Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-34
When Jesus said not to worry about what to eat or what to wear, it was gender specific, food for men, and fashion for women.
Memorial Day literally looms in the corner and I find myself being blasted with countless store deals about what is the current offering. Get this outfit here… You need this for the Summer… Pair it with this one and on and on… Closet full of clothes, nothing to wear. Sound familiar? I am a Christian woman but I am not exempt from the tug of this world. However, when we choose to, we have the power residing in us to resist.
“Baby, what’s for dinner?” Sorry to sound cheesy but in my household, both my husband and I are nicknamed Baby. I know, we could have tried to at least find something original but that one came about naturally and it actually feels distant and strange when we both call each other by our first name. Weird but that’s how it is.
I can attest to the validity of “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” If a man calls home every day just to ask what’s for dinner, that’s proof enough. Truth is, I didn’t even have a clue how to really cook when I first met my husband. I didn’t woo his affections through my cooking per se but God is so merciful that at least, if we follow instructions/directions, not only with things in general but also with the spiritual through God’s Word, we can have the hope of success in what we’re doing. There is hope for everyone.
Back to what Jesus said, “Do not worry.”
Food is what truly, besides God and family, what satisfy a man’s tough day is a wonderfully cooked meal that would make one feel stomach bliss…lol
Haha. Thanks for the insight!
🙂
When Jesus said not to worry about what to eat or what to wear, it was gender specific, food for men, and fashion for women.
***
I have never, ever heard anybody assert that. Both clothing and food are basic human needs, anyway. When you look at poverty – at the moms who tend to skip a meal so that their kids are less hungry as they go to school – telling them that because they’re women they only ought not worry about fashion seems like a strange interpretation of the text. And men – why can’t they be into fashion? It’s always been important for men to appear presentable and sharply dressed at the right occasion. You never see a shabbily dressed homeless man behind the podium of government meeting introducing himself as the mayor or the governor.
It is a general statement to an audience which had both male and female and thank you for pointing out that sadly, poverty affects a population regardless of gender. The thought of poverty never occurred to me while I was writing the post. Only the fact that I was relaying a struggle I have to acquire more of something I didn’t need.
You can disagree with my observation and conclusion since I was basing that on my personal experience though it is a common thing where men and women do tend to have different priorities.
Nevertheless, the passage speaks that if we put God first, He provides, whatever worries we might have, that there are actually more important things which I sometimes tend to forget.
“You never see a shabbily dressed homeless man behind the podium of government meeting introducing himself as the mayor or the governor.”
Of course not. Normally if a man is homeless, he wouldn’t have the luxury of worrying in the first place which outfit to wear, but simply what to eat and where to live…
Thanks for visiting.
If you only have one outfit to wear, your main worry is if it’s going to enough to keep you warm on long, cool nights. If you get soaked, then your main worry is getting that outfit dry before you get sick.
We often forget that Jesus’ ministry was a mobile one, he was a traveling guy whose followers traveled with him, we don’t often think of the logistics of what they ate or what they wore or what kind of shelter they had in the middle of nowhere.
The application which I wanted to bring to light (aside from my gender specific assertion) is the one derived from the verse below since we live in a country where the poor are not considered poor if compared to the poor from other parts of the world.
“32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”
This would include someone whose life revolves around fashion and the pursuit of, basically as the verse says, “run after.”
This right here is specifically highlighting a condition of the heart when a person has prioritized fashion over God and the things of God, and that becomes most of women’s downfall (this would be another lofty assertion here but can be proven by the saturation of fashion bloggers on the internet which BTW is dominated by women), which I mentioned I am not exempt from.
When you tell a given society that girls get to play dress-up, of course the fashion industry gets to be dominated by women. But it wasn’t always so, the height of fashion has been just as much a matter for men – particularly powerful men, kings, dukes, counts, senators – the idea that only women are into fashion betrays the cultural reality of millennia of men and women trading spaces.
No one told me to play dress up. I grew up fishing and climbing trees as a little girl amid desires to design clothes and dresses and I sure don’t tell my daughter to play dress up, yet she made her first deliberate fashion choice when she asked to get a wide brim wool floppy hat (I suppose she wanted one just like mine). The difference there is that she’s not playing dress up. But anyway, what I am after is going by a vast majority of women who gravitate to the same tendency and if you aren’t a woman, you would not possibly know the full scope of being one. Of course there are some who are not into fashion but it’s a rarity.
Frankly, you picked a bad example, one that defeats your point since the world’s population is not full of royalty. Most common men are still less fashion inclined, or to be very specific, have “fashion daydreams” than women. If we took a street survey right now, I am pretty confident the results would corroborate my statement.
I didn’t write the post to argue. But, I do appreciate you taking the time to comment.
One might argue that not being supposed to care about fashion is a fashion of sorts. Yet times do change, I remember a movie where a guy takes another guy shopping:
“Do you think women enjoy walking around in heels? No, they’re excruciating, but they do it for you. The least that we as guys can do is to return the favor and look nice for them.” There is a certain expectation that for every woman in a nice dress is a guy in a decent suit.
