Luke 12:23

And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more than food, and the body than raiment.

IV. Warning against anxieties.

Much of the material in this paragraph is also found in Matthew in the sermon on the mount; but as Plummer noted:

It does not follow, because this lesson was given immediately after the parable of the rich fool, that therefore it was not part of the sermon on the mount; any more than that because it was delivered there it cannot have been repeated here.[26]

The argument Jesus made in these lines and the following is that God who cares for the grasses of the field and the myriad creatures of the lower creations will certainly not fail to look after his children. Surely God would not take better care of sparrows than of his beloved family. A second argument in the paragraph directed against anxieties includes the thoughts that anxiety is a lack of trust in God and also that it cannot do any good anyway. The rich fool just mentioned did not prolong his life by means of his hoarded abundance.