G.E. Ladd notes, “If the reader opens two Bibles to the report of John's preaching in Matthew 3:7-10 and Luke 3:7-9, or to such a passage in the Sermon on the Mount as Matthew 6:23-34 and Luke 12:22-31...he will find both a striking identity of wording, accompanied by numerous variations, particularly in the addition or omission of material.”
It is usually not the material that is identical in both gospels that is disturbing to the reader, but the differences between the two accounts. We immediately want to ask, “Which one is correct?” and “Don't the differences mean that the Bible is not inerrant?” One simple way out of this quandary, especially where Jesus' teachings are concerned, as is the case in the passages highlighted above, is to state that Jesus and the apostles spoke on numerous occasions and tailored their talks differently depending on the nature of the audience. That may in fact be true, but other “inconsistencies” are harder to explain when the surrounding context makes it obvious that the two parallel accounts were actually given on the same occasion.
In an attempt to more completely explain the various differences between the three Synoptic gospels, scholars have come up with a four-document hypothesis. Basically, this proposal says that the gospel writers had different materials at their disposal and put together their accounts by utilizing these. The most reasonable assumption in this thesis is that Mark's was the earliest account, and therefore was a primary source of information for Matthew and Luke. I will not go into all the reasons why this is a very defensible assumption, but it is.
Now in the particular case of the title passages above, none of that material happens to be found in Mark, and so we can certainly eliminate him from the picture. That brings us to the rest of the four-document hypothesis. It proposes that both Matthew and Luke had their own individual sources to rely on in addition to Mark's Gospel (generally abbreviated as M and L, respectively). There is nothing particularly upsetting in such a supposition. Thus, in the case of the apostle Matthew, that may probably include his own recollection of the events themselves. Now Luke was not an early follower of Jesus, and therefore he had to rely on others who were eyewitnesses. But he explains this fact right at the start of his two-part history (Luke 1:1-4).
And finally, there are occasions in which Matthew and Luke agree with one another in wording to a marked degree, generally in the case of actual quotations, and Mark has no such passage in his gospel or uses entirely different language. To explain this phenomenon, the scholars propose a hypothetical document which they call Q (don't ask me to explain, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with QANON or any conspiracy theories). This document has never been found, but something very much like this supposed document is the Gospel of Thomas, a much later collection of sayings by Jesus fabricated by the Gnostics or proto-Gnostics.
Then to complicate the picture even more, there is always the possibility that each Gospel author departed from his sources somewhat on purpose to make a particular point, placed a passage in a different setting for theological reasons, or utilized slightly different vocabulary than was in the source to fit his own writing style. Much of this has resulted in the situations we are faced in trying to harmonize the various accounts of Jesus' life and teachings.
To many lay readers of the Bible, the resulting “discrepancies” in chronology or wording are just too much to face, and so they would just as soon pretend that they don't exist. But this is not really a viable option, and so it is better to try to approach the biblical writings on their own terms instead of trying to force them into whatever modern mold we have created for them in our minds.
With that overly long introduction, let's look at the two passages in question. Most of us are better familiar with Matthew's version since it occurs in the Sermon on the Mount. There is a somewhat parallel sermon called the Sermon on the Plain which appears in Luke 6:20-49, but interestingly Luke has not placed the parallel passage to Matthew 6:25-34 within that sermon, but in chapter 12 instead. To explain this phenomenon, there are three basic possibilities:
1. Matthew, as an eyewitness, placed this saying where it belonged chronologically while Luke placed it somewhere else for theological reasons. And, in fact, we have other cases where Luke apparently took an individual passage from a larger block of Jesus' teachings and placed it topically with sayings on a similar subject.
2. Matthew has obviously arranged the material in his gospel so that large blocks of teaching alternate with extended narratives. Thus, his may be the “artificial” arrangement rather than that of Luke, who adhered to a more chronological scheme.
3. And although either of the two above may be true, perhaps both writers departed from a chronological presentation of their material in order to group it according to other criteria. Keep in mind that we should not demand that biblical material be presented according to a straightforward time line. Teaching history was not really the Gospel writers only concern, or even their main concern.
Well, if a more topical or literary arrangement of material was utilized for either of these gospels, what were those arrangements like? I have attempted to answer that question in my posts “Matthew (and Luke): Introduction to the Literary Structure.”
If you look at the overall literary arrangement in those two posts, you can see that both gospels take the overall form of symmetrical chiasms – mirror-image placement of sections with similar themes. In the case of Matthew's Gospel, the Sermon the Mount is placed in parallel relationship to another major block of Jesus' teaching: the “Little Apocalypse” of chapters 24-25. And within the section containing the Sermon on the Mount, the following chiastic arrangement can be seen:
Figure 1: Structure of Matthew 4:18-8:34
A. Calling of disciples by the sea (4:18-22)
B. Healing ministry in all of Galilee (4:23-25)
C. Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-7)
1. Introduction (5:1-2)
2. Blessings (5:3-16)
3. Fulfillment of the law (5:17-48)
3'. True piety, riches and faith (ch. 6)
2'. Judgment (7:1-27)
1'. Conclusion (7:28-29)
B'. Healing ministry in Capernaum (8:1-17)
A'. Disciples who did and did not follow; sea episodes (8:18-34)
Note that (1) there appears to be a definitely thematic organization to the material, whether or not it also follows a strictly chronological one, (2) the Sermon on the Mount forms the important center portion of this section, and (3) the passage under consideration appears toward the end of the center portion of the Sermon.
