Commentaries:
It is encouraging that, right in the middle of the sparrow analogy, Jesus says, “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Jesus puts His disciples dead-center in this analogy about sparrows.
Our Savior is saying God knows us better than we know ourselves. Do we know how many hairs are on our heads? Of course, those who are follicly-challenged have a far easier time counting. Yet, no matter how much hair we may have, God knows!
And we can be sure that His knowledge does not end with the number of hairs on our heads! God knows everything about us and cares about our every body part, thought, word, and action, and He still loves us.
We are like sparrows. Compared to the number of people who live on earth, compared to the great and the near-great among humanity, we are so small and insignificant. Most of all, in comparison to God, we are literally worthless. We can offer Him nothing of value. Even our highest thoughts and ideas are meaningless. Paul makes this point for us in I Corinthians 1:27-29:
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
In Matthew and Luke, Jesus chose not the strong, powerful, stately eagle but the sparrow, the weak and base of the bird family, to make His point. In the larger setting of His purpose, He has chosen you and me, the truly weak and base, who are nothing special among human beings.
But the key words are in Paul's repeated phrase, “God has chosen.”
We did not volunteer to become His elect. God has chosen us. We did not have any special skills or abilities that impressed Him. God has chosen us despite our insignificance. We did not have any stature in society to advance His work. God has chosen us out of obscurity. God chose those who were foolish, base, despised, and nothing.
From the beginning, the sovereign God has been working (John 5:17), creating godly children in His image and character. He has set us apart for a special purpose, sanctifying us, a process that takes a lifetime of constant refinement. He tests us, honing our ability to endure and resist sin, purifying and perfecting our character, and bringing us ever closer to His own righteousness.
Throughout that lifetime of refinement, God is there with us, watching over us and loving us. He is neither distant nor uncaring. In fact, just the opposite, as Jesus tells us in Luke 12:32: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
This term, “Do not fear,” or similar ones like “fear not” or “do not be afraid,” appears over a hundred times in Scripture. By this repetition, God is driving home a point. Do we believe it?
Jesus wants us to be much more concerned with the will of our heavenly Father than the opinions of those who may test or discourage us. Every church member needs and desires encouragement occasionally, and we can find no greater encourager than God. Nothing is more encouraging than reading about God's sure promises in His Word, like those we see in Matthew 10 and Luke 12 about the sparrow.
God does not forget us, not even for one minute—and definitely not when we suffer under trials. One of the most heartening scriptures is Hebrews 13:5, where God Himself assures us, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Sparrows will never know that a loving God watches over them constantly and never forgets them. They have no idea He notices when they simply light upon the ground.
But we know. We know our great God is aware of us at every moment of the day and knows what is happening in our lives down to the smallest detail.
Why? Because, in His eyes, we are worth far more than many sparrows.
Ted E. Bowling
Do Not Be Afraid!
The two instances of Jesus' comments about sparrows say much the same thing, although a few minor details are different. As Jesus often does, He uses an example that His contemporary audience would have easily understood. Vendors sold sparrows in first-century markets as food for the lower class, and Jesus draws on this common marketplace transaction to make His point.
Sparrows are tiny; they typically weigh less than an ounce. One would hardly be a mouthful, and what is more, their nutritional value is meager. The sparrow was indeed a poor man's food, and even several of them would hardly make a decent meal.
It is easy to understand how little value they had in the Roman-era marketplace. No one would get rich selling pairs of sparrows for a copper coin, typically the lowest-value coins, similar in value to our modern penny. These tiny birds hold even less value today since modern people do not use them as food.
Luke takes matters a step further by saying that for two copper coins, one could buy not only the expected four sparrows, but the merchant would throw in a fifth sparrow for free! It is as if the fifth sparrow had no value at all. The fifth sparrow was literally worthless, yet Jesus says God does not overlook even it. Luke writes, “And not one of them is forgotten before God.”
It is difficult to comprehend how this is possible. But we can take this amazing watchfulness of God even further.
Matthew phrases what Jesus says a little differently: “And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will” (Matthew 10:29).
The word “falls” (Strong's #4098) is translated from the Greek word: piptō, which has the basic meaning of “to descend from a higher place to a lower one,” thus, “to fall.” For example, when the young man Eutychus “fell” from the third story of a house in Troas, the word Luke uses is a form of piptō. Luke also uses it to describe a donkey or an ox falling into a well (Luke 14:5), and Matthew uses it for a house falling or not falling due to flooding (Matthew 7:25, 27).
Alternatively, it can mean “to light upon.” The more common usage in Scripture is “to fall,” but this connotation is worth considering.
Most people assume that Jesus means that God notices when a sparrow falls to the earth and dies. This understanding is natural. But William Barclay's commentary on Matthew 10:29 and this particular word are noteworthy:
The Revised Standard Version—and it is a perfectly correct translation of the Greek—has it that not one sparrow will fall to the ground without the knowledge of God. In such a context, the word fall makes us naturally think of death; but in all probability the Greek is a translation of an Aramaic word which means to light upon the ground. It is not that God marks the sparrow when the sparrow falls dead; it is far more; it is that God marks the sparrow every time it lights and hops upon the ground. So it is Jesus' argument that if God cares like that for sparrows, [H]e will care much more for men and women. (Emphasis his.)
