Matthew 6:25-34<\/a><\/p>\nCompare 12:22-32.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
These verses contain some of the most stunningly impractical and even, in a sense, dangerous and irresponsible advice in the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who could possibly survive, living in this manner? \u00a0Do you really want to belong to a society where nobody worries about, or takes any steps to prepare for, tomorrow?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our complex economy would crash and burn if everybody took such counsel literally. \u00a0There would be no investment, no loans, no building, no purchasing of property in order to develop\u00a0it, and so forth. \u00a0But even a simple agrarian economy would malfunction on such a basis. \u00a0People would starve if farmers, refusing to concern themselves with tomorrow, failed to sow crops for future harvest, and if fishermen, unconcerned with where the next day\u2019s food was going to come from, ceased\u00a0mending their nets and fixing their boats. \u00a0No houses would be built, because they can\u2019t typically be done in a single day, and work must be done on one day in order to prepare for that of the next.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!\u201d isn\u2019t very good advice in most cases, and scarcely seems Christian.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obviously, we shouldn\u2019t be unduly<\/em> worried about tomorrow. \u00a0We shouldn\u2019t obsess about it. \u00a0We shouldn\u2019t sacrifice everything that\u2019s important today for the sake of the future, and we shouldn\u2019t neglect family in a quest for wealth.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe these verses are merely hyperbolic, exaggerated to catch our attention \u2014 which they certainly do.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I think it potentially very significant that the Book of Mormon parallel to Matthew 6:25-34, which is 3 Nephi 13:25-34, is precisely bracketed off from the rest of what Jack Welch has termed \u201cthe Sermon at the Temple\u201d (the Nephite equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount):<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he looked upon the\u00a0twelve\u00a0whom he had chosen, and said unto them: Remember the words which I have spoken. For behold, ye are they whom I have chosen to\u00a0minister\u00a0unto this people. Therefore I say unto you,t<\/em>ake\u00a0no thought 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 meat, and the body than\u00a0raiment? . . . \u00a0And\u00a0now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again, saying:<\/em> Verily, verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged. \u00a0(3 Nephi 13:25, 14:1)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The preceding portion of the Sermon (as its recorded in the Book of Mormon) is directed to the entire multitude, as is the succeeding portion. \u00a0But the verses in between are addressed to the Twelve, who\u2019ve been called into full-time service.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is no such division in Matthew\u2019s account of the Sermon, and I can\u2019t demonstrate that the shift in audiences depicted in the Book of Mormon was paralleled in the Old World. \u00a0But it certainly makes a great deal of sense to me that such seemingly impractical advice would be given not to fishermen and farmers and builders but to full-time missionaries. \u00a0It fits them, in a way that it doesn\u2019t fit others.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Matthew 6:25-34 Compare 12:22-32. \u00a0 These verses contain some of the most stunningly impractical and even, in a sense, dangerous and irresponsible advice in the Sermon on the Mount. \u00a0 Who could possibly survive, living in this manner? \u00a0Do you really want to belong to a society where nobody worries about, or takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>