Mat 6:28-30 | JFB | STEP | 28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider-- observe well. the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not-- as men, planting and preparing the flax. neither do they spin-- as women.

‏ Matthew 6:28-30

28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider--observe well.

the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not--as men, planting and preparing the flax.

neither do they spin--as women.

29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these--What incomparable teaching!--best left in its own transparent clearness and rich simplicity.

30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass--the "herbage."

of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven--wild flowers cut with the grass, withering by the heat, and used for fuel. (See Jas 1:11).

shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?--The argument here is something fresh. Gorgeous as is the array of the flowers that deck the fields, surpassing all artificial human grandeur, it is for but a brief moment; you are ravished with it to-day, and to-morrow it is gone; your own hands have seized and cast it into the oven: Shall, then, God's children, so dear to Him, and instinct with a life that cannot die, be left naked? He does not say, Shall they not be more beauteously arrayed? but, Shall He not much more clothe them? that being all He will have them regard as secured to them (compare He 13:5). The expression, "Little-faithed ones," which our Lord applies once and again to His disciples (Mt 8:26; 14:31; 16:8), can hardly be regarded as rebuking any actual manifestations of unbelief at that early period, and before such an audience. It is His way of gently chiding the spirit of unbelief, so natural even to the best, who are surrounded by a world of sense, and of kindling a generous desire to shake it off.