Jesus is declaring that if God cares enough to notice and acknowledge when the millions and millions of these little, brown-feathered birds light upon the ground, then how much more does He care for us, His children, whom He has made in His image?
His point is that we should never consider God distant and uncaring. No matter what we may be experiencing in life, God is aware of it. When we experience suffering, sorrow, persecution, hardship, separation, or even death, God is not somewhere else. He is right there with us.
We do not know if the disciples grasped what Jesus was telling them then, but in time, they learned from their experiences and the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. We can see it in I Peter 3:13-14 where the apostle encourages the church with the same thought:
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”
Peter had no doubt that God knows everything; nothing escapes His recognition or understanding. He knows our every thought, action, circumstance, and experience—good or bad. And he adds, “you are blessed,” knowing God's protection and compassion are endless.
We live in an age when God's love and care are continually questioned, privately and publicly. But if we believe God's Word, we show a lack of faith when we allow ourselves to think He has less compassion for us than He has for the little sparrow.
Ted E. Bowling
Do Not Be Afraid!
Hypocrite originally had a neutral sense, “someone who answers,” and hypocrisy meant “answering.” Initially, these words were used of the normal flow of question and answer in conversation or discussion. They later became connected with question-and-answer sections in plays, naturally followed by the idea of acting a part. Eventually, “hypocrite” came to describe one who is never genuine but always play-acting. The basis of hypocrisy is insincerity.
Hypocrites inhabit every walk of life, trying to impress others in an attempt to hide who they really are. In the Christian life, a hypocrite is someone who tries to appear more spiritual than he really is. Such a person knows that he is pretending and hopes he will not be found out. His Christianity is a shallow charade.
As the crowds following Him grew, Jesus decided to warn His disciples of this spiritual pitfall. They could easily surrender to human nature, giving in to the temptation either to gain popularity by pleasing the crowds or to avoid trouble by pleasing the Pharisees. Human nature drives us to want people to like and admire us, and it seems so easy to “act the part” that others want to see.
Jesus compares hypocrisy to leaven, symbolizing sin (I Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9). Like leaven, hypocrisy begins small but grows quickly and quietly, infecting the whole person and eventually the whole society. When a person is puffed up with pride, hypocrisy flourishes and character deteriorates (I Corinthians 4:6, 18-19; 5:2). Like all sin, it must be stopped before the underlying pride has an opportunity to spread (James 1:14-15). The longer he waits to deal with it, the worse it gets. Nothing can really be hidden (Mark 4:22), which makes hypocrisy foolish and futile. So why keep pretending?
Jesus was perhaps concerned that His disciples might be tempted to compromise the truth to avoid offending the crowds or the Pharisees (see Luke 8:16-18; 11:33). Many who profess to be God's ministers do something like this to remain in their pulpits. God's truth is like light, not leaven, and it must not be hidden.
Jesus mentions “fear” five times in these verses, teaching that a basic cause of hypocrisy is the fear of men. People will do almost anything to avoid embarrassment or harm. When we are afraid of what others may say or do to us, we try to impress them to gain their approval, and our human nature will stoop to deception to accomplish its purposes. Sadly, many of the Pharisees were more concerned about reputation than character—what people thought about them than what God knew about them. The fear of men always brings a snare (Proverbs 29:25), and Jesus wants His disciples to avoid it and be stable in their faith. As Scottish novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott, wrote, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.”
Martin G. Collins
Beware of Hypocrisy
Jesus chose this diminutive bird to answer questions like: Does God really notice us? Does He watch over us and love and care for each of us?
In Matthew 10:29-31 and in Luke's version of the same event (Luke 12:6-7), Jesus uses the example of the sparrow to teach that nothing escapes the attention of our loving God. Why did Christ choose the sparrow? Sparrows are not majestic or powerful like raptors but just the opposite: Sparrows are extremely vulnerable, especially susceptible to birds of prey like falcons, hawks, and eagles.
Sparrows are small and nondescript. A sparrow's average length is only five to six inches long, and one of the tiny creatures weighs less than an ounce. And most often, they go unnoticed even though they number in the billions (1.6 billion house sparrows are estimated to exist around the globe, and there are 28 true-sparrow species). They are drab brown and blend in with the ground, dry grass, or scrub. There is little to them to hold a person's attention. They cannot match the brilliance of colored plumage other songbirds sport.
No one prizes sparrows. No one gets excited when one flies into sight. No one pays big money to import a pair from abroad. People do not keep them in cages for their pleasant song; in fact, their “song” is more of a squawk. To put it bluntly, the sparrow is probably the most insignificant of all birds.
Yet, it is for this very reason that Jesus used them to teach the apostles about God's watchful care over them and us today.
Ted E. Bowling
Do Not Be Afraid!
