Matthew 6:31-33

a Be not therefore anxious, saying,

a What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?

a Or, With what shall we be clothed?

b For after all these things do the Gentiles seek (or ‘chase’),

b For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.

a But seek you first his Kingly Rule, and his righteousness,

a And all these things will be added to you.

In view of what He has been saying about God feeding and clothing natural things anxiety about food and clothing is folly. It is not to trust their Heavenly Father. It is all very well for the Gentiles to chase after these things. They have no Heavenly Father. But His disciples do have a heavenly Father, and they must learn to be aware of it. Thus their concentration must be on the things of their Father. They must therefore put all their efforts into seeking His Kingly Rule, and putting that first, which, as He has already told them, is also in accordance with the way that they should be praying (Matthew 6:10), and into seeking and fulfilling the effects of His righteous deliverance, resulting from the coming of His righteousness as promised by Isaiah. They are to seek them first of all in prayer (Matthew 7:7-11), and then they are to seek their part in bringing them about. In this way not only will they be fed and clothed, but their inner beings will be fed and clothed as well, and they will be fed and clothed for eternity. Note the contrast between chasing and seeking. The former is a compound verb which includes the root of the verb to seek. The Gentiles go around their earthly chase with great anxiety, the disciples are to go about their earthly seeking with faith and trust, for it concerns heavenly things.

Both seeking His Kingly Rule and seeking His righteousness must here have a present significance, in the same way as seeking food and clothing has. While the Gentiles are daily busy seeking food and clothing, they are to be daily seeking His Kingly Rule and His righteousness (note the emphasis on ‘daily’ in the passage - Matthew 6:30; Matthew 6:34). They must pray for His Kingly Rule and the coming of His righteousness and deliverance and their hearts must be set on the establishment and expansion of His Kingly Rule and the bringing in of His righteousness. While the Gentiles seek ‘bread alone’ they are to seek for words which come from God’s mouth (Matthew 4:4), and as we will learn later to spread them. For the whole point is that God has something better for them from day to day than food and clothing even in this life (see also our introduction to Matthew which demonstrates the present aspect of the Kingly Rule of God). They can have eternal life now (John 5:24; John 5:13) as well as in the future (John 5:28-29), life that is more abundant (John 10:10; compare John 4:10-14; John 7:37-38). They can even now enter into rest (Matthew 11:28-30). So they are to concentrate all their attention (‘first’) on seeking the establishment of His Rule now, and the bringing about of His saving work in righteousness and salvation, as promised by Isaiah 46:13; Isaiah 51:5; etc. Here, as always in Matthew, the righteousness which they are to seek, and hunger and thirst after (Matthew 5:6) is the righteousness revealed by the Law as expanded by Jesus, but which is to be brought to them and worked in them by the righteousness and salvation of God (Isaiah 61:3). It is the God-given Messianic righteousness. Note in Isaiah 51:8 the interesting contrast between the moth eating up people (see Matthew 6:19-20 above) and His bringing of righteousness to His people. In seeking righteousness His disciples are laying up treasure in Heaven (building up within themselves a deeper quality of life) where the moth cannot reach them (Matthew 6:20).

The contrast with the Gentiles is interesting. Jesus still has at this point in time the hope of a widespread turning to God among the Jews, thus it is with the Gentiles that He makes the contrast. Consider His bitter disappointment in Matthew 11:21. But the comparison with the Gentiles also brings out the enormity of the difference between His listeners, as His disciples, and the idolatrous Gentiles. The one are at peace because they are aware that their heavenly Father will provide for them, the other are far from Him and have no one to bear their anxieties but themselves and their idols.