CARE
CARPENTER
as well. Nature reads to man the lesson of trust. The wild (lowers, though their life is so brief, are decked with loveliness by the yreat God. God takes care for the flowers. And He is youv Heavenly Father. The argument is a minori ad imijus. God's care for the flowers is a constant rebuke of His children's feverish anxiety concern- in" their own wants. The Providence, unforget- fuT of ' that which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into tlie oven.' is, in relation to His children, an all-wise and all-loving Fatherhood.
Hut the geniality of the argument does not disguise the seriousness with which Jesus regarded care. The context of the locus classicus (Mt 6-'"'^, Lk 12--'^') is not the same in the two Evangelists. St. Matthew attaches the warning against care to the saying, ' No man can serve two masters ... ye cannot serve God and mammon.' In Lk. it follows as a deduction from the parable spoken against covetousness and the closing saying, ' So is every one that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.' There is no need to decide the question of the priority of the two accounts, for the moral context of both is practi- cally the same. Care arises from a division at the very centre of life, an attempt to serve both God and mammon, to ' worship the Lord and serve other gods,' or it arises from the radically false idea that ' aman's life consisteth in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.' Such a false estimate of values, involving the desire for and the pursuit of material goods for their own sake, in- evitably produces the fever and distraction of mind called care, and it is the moral condition out of which it arises, as well as the consequences which it engenders, that makes it so serious a fault in the eyes of Christ. 'The cares of this life' are part of the hostile influences which choke the good seed of the kingdom, so that it bringeth forth no fruit to perfection (Mt 13-" ; cf. Lk 8'^). In a mind so preoccupied by worldly interests and anxieties the word of Christ may survive, but it never comes to maturity, or produces its potential harvest in life and service. Hence the .severity which underlies the gentleness of Christ's rebuke of Martha (Lk 10^'- ■"). She was distracted about much .serving, anxious and troubled about many things, and her worry spoiled her temper, and the service of Christ to which her love for Him impelled her. So serious indeed may be the consequences of this distress of soul, that Jesus, in His warning against the evil things which may overcharge the heart, and make men utterly unprepared for the coming of the Son of Man, combined with surfeiting and drunkenness ' the cares of this life ' (Lk 21**).
In opposition to care Jesus sets trust in the Heavenly Father. The assurance of His intimate knowlege of life and all its needs, and of His lov- ing care, ought to exclude all anxiety concerning the wants of the present, and all fear of the future. But trust in God's love must be continu- ally subordinate to the doing of God's will. The assurance of His Fatherly love and providential care is mediated to loving obedience. Thus in sending forth the Twelve (Mt 10' ; cf. Mk 6S Lk 9^), and in the case of the Seventy (Lk lO^- ■•), Jesus bids them make no elaborate provision for tlieir physical needs. God takes care of His servants when they are in the path of obedience to His will. And similarly, when He warns His disciples that they shall be brought before the ecclesiastical and civil authorities because of their allegiance to Him, He calls upon thcni to have no anxiety as to the reply they shall give (Mt lO'', Mk 13", Lk 12"). Jesus would have them believe that the moral order and the providential order of the world are essentially one, and are both controlled by the love of the Heavenly Fatlier, so that tliey wlio .seek
His Kingdom and do His will sliall not want any good thing.
Christ's own life is the supreme example of perfect peace, conditioned by absolute trust in the Heavenly Father, and loving obedience to His will. The pressing necessity gave Him no anxiety, and the impending peril no fear. ' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee' (Is 26^).
LiTERATiRE.— Hastings' Dr>, art. 'Cire'; Maclaren, Semi. pr. in Manchester, 1st ser. p. 235; Dale, Laws of Christy p. 157 ; Munger. Appeal to Life, p. 149 ; Alex. Macleod, Senn. p. 119; Fairbairn, Cili/ of God, p. 317 ; Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World, p. 123 ; Expositor, i. .\ii. (1882] 104, in. ii. [1385] 224 ; Moore, God is Loce, 82 ; AUon, Indwelling Christ,
- ' - ■ " ~ ■ " ■ "• ■ f God, 287.
OSEPH MUIR.
CARPENTER.— Mt 13« 'Is not this the car- penter's son?' The question of Christ's own countrymen, when they were offended at the lowly station of the Teacher at whose wisdom they mar- velled, tells us the exact conditions under which Jesus passed His early years. The parallel Mk 6' ' Is not this the carpenter?' is still more interest- ing, for it tells us how Jesus Himself was occupied in His youth and early manhood. This flashlight photograph of the artisan in the workshop is all we know of the eighteen years between the visit to Jerusalem in His boyliood and the baptism which marked the entry on public life. The passage Mt 13"-"l| Mk B'"* presents a curious and quite undesigned antithesis to Sir SS^'**', speeiallv these words, ' How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough? ... so every carpenter [Heb. .itoy, Gr. TiKToiv, KV ' artificer '] and workmaster that laboureth night and daj'. . . . They shall not sit high in the congregation . . . and tliey shall not be found where parables are spoken. Possibly this reference explains why the people were speci- ally oftended at Jesus the carpenter for presuming to speak in the synagogue and in parables. The passage of Sirach quoted is from the chapter describing the honour of a physician, with which may be compared the proverb, 'Physician, heal thy- self,' quoted by Christ in similar circumstances at Nazareth, when they said, ' Is not this Joseph's son ? '