Do not worry about your soul what you eat and what you drink.

Christian community! Reflecting on the truths of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ said: “Therefore, I say to you: do not be anxious for your soul, what you eat and what to drink, nor for your body, what to carry. Is not the soul more than food, and the body than clothes? ”(Matt.6: 25). How to understand these words?

When analyzing the statement being analyzed, one should pay attention to the words "Therefore, I tell you." These words indicate that the following text contains a conclusion from the previous teachings of Jesus Christ. That is, the words to analyze are related to the previous verses. And in the previous words, the Savior spoke of the impossibility of serving two teachers simultaneously. "No one can serve two masters ... You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6.24). That is, God and wealth. And he called to serve not wealth, but God. And wealth, as a means to buy a man from worldly goods, including food, drink and clothing, in these words was the epitome of excessive worldly concerns. And in the words of Jesus Christ, "do not worry about your soul, what you eat and what to drink, or about your body, what to wear" also denounced the service of worldly concerns.

With these words, Jesus Christ calls not to strive for worldly pleasures and luxuries. “Do not love the world, nor what is in the world: if someone loves the world, there is no love from the Father in that. Because everything in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of this world "(1 John 2: 15–16). And so of life in which a person becomes a slave to his earthly pleasures and needs, as a mammon servant, does not please God. "God and mammon cannot be served."

From this we can conclude that the words of the Savior are condemned as a desire for wealth and an excessive concern for food, drink and clothing, care that has become an end in itself of human life, and becomes in the service of worldly goods, in the collection of earthly treasures.

The act of serving all worldly things is condemned by God, because a person who has embarked on the path of overly satisfying earthly bodily needs considers that his main purpose in his life is to take care of wealth, food, drink and clothes and stop caring for the salvation of your soul and serve God. And according to Jesus Christ: "Is not the soul more than food and clothing body?" These words should be understood as follows.

In these words, Jesus Christ equals the soul with food and the body with clothing. The food in these words is given as an example of man's bodily needs. And the purpose of food is to maintain the vitality of a person so that he has the opportunity to do things to save his soul. With the words "the soul is no more food," Jesus Christ says that caring for the soul is more important than caring for the body associated with food. But He does not deny the necessary care for his daily bread. And just as clothing is necessary for a person to protect it from the weather, so is the body for the soul, since the soul lives in the body. The human body is clothes for the soul. This is a home for the spirit. “Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit that lives in you and that you have from God” (1 Cor. 6:19). But the soul is more important than food (the necessary bodily needs), and the body is more important than the clothing needed for the body. Therefore, you do not need to take excessive care of food and drink for the body, but first you must take care of the soul, which is much more important, the most delicious food and the most delicious drink and the most beautiful clothes.

The soul is more important than the body, because the soul is the gift of God, the spark of God. Without a soul, human life is impossible, and through the salvation of the soul, a person reaches the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, we must first take care of man's physical, but spiritual needs.