The parallel teaching in Luke's Gospel is placed in an even more important position. The overall structure of that book is a 15-part chiasm in which the center section is Luke 11:1-12:34. Again, the verses in question form the very end of that center section. Thus, both accounts have utilized mainly topical, rather than chronological, rationales to order their books, and both treat the passages in question as high points of their gospels.
Despite the different contexts for these parallel passages, surprisingly they are both arranged in exactly the same way:
A. Do not worry about food, drink, or clothes (Mt. 6:25a; Lk. 12:22)
B. Proper ordering of priorities (Mt. 6:25b; Lk. 12:23)
C. Look at the unproductive birds (Mt. 6:26a; Lk. 12:24a)
D. God gives them food (Mt. 6:26b; Lk. 12:24b)
E. Aren't you of more value? (Mt. 6:26c; Lk. 12:24c)
F. Don't worry about your life (Mt. 6:27; Lk. 12:25-26)
C'. Consider the lilies (Mt. 6:28; Lk. 12:27a)
D'. God clothes them with glory (Mt. 6:29; Lk. 12:27b)
E'. Will he not clothe you more? (Mt. 6:30; Lk. 12:28)
A'. Do not worry about food, drink, or clothes (Mt. 6:31; Lk. 12:29-30)
B'. Proper ordering of priorities (Mt. 6:32-34; Lk. 12:31)
Despite the marked similarities in the overall arrangement of material, that does not mean that the two accounts are word-for-word the same. To compare the two, we will talk about the ways in which Luke's account differs from that of Matthew, although that does not necessarily imply that Luke changed Matthew's account. The reverse may well be true since we don't know which of the two gospels was written first. And more likely, they both were relying on the same source. To muddy the waters even further, several scholars (such as I.H. Marshall) propose that there may have been two similar sources (Q1 and Q2), with Matthew and Luke relying on different ones.
Section A: Luke omits mention of “drink.” This has the effect of somewhat weakening the parallel with A' which does contain that word. But by omitting “drink,” the correspondence with Section B is made smoother since there is no mention of “drink” there. Both Metzger and France feel that Matthew's “and drink” may in fact be a later addition to the text.
Sections A and A': Blomberg notes, “In v. 34 Jesus returns full circle to the beginning of his discussion (v. 25), encouraging daily dependence n God.”
Section B': Hill states that “righteousness” in Matthew 6:33, which does not appear in Luke's parallel, is “a term which is undoubtedly important to Matthew.” In fact, the word appears six times in Matthew's Gospel compared to only once in Luke. It is therefore safe to assume that Matthew has added the phrase “and his righteousness” to his source.
France feels that Matthew 6:34 is probably an independent saying that Matthew, but not Luke, appended here.
Section C: It is interesting that Luke has the word “ravens” for the generic word “birds” in Matthew's version. There are two opposite ways of explaining this difference. For one, Marshall starts by saying: “No strong editorial reasons for the difference can be established.” But he suggests that perhaps Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, did not want to reference an unclean bird in this context and so he changed the original “raven” to “bird” instead.
Alternatively, one could propose that the original was “birds” After all, the use of “birds” in Lk. 12:24a would fit much better with “birds” in Lk. 12:24b. If Luke did change the first occurrence of the word, a good reason suggests itself. It could have been as a reference back to the OT appearances of ravens in other contexts describing God's provision to both man and beast:
I Kings 17:4-6: God has ravens bring food to Elijah while he is in hiding.
Job 38:41: “Who provides prey for the raven when its young ones cry to God?”
Psalm 147:9: “He gives to the animals their food and to the young ravens when they cry.”
By the way, similar lessons drawn from nature are found in Job 12:7-10; Psalms 37:4,25; 104:10-15,27-30; Proverbs 6:6-11; Jeremiah 8:7; and Matthew 10:29-31; 12:12.
Section D: This is another example where the differences between the two accounts can be explained in two opposite ways. Luke substitutes “God” in place of Matthew's “heavenly Father” in order to form a better parallel to the reference to God in D'. Alternatively, Matthew is very fond of the phrase “heavenly Father” (occurring 17 times within the Sermon on the Mount) since direct reference to “God” would have been frowned upon by his mainly Jewish audience.
Section F: In this central, and thus most important, unit in the whole passage, it appears obvious that Luke has made several minor changes in order to bring out more clearly the significance of this passage. In the first place, he has taken seven of the rhetorical questions present in Matthew's version and turned them into declaratory statements instead. Then he has added one more question to Section F so that the only rhetorical questions in the whole passage end up in this center section, calling attention to them.
Secondly, and most obviously, Luke has added his verse 26 to Matthew's Section F in order to bring added attention to it. Marshall agrees that this is probably a Lukan addition rather than a purposeful deletion of that verse by Matthew.
Apparently not understanding the literary structure of these verses shown in the figure above, Fitzmyer makes the unwarranted comment that Matthew 6:27 // Luke 12:25 is “an intrusive verse” since it “deals with neither food nor clothing.”
A final comment on this section is made by Fitzmyer to the point that Luke has probably substituted one of his favorite verbs katanoein (“look at”) in both verses 24 and 27.
Finally, if all of the above has somehow caused you to question whether we truly have the thoughts of Jesus in this passage, that is not what Bible scholars conclude. For example:
Marshall: “In general the authenticity of the teaching of Jesus in this section is uncontested...”
Yang: “...the general consensus of the scholarship that there is a strong continuity between the Sermon and the historical Jesus is correct.”
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