I didn’t assert only women are into fashion, only the fact that thoughts of fashion runs rampant on most women’s brains and since Jesus knows all things, He made a general address but at the same time, very specific- to the party that is most affected.
In Jesus’ culture, people – men and women both – tended to wear fashions that indicated their status, a wealthy women might spend four hours having her slaves do her hair in the morning – and her slaves, would be dressed according to their station in life; limited to certain kinds of clothes. How Jesus could have possibly known that would translate into “women care about fashion” some 2,000 years later in such a way that it would be more important than food – it’s just strange. When you really look at it – the whole idea that Jesus was telling girls not to worry about what to wear and He was telling boys not to worry about what to eat really does fall apart. Both men and women worried about what they wore and what they’ll eat back then, and it’s something a great many still worry about today. Even in a nation of plenty, it’s not always easy finding the right outfit or coming up with a good meal.
“How Jesus could have possibly known that would translate into “women care about fashion” some 2,000 years later in such a way that it would be more important than food – it’s just strange.”
Jesus IS God incarnate. Your statement pretty much tells me you don’t believe in His omniscience, One who can see from the beginning to the end, and we are just part of that timeline. You may discard something as little as fashion but it falls in the confines of the unlimited knowledge that He holds especially about things pertaining to His creation.
Anyway, seeing that you don’t believe in His omniscience, something so basic, disqualifies any claim you may have on Christianity.
You can blog about your view if you want. At least you’ll probably find people who will agree with you.
It still seems to me to be apparent that when Jesus said: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ” He was not talking to just men and then just women, but to both men and women. You can try to to divide each statement in the Bible that Jesus makes as if it were to just men and then to just women, but that means you’d have to interpret the Bible in worse ways than I do – take a pink highlighter to verses where Jesus is talking to women, and blue to men – and the Bible ceases to be a book for both men and women.
I am not enforcing my view on anyone. People agreed because seeing my example, they could see the validity in what I presented. However, I can explain to you why I believe a general address can be specific at the same time. Take a pastor who preaches a sermon for a general audience with both genders present in the congregation. The message was to be given for everybody but, someone, or some man or woman feels the message was specific for them.
Reading the Bible can also happen that way as when some people reads a passage, something stands out and it convicts the reader though it was written to a general audience.
I read your post from yesterday and since you feel people have to hear different things to make up their mind, it doesn’t give you the right to think you can change mine. I heard your end, you heard mine and even with this discussion, I stick to mine. Let’s end it at that. I urge you to analyze the example I have given.
Going back to our previous exchanges, this is what I gathered about you… you don’t believe in the basics- the gender God revealed Himself as, His omniscience, and the authority of Scripture. This is ample evidence that tells me what you’re about and leads me to believe your very intent to have people question their beliefs.
There is a difference between: somebody in the audience feels that a sermon was meant specifically for him or her and this verse Jesus taught was meant specifically for men in one part and specifically for women in another. This was part of the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus’ greatest teachings (and possibly the greatest teaching of them all) … and you’re telling me that some of it just doesn’t apply to certain people because of their gender? What other parts of the Bible do I get to ignore?
Wow. You are something. I never told anyone to ignore anything in Scripture. That’s actually what you yourself do when you ignore God’s revelation about His gender, which was solidified the instance Jesus came into the world.
I honestly don’t have to answer your question because the specificity of which gender would happen to have most concerns about fashion (when applied in our country of plenty) can be proven simply by taking a simple street survey. But, of course you’d argue because you can’t possibly fathom how Jesus, who is the Alpha and the Omega, could possibly know a minute detail about women’s inclinations.
Your attempt to twist what I have said is beyond sad and the comment I am responding to now will be the last one I will allow (from you that is). Sorry to have to make it this way.
Have a nice day.
I am a disaster w/ cooking, so my hope has to lie elsewhere (LOL). <3
Lol. I can honestly say Google has been there with me since I started cooking. No special touch or training here. I think keeping my must-haves Soy Sauce and Complete Seasoning helps a lot. 🙂
Thanks for visiting.
Well…as a man myself…i totally got the gender pun food for men, fashion for women thing you inserted. I got a laugh out of it. I dont give much thought about what i wear daily or how good i look in something myself. Its mostly t-shirt and jeans anyway on most days. But have my girlfriend tell me shes cooking steak and the fixens for dinner….that thought will stay directly between my eyes….making my stomache growl right up until said meal. A great post on trusting in God and another great post in general. Dont let the blind discourage you…please keep up the good work and may God bless.
Thank you for sharing and glad to know you got a quick laugh out of it 🙂 I’ve had a couple of interactions with Jamie prior to this post and Jamie’s concern always had something to do with gender so this was somewhat not that surprising.
I appreciate you taking the time to visit and read my posts. Thank You.