Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness

Please read and memorise Matthew 6:22-34

Having cautioned against seeking the praise of men and taught the people how to pray, Yeshua had challenged them: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He continued stirring up in them a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Christ, having warned us against coveting the praise of men, proceeds next to warn us against coveting the wealth of this world. Our focus, and our longing, needs to be on God and His goodness.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23 NKJV

“ Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.” Luke 11:34-36 NIV

λύχνος – lychnos, refers to an oil-fed portable lamp. The Jewish lamp was made of clay (even as we are), shaped to carry oil and with a wick which could be lit to provide a portable source of light that could fill, illuminate, the whole room. While many different types of oil could be burned for a smoke light, the cleanest burning oil is olive oil (representative of the Holy Spirit). As such lamps were used in every Jewish home, they would all know from experience that impure fuel, having anything else mixed in with the pure olive oil, could fill the room with chocking smoke. The other cause of a smoking lamp is having the wick too high. Doing our good deed before men to be praised by them is raising our wick up too high – instead of the pure light of the Holy Spirit we produce a lot of smoke. Make sure that your wick is either trimmed flat or into a point, and that there are no carbon deposits around the top from the last time it was lit, if there are, trim them off. We need to be trimmed for our eye to be good and our vision clear

Our eye needs to be ‘good‘, this version says, a more accurate translation would be “focused“. The NASB translates this ‘if your eye is clear‘, the ASV ‘if therefore thine eye be single‘, the CJB ‘if you have a ‘good eye’ [that is, if you are generous]‘, the AMP ‘if your eye is clear [spiritually perceptive]’, TPT ‘unclouded‘, YLT ‘perfect‘, Phillips ‘If your eye is sound‘, and the OJB ‘if your eye is unblurred‘. The Greek word translated in all these different ways, ἁπλοῦς – haploús, has a literal meaning of “without folds“, and refers to having a pure, single, uncompromised, undivided focus with nothing hidden. The Septuagint uses haploús with the sense of generous – “The generous (Hebrew = berakah = a blessing; Lxx = haploús) man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.” (Proverbs 11:25) Having all our treasure in heaven, not some in heaven and some on earth; having all our focus on the kingdom of God, not some on His kingdom and some on the kingdoms of men; being concerned only with what God thinks of us and not live for the approval of man or the acquisition of wealth. Christ, having warned us against coveting the praise of men, proceeds next to warn us against coveting the wealth of the world. Haploús is the opposite of diplous, which means ‘double’ and can be related to being two-faced or deceitful. A diplous eye tries to focus on worldly possessions (material gain) and on God at the same time which confuses the person (“spiritual double vision”) and they cannot see their way clearly as they walk through life. Our vision must be fixed solely on God. If it is the pure oil of the Holy Spirit that is illuminating our life then all that we do in our body will be full of light (the manifestation of God’s presence) and free from obscuring smoke.

“If your eye is bad...Greek πονηρός – ponērós – is derivative of πόνος – pónos – toil, laborious trouble, pain ridden; and σαπρός – saprós – rotten, putrid, corrupted and no lounger fit for use, degeneracy from original virtue, second-rate or worthless. A πονηρός – ponērós -eye is not focused on the things of God so cannot see them clearly, which makes it useless and worthless. It may work hard and strain to see, but its focus is captured by the wrong things so it fails to do that which it was created for. Like someone who is so cross-eyed that they can only see their own nose and not any of the wonders of creation around them.

“…your whole body…” every part of you, your total being, all your actions “…will be full of darkness” σκοτεινός – skoteinós – comes from σκότου – skotos – opaque, not letting any light in so left in total darkness. If our focus is on the things of this world and on the troubles and painful difficulties in our life, on the wrongs that have been done to us, on being a victim of other’s attitudes and actions, then we become opaque instead of transparent and our focus stops any light from entering our lives so we remain in pain riddled darkness.

“If therefore the light…” φῶς – phṓs – light, source of light, radiance; figuratively: manifestation of God’s self-existent life, divine illumination to reveal and impart life. “…that is in you is darkness…”σκότος – skótos – darkness, obscurity, darkened eyesight or blindness; (metaphorically) ignorance respecting divine things and human duties, and the accompanying ungodliness and immorality, together with their consequent misery in hell, the principle of sin with its certain results. “…how great is that darkness!” C H Spurgeon wrote:

A man should live up to his light; but if that light is itself darkness, what a mistake his whole course will be! If our religion leads us to sin, it is worse than irreligion. If our faith is presumption, our zeal selfishness, our prayer formality, our hope a delusion, our experience infatuation, the darkness is so great that even our Lord holds up his hands in astonishment and says — “How great is that darkness!”

