A play on words I sometimes employ just for fun is "Some people have to be paid to be good but I've always been good for nothing," which is a step below the evaluation, "Well, you're better than nothing." And that valuation seems to bring us to Jesus' words revealing we are "worth many sparrows" (Matt 10:31). Not good for nