relevance of Christ's View of Evil and Envy in Our Lives

Mat 6:22 The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye is good, your whole body shall be full of light.
Mat 6:23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great [is] that darkness!

The interesting contrast here is between the term used for "good" and the term used for "evil."

The term used for "good" is haplous, which doesn't mean "good" at all. It primarily means single. It can also mean straight-forward, or simple. It can even mean "simple minded." Haplous can also means absolute. It's opposite is diplous, which means two-fold or double. Diplous also means doubtful, double-mined, or treacherous.

Here, the good of haplous is contrasted with the evil of poneros. As we have said several times, the primary meaning of poneros is opressed by work, burdened. It also means worthless and cowardly. Interestingly enough, there is another Greek word, ponêrophthalmos, which means the "evil eye" (ophthalmos is the Greek term for "eye" used in these verses), that brings together the themes of sight and evil. Ponerophtalomos has the more precise meaning of an "envious" eye.

When I read Christ in the Greek, I am always struck by how much more relevant his words are than most views of Christianity. I don't know if I encounter much evil in my life, but I have had plenty of burdens. I don't know much about the "evil" eye, but I have seen more than my share of "envious" eyes. I am reminded of Hannibal Lector's "first principles" in Silence of the Lamps. He said, "Desire starts with what we see." Here, Christ is saying that and more.

Christ is saying that when we see things simply, we have light in our lives. Light, of course, is his constant metaphor for knowledge, truth and the spirit of God. However, when we see things through the burdens of our life, we fail to see the truth. In fact, the term used for "darkness" here is skotos, which means gloom, ignorance, the darkness of the nether world, and, of course, blindness. So Christ was saying clearly that those who try to see the world through their burdens, their preconceptions, and, in fact, blind.

Christ's Lessons about Feelings Following Actions

Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The word translated here as "treasure" is the Greek thesauros, which should be familiar to anyone who has used a thesaurus, which is just the Latin version of the Greek term. What is the connection? Thesauros is a storage area for valuables, like the vault of a bank or a locking safe. So, as a thesaurus is a storage place for valuable words, a treasury of words.

What Christ is describing to here is not only what we find valuable, but how we choose to protect what we find valuable. The contrast is between the earthly/social storage of valuables, which by definition cannot work because everything on earth degrades over time, and a heavenly storage area, which protects such valuable because heaven is beyond the reach of time.

The term for heart, kardia, does refer to the physical order, but like the English term, it is used to mean the center of anything, such as the heart of the woods or the depths of the sea. The hearts is also the center of our emotions and passions. In Greek literature, the heart is the source of love, courage, and fear. In a clear sense, it is the center of our awareness.

Christ is making a very sophisticated point here about the order of things. First, he says that our actions determine what we accumulate, contrasting spiritual and earthly valuables. He then says that our feelings are determined by the type of value we accumulate. In other words, we change our value system and what we care about depending on how we act. If we accumulate spiritual "wages," we come to care more about the spiritual, but if we accumulate physical or social wages, we will come to care more about physical or social things.

This is part of the process that Christ describes as humanity perfecting itself. When we care about physical/social things, those things are taken away from us by the passage of time. When we care more about spiritual things, we accumulate those things over time. Again, Christ represents this as a natural process, part of the balance of the universe. As we move the center of our awareness toward the spiritual, we are perfecting our awareness of things as they are.

Mat 6:19 Do not Lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal:
Mat 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break in nor steal:

Again, a major connection with the previous verse is lost in translation. The terms that Christ used for "disfigure their faces" in the last verse, aphanizo, here becomes "corrupt." As we explained, this term really means to vanish or deprive of luster. And again, Christ makes the connection between the physical, the social, and the spiritual.

Here, earth becomes the residence for both the physical and the social. What is interesting here is that God and heaven are what is normally described by Christ as hidden, while the earth is the realm of the visible. Here, Christ completes the equation. Earth is visible, but everything here will vanish. Meanwhile, heaven is hidden, but everything there will persist. As the Lord's Prayer says, God's will is becoming real on earth and in heaven. Both heaven and earth are dynamic, but they are going in reverse directions. On earth, everything is temporary and fades awy. In heaven, everything persists and accumulates.

Again, this also works as a physical description of the universe if we discount the social and the spiritual. On earth, things may pass away, but all energy and matter are maintained in the universe as a whole. Christ is telling us however, that this rule also extends to the spiritual and social dimensions. The knowledge and experience that we accumulate on earth passes away on earth, but it is accumulated in heaven.

Mat 6:18 That you do not appear to men to fast, but to your Father who is in secret: and your Father, who sees in secret, shall reward you openly.

This is an extremely revealing verse, saying something that is almost never said about God, that He is hidden.

"Appear" is phainô, which means "to bring to light," "to shine," "to cause to appear," and "to shine."

"Secret" is kruptos, which means "hidden," "concealed," "in disguise," and "secret."

"Openingly" is en (in) phaneros, which means "visible," "open," "conspicuous," "illustrious," and "manifest."

A little earlier, Christ said that the Father was "in heaven." Here he uses as similar phrase to say "the Father in hiding" or "the Father in secret."

He uses his frequent equation balancing the social and the spiritual. You have to choose whether you want to make yourself "shine" before men or keep your sacrifice hidden before men so God that God will make you shine.

Mat 6:17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face;

"Fast" is nesteuo, which means specifically the religious practice of fasting.

"Anointing your head" is aleipho (to annoint) sou (your) kephale (head), which describes the practice of putting oil in hair to hold it in place. This was considered proper grooming at the time.

"Washing your face" is nipto (to wash) sou (your) prosopon (face), which was also considered basic grooming.

Shining Before Men and Christ's Payment for Fasting

Mat 6:16 Moreover when you fast, do not, as hypocrites do, have a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

In the original Greek, there is a play on words in this verse that is lost in English. The term used for "disfigure" is aphanizo, which means to "to vanish" or "deprive of luster." Then the word translated as "appear" is phaino, which means "shining," "to be resplendent." So this phrase describes people who hide their faces so that they will shine before men, a nice turn of phrase.

This verse draws a clear division among the physical appearances (faces), society (shining before men) and the spiritual. This division between the physical, social, and spiritual world is a unique and constant theme of Christ's message in the Gospels, one that is seldom commented on. It also reflects the Trinity, the Father, who created the physical, the Son, who introduced God into society, and the Holy Spirit who is within people.

These three states (physical, social, and spiritual) are often contrasted by their visibility, which is why the Greek terms are important in this verse. The physical is visible. The spiritual is hidden. The social is illusion or, more precisely, misleading. This verse reinforces Christ's constant message that people confuse the true, hidden spiritual reality with the false social reality. In this case, people hide physically so that they can appear spiritual good but this is just a social illusion.

The term "reward" here is our old friend, misthos, which means wages or payment as opposed to a prize. As we have pointed out numerous times before, Christ teaches that physical sacrifice can earn spiritual compensation but we cannot get paid twice for the same deed. If we seek social compensation, we automatically don't get any spiritual compensation.

For me, Christ is continuously trying to describe a balance in the universe like the laws of physics which prevents the destruction of energy or matter, but allows them to be converted back and forth. Here Christ says that physical suffering can be converted to spiritual reward or social reward, but not both.