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24 NKJV

This verse starts with an emphatic οὐδείς –oudeís – no one, none, not even one, nobody, never – it powerfully negates any possibility and rules out by definition. There are no exceptions, no extenuating circumstances that could make this possible. Not a single person can ever, in any way or under any circumstances, serve these two masters. As we gain an understanding of the depth of meaning in the word ‘serve‘ we start to gain insight into why this is. δουλεύω – douleúō – is to serve as a slave with all personal ownership rights assigned to the owner, it focuses on the fact that the slave belongs to their master. We belong to God who created us, yet we sold ourselves to sin, but He redeemed us back from slavery to sin through the cross of Christ so that we can be free to once more live as those who belong exclusively to God. κύριος – kýrios – refers to one who is supreme in authority, one who exercises absolute ownership rights, lord, master. We cannot, it is absolutely impossible, to live under the complete authority of God in total obedience to Him, and under the complete authority of anything or anyone else at the same time. Not a single one of us can serve two masters.

“…for either he will hate the one” μισέω – miséō – speaks of a comparative hatred, to love someone or something less than someone or something else, i.e. to renounce one choice in favour of another. The comparative meaning of miséō is grounded in moral choice, elevating one value, person or thing over another. “...and love the other” ἀγαπάω – agapáō – to prefer, to love, a discriminating affection which involves choice and selection, valuing someone or something above all else. God must be the first preference in our lives, and everything else submitted under Him. If food, clothing, housing, transport or money is your top priority then God is not.

“… or else he will be loyal to the one” ἀνθέξεται – anthexetai – holding on in a way that is corresponding to that being held. “…and despise the other.” καταφρονήσει – kataphronēsei – bring down in your estimation, devalue, deeming to be unworthy and hence despised or scorned. The word does not denote a mere feeling of contempt – it is active, and thus includes the actions which demonstrate a putting down, devaluing contempt to the extent of “making absolutely nothing of”.

“You cannot serve (douleúō) God and mammon.” μαμωνᾷ – mamōna – an Aramaic term, related to the Hebrew term ‘aman (to trust), the wealth a person trusts in. In the Greek, a literary device called “contrast emphasis” is used with God and mammon to highlight how opposite trusting in God is to trusting in things (money, house, car, food, motorbike, wealth, etc). The two are opposed to one another in seeking to own us.

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Matthew 6:25 NKJV

For this reason – because God owns us and we have chosen to trust in Him and exalt Him above all else, because we have chosen to put our trust in God rather than mammon – we are not to be worried about what we will be able to eat, drink or wear. Yeshua spoke these words to an oppressed people under Roman occupation and heavily taxed by their oppressors. He spoke these words to people who worked hard to try to earn enough to feed and cloth their families, many of the were day labourers and many knew what it was to go without. To illustrate His point and help them remember it in the everyday moments of their lives, Yeshua drew the people’s attention to God’s creation in the Galilee area on this beautiful summer’s day – the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.

I say to you: λέγω – légō – summarise into a final opinion, bring to a conclusion, bringing His listeners to the end-point moral lesson of what He had been talking about, laying the matter to rest.

Do not be worried: μεριμνᾶτε – merimnate – drawn in opposite directions, go to pieces as pulled in opposite directions, divided by the force of sinful anxiety, disunified within and robbed of God’s peace (His gift of wholeness). It has been said: “anxiety pulls in different directions making our head go one way… and our feet another!” God’s love makes us whole, being worried divides us and brings us into conflict with ourselves. We overcome being driven by worry and anxiety when overcome by the love of the Lord.

About your life: ψυχῇ – psyxē – soul, unique personhood, personality, identity. It corresponds exactly to the Hebrew word נֶפֶשׁ – nephesh – soul, whole being, unique person. It includes both personality and the living physical body through which this is expressed. After God had formed man from the dirt, from the land, God breathed into man’s nostrils and he became a living נֶפֶשׁ – nephesh (Genesis 2:7).

Food and drink is necessary for life, without such we will die – but Yeshua concludes that we are not to worry even about such necessities. We can live in the wonderful peace of God (שׁלום – shalom – whole and complete, living in a state of well‑being, tranquillity, prosperity and security).

“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?  And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?  And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,  yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!  Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’  For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Matthew 6:26-32 NASV

Yeshua’s argument for ceasing to worry was not that food and clothing are unimportant, He used these as examples of the necessities of life, but that God can be trusted to provide these for us. Our loving heavenly Father abundantly feeds the birds flying over the see of Galilee and magnificently cloths the grass of the fields in the surrounding hills – God is willing and well able to likewise care for our needs.

ζητεῖτε – zēteite – to seek by inquiring, investigating to reach a binding resolution, to search through all the layers to find the true essence of the matter. This word focuses on the moral attitude behind the searching, the personal motivation shaping how one comes to a decision, the premises that guide our search will determine whether we only look for information to confirm our biases or seek accurate (unbiased) information, wherever that may lead us. It is not just about desiring to gain knowledge but the purpose one is wanting to use that knowledge for. Zēteite (seek) is written in the Greek present imperative tense, which means that it commands ongoing action that calls for an ongoing lifestyle – a regular, long-term way of acting. We are to seek and keep on seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness habitually, continuously and progressively as a lifestyle.

