Luke 12:22-31 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And he said unto his disciples Having delivered the preceding instructive and awakening parable, whereby he intended to caution the contending brothers and the multitude against covetousness, sensuality, and the love of pleasure, he now proceeds to address his disciples, and caution them against those anxious cares and earthly affections which are also very inimical to religious dispositions, and obstructive to all progress in the divine life. This part of his discourse he grounds on, and enforces by, the consideration of God's superintending providence, and on the caution and parable which he had just delivered. As if he had said, Since a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth; since plenty of goods and fruits is not capable of prolonging it one moment beyond the term fixed for it by God; ye, my disciples, more especially ought, for that reason, to take no thought, or rather, as μεριμνατε means, not be solicitous for the prolongation of your lives, by anxiously laying up a store of provisions and clothes, &c., as if these could preserve life; no, you should consider that the life is more than meat, &c. See the contents of these verses explained at large in the notes on Matthew 6:25-34. For Luke has here, as in other places, recapitulated several precepts given by our Lord to his followers, according to St. Matthew, at a very different time. Some commentators, indeed, have laboured to show that both evangelists refer to the same period, but certainly they have not been able to prove that point: and to attempt it was perfectly unnecessary, it being surely proper that our Lord should repeat to his hearers in Judea, who had hitherto not been favoured with his public ministry, the doctrines which he had before delivered to such as attended his discourses in Galilee. Neither be ye of a doubtful mind Μη μετεωριζεσθε. Be not (like meteors in the air, tossed about by every wind) of a fluctuating, unstable mind or judgment, agitated with a variety of restless, uneasy thoughts. Any speculations and musings in which the mind is suspended in an uneasy hesitation, might well be expressed by the word. The thing forbidden, says Theophylact, is περισπασμος και του λογου αστατος περιφορα, a distracting and unstable fluctuation of the mind, or reason, about provision for the body, which Christ would here remove from the children of God, assuring them that his wisdom knows what is needful for them, (Luke 12:30,) and that his fatherly care will certainly provide for them what is so.