Daily Bible Reading 20th September 2026 // Luke 12:22-34
22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
From this verse on to the end of the chapter, Jesus returns to and elaborates the themes He had earlier touched on in His discussion of discipleship in 1-12 (the incident that led to His telling the parable of the rich fool was clearly an interruption of that discussion). Thus, the subject of God's care for His children spoken of in 6, 7 is elaborated in these verses; the subject of confessing Christ spoken of in 8-10 is returned to in 35-48; and the subject of persecution spoken of in 11, 12 is amplified in 49-53. All the same, the teaching of the parable is certainly not lost sight of as discerning readers may see in, for example, the reference in 24 to storehouses and barns, and in 25 to the thought of the prolongation of life (as scholars take the phrase to mean). Indeed, it is almost as if our Lord were taking the story of the rich fool as His 'text', on which to base the rest of His message on discipleship. We have already seen how Jesus introduced the dimension of eternity into the situation, and this seems to be the key to a proper understanding of these verses (as cf 21, 31, 33). What is being underlined is that Christian discipleship is not simply a question of improving one's life in measure: changing a little here, a little there, a being less preoccupied with material possessions, or a being less anxious about life. It is to belong to a different world, to be a different order of being. This is the light in which we need to view our Lord's statements here.