Not only are we to seek and continuously keep seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness, we are to do so πρῶτον – protos – first, foremost. Jesus didn’t just tell them to stop worrying; He told them to replace worry with an overriding concern for the kingdom of God. A habit or a passion can only be given up for a greater habit or passion. Our number one priority is to seek and keep seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness. Seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first thing in the morning before you do anything else in the day. Seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness as first priority throughout the rest of the day and night, let that seeking govern what you do and how you respond to everything else in the day.

This fits with blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled, and is contrasted with the previous verse which talks of the Gentiles eagerly seeking the necessities of life – food, drink and clothing. Our freedom from worrying over such things is not because they cease being necessary for life, but because we know that God is loving and trustworthy, He knows our need of these things and promises here that all (πάντα – panta – each and every one of) these things προστεθήσεται – prostethēsetai – will be put towards, will be increased for, will be added to, us.

Note that Yeshua was not saying here that there is anything wrong with owning material things, just that it is wrong to allow them to own us. In Judaism wealth is viewed as a blessing from God that is bestowed on those who live right, and from the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob) there has been a strong culture of wealth creation within Judaism:

Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.  Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. Genesis 13:1-2

Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him.  The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous;  for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. Genesis 26:12-14

Thus the man (Jacob) became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys. Genesis 30:43

But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. Deuteronomy 8:18

Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments.
His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.
Wealth and riches will be in his house,
And his righteousness endures forever. Psalm 112:1-3

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty. A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. Proverbs 28:19-20

These were scriptures that everyone up on that mountain had memorised and Yeshua had said that He did no come to do away with any of this which had been written in the Torah, but to fulfil it. He was speaking to people living in difficult situations, suffering from the effects of the sins of their nation, oppressed and largely despised by their Roman overlords. It was a time when many were struggling just to provide the basics for their family and these scriptural promises of blessings and wealth seemed very far off to most. It was a time when many were worried about how they would be able to feed or cloth their family, and yet they had left all that behind to follow Yeshua up this mountain and learn from Him. He was encouraging them that God was indeed able to care for them and provide for their needs as they put Him first.

Lastly, in this declaration against worry, Yeshua addresses our fears for the future, fears of what might happen tomorrow. Do not worry, do not allow yourself be torn apart inside, about what might happen. How much time and emotional energy is wasted worrying about things that never actually come to pass? Such worry reveals only a lack of trust in God. Tomorrow is in God’s hands and God is love, and in His love He is well able to take care of whatever might happen. Ours is just to rest in him, trusting in His goodness and His ability to carry us through all things. Don’t let your thoughts get consumed with worry about what will happen, or what might happen, but instead discipline your mind to focus on God and His goodness, discipline your mind to focus on seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness and on doing all in this moment to honour and glorify Him, to live in this moment as citizens of His eternal kingdom.

REFERENCES

1. Spurgeon, C.H. Exposition to the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6. God Rules. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] http://www.godrules.net/library/spurgeon/45spurgeon9.htm.
2. Hurt, Bruce. Matthew 6:22-23 Commentary. Precept Austin. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://www.preceptaustin.org/matthew_622-23.
3. Strong. Strong’s #4655: skotos (pronounced skot’-os). Bible Tools. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Lexicon.show/ID/G4655/skotos.htm.
4. 4655. skotos. Bible Hub. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://biblehub.com/greek/4655.htm.
5. “Light” and “Fire”. Christ’s Words – What is Lost in Translation from Greek. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://christswords.com/content/light-and-fire.
6. Henry, Matthew. Matthew 6. Bible Study Tools. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/matthew/6.html.
7. Guzik, David. Matthew 6 – The Sermon on the Mount (Continued). Enduring Word. [Online] 2018. [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/matthew-6/.
8. Matthew 6:24. Bible Hub. [Online] [Cited: June 20th, 2020.] https://biblehub.com/lexicon/matthew/6-24.htm.
9. The Discovery Bible software.

In the comments section below share your thoughts on what you have read and answer some of the following questions…

* In this section of His sermon, Jesus calls attention to what we are focusing on, for this will determine the direction of our whole life. What are the things that people in your area are focused on and what impact is that having on their lives?
* As pastors and ministers we can get focused on many things that seem good or needed but take our attention away from Jesus. What are some of the things that you have noticed can take away from our devotion to Christ and what effects can this have on our ministry?
* Money is needed for doing many things in the church, how can we keep from serving mammon while seeking the provision for all these things?
* What insights have your congregation shared with you as they have memorised and meditated in Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:22-34?
* How do we keep from worrying in the midst of difficult situations when it looks like we will not have what we need?