The following is adapted with permission from Inductive Bible Study: A Trusted Guide to Understanding and Applying the Word of God by Dr. Kenneth Acha
CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATIONS
HISTORICAL-CULTURAL CONTEXT
The lost or fallen condition (FC) Jesus addresses in this paragraph is anxiety about tomorrow. At an even deeper level, the FC is the lack of faith in God’s knowledge of their needs and his willingness and ability to provide for them. The remainder of the historical-cultural context helps us understand the expression of the FC in the original context. Note that we share this lost or fallen condition with the original audience.
The immediate historical situation or problem that caused the anxiety was the lack of good access to food, water, and clothing. They were worried about life (what to eat and drink) and the body (what to wear). Jesus points out real needs within his listeners’ context, which were causing them to be anxious and worried about the future. His purpose was to help them find rest in God and not be anxious any longer.
The geographical, historical, and sociocultural contexts: In ancient times, most people were poor and struggled to have their basic needs like food, water, clothing, and shelter met. Their ability to meet most of these needs depended on seasonal rains or the flood of the rivers, such as the Nile (in Egypt), that supported their subsistence farming. As a result, ordinary people were often worried about providing for these needs. To compound the situation, first-century Israel, the historical setting of this passage, was occupied by the Roman Empire. Corrupt tax collectors often collected more than was required, further impoverishing the masses.
Like Jesus, the audience was Jewish, and the structure of the arguments Jesus makes in this paragraph is typical of ancient Jewish thought. For example, the structure of showing that God feeds the less valuable creatures (birds and lilies), so he will certainly provide for humans who are more valuable to him, is common in Jewish thought.
The theological context is an audience with access to the entire Old Testament canon, living under the Old Covenant. Jesus himself often read in the synagogues, and many audience members were likely familiar with the Old Testament. In the text (and preceding surrounding context), Jesus repeatedly says, “Your heavenly Father,” indicating that the audience had God as Father in a way that others, like the Gentiles, did not.
INTERNAL CONTEXT
Genre/subgenres. Even though Matthew is a Gospel (biographical narrative), the subgenre of this passage is expositional (this is part of a sermon).
The Surrounding Context
1) The immediate context. Matthew 6:25-34 is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Leading to this passage, Jesus had taught about giving to the poor from the heart (not so people can see you), praying genuinely to God, in secret (not so people can see you as holy), and in the Lord’s prayer, he teaches them to pray to “our father in heaven,” assuming that the people already have a relationship with God and are not Gentiles (Matt. 6:1-15).
In the Lord’s prayer, he tells them to pray for God’s kingdom to come. The kingdom of God is where his will is done, and he reigns sovereignly. Jesus also teaches them to ask God for their daily bread—and therefore, rely on and expect God to provide it. God is to be the source. The kingdom of God is also the reason Jesus came to preach.
Immediately before our passage, Jesus taught the people not to fast like the hypocrites (who did it for show) and to avoid the dangers of materialism (Matthew 6:16-24).
In our passage, He then instructs his followers not to worry about basic needs like food and clothing, using examples from nature to illustrate God’s provision. The passage is a call to trust in God’s providence and seek his kingdom first rather than focusing on worldly concerns. The overall theme is faith and reliance on God, connecting with the larger sermon’s focus on inward spirituality and heart attitudes over external religious practices.
The worry he addresses in the passage seems to arise from enslavement to money (Matt. 6:24 NLT) or trying to serve both God and money.
After Matt 6:25-34, Jesus switches gears a bit in Matthew 7:1-6 to urging his hearers to avoid hypocrisy by focusing on their own flaws before judging others, and to exercise discernment when sharing spiritual truths with those who may not appreciate or understand them.
2) The Segment and book context: Matthew 6:25-34 is part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapters 5-7), which serves as the first of five major discourses by Jesus in the book of Matthew. This discourse outlines the fundamental values and behaviors of the Kingdom of Heaven and how followers of Jesus should live (emphasizing inner spiritual transformation, love, humility, and righteous living over external religious practices).
These particular verses about trust in God’s provision and the priority of the Kingdom of God over worldly concerns align with the theme of the sermon on the mount (which focuses on the values of true disciples or how they should live) and Matthew’s overall theme: Jesus as the promised Messiah who ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven, calling individuals to live in accordance with this new Kingdom’s values.
3) The canonical context (covenant and redemptive contexts of the entire Bible): How does this passage reveal Jesus and his gospel of redemption? How does this passage point to Christ and his redemptive gospel? In this passage, Jesus shows “your heavenly Father” actively caring for, providing for, and sustaining all creation (even extravagantly). The original listeners and us can have God as our heavenly Father because of the work of Christ on the cross. They can stop their worry and anxieties about life’s necessities because Jesus took our anxieties and suffered for us on the cross. His redemptive work made it possible for his audience and us to be children of God.
STRUCTURAL OBSERVATIONS
Divisions into main and subunits
Block Diagram
- RQ=Rhetorical Question, which should be restated as follows:
- RQ 1: Life is much more than food, and the body is much more than clothing!
- RQ 2: You are much more valuable than they!
- RQ 3: And don’t be anxious about clothing!
- RQ 4: He will much more clothe you, O you of little faith!
- The main clauses are bolded and on the left.
An Outline of Matthew 6:25-34
Title: Do not be anxious about the future
Main idea. The main idea is, “Do not be anxious about the future; instead, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and he will provide for all your needs.”
I. Do not be anxious about your life and body (25a)
- Three ways people are anxious about life and the body: food, drink, and clothing (25b)
- Reasons you shouldn’t be anxious about your life and body
Reason #1: Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing! (25b)—i.e., God is willing and able to meet your needs.
Evidence #1: Birds. Your heavenly Father feeds the birds and will most certainly feed you because you are more valuable to him (26)
Evidence #2: Lilies. God extravagantly clothes lilies and will most certainly clothe you who is more valuable to him (28-30)
Reason #2: None of you can add a single hour to his lifespan by being anxious (27)
Reason #3: Godless Gentiles anxiously seek the things you are anxious about (32a)
Reason #4: Your heavenly Father knows you need them all—God is aware (32b)
Reason #5: Tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (34b).
II. Why people are Anxious
- Lack of faith in God is the root of anxiety (30b)
- Internal dialogue (31)
III. How to overcome anxiety
- Don’t engage in any internal dialogue about worry (31)
- But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (33).
- Have faith in God to provide for your needs (30b).
Major Structural relationships
Tasks when studying a paragraph: 1) Seek to identify at least 3-5 MSRs operative in the unit, and 2) Trace the thought flow through the paragraph.
Major structural relationships
- Reasons (premise) are found in the preceding passage, and the inference in verse 25 is introduced by “therefore,” which connects this passage to the literary context that precedes it.
- General to specific. General statement in 25a, specific details in 25b-31
- Grounds. Command (v. 25), reasons or grounds (25b-29).
- Inference. Reasons (25-30), inference (in 31).
- Grounds. Command (in 31), reasons or grounds (32-33)
- Inference. Reasons (25-34), inference (34a)
- Contrast. Introduced by “but” in 33. It contrasts 25-32 with 33.
- Grounds. Command (34a), reasons or grounds (34b)
There is a recurrence of inference and grounds. Besides the recurrence of inference and ground, there is also a recurrence of general to specific. Every command is a general statement, followed by specifics (reasons).
CONTENT OBSERVATIONS
W-WORDS, PHRASES, AND CONCEPTS
Important words and phrases: anxious (occurs six times); do not be anxious (occurs three times); the future— “will” and tomorrow (occurs eight times); and you/your occurs sixteen times.
O-ORDER, GRAMMAR, AND PROPOSITIONS WITHIN SENTENCES
See the block diagram for propositions and how they relate to each other within sentences. A detailed grammatical analysis is reserved for smaller passages like sentences.
R-RELATED PASSAGES AND IDEAS
Luke 12:22–32, Phil 4:6, and 1 Peter 5:7. During the interpretation phase, you will use cross-referencing tools to look up and study more related passages.
D-DISCOURSE CHOICES
Choices of PIPET (Primary observations): Jesus (speaker), God (your heavenly father), you (the listeners), birds, lilies, and Solomon.
Secondary observations: You can make secondary observations of Jesus (the speaker) and God (the heavenly Father) by writing down things you know about them from other parts of scripture.
The atmosphere is affirming, the tone is instructive, and there is no need to assess the speaker’s mental state.
Lost condition: Anxiety.
Gospel solution: Trust God and seek his kingdom first; he’ll take care of all you need.
For the same space, I’ve limited how many observations I document in this book from this category. If you would like to see more, you can see my running commentary on this passage.[i]
ASK INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS
Ask interpretive questions about any major structural relationships operative in the text. Also, ask interpretive questions about any other important observation. The ideal thing is to ask interpretive questions about every single observation. However, that is usually untenable given the time most people have. The three must-ask interpretive questions are:
- What specifically does this observation mean? (definition)
- Why did the author use this? Why at this location? (reason)
- What does this imply (implication)
See the chapter on observing sentences for an example of how to ask interpretive questions on a small passage.
[i] Visit https://www.servantsuniversity.com/running-commentary-of-matthew-6-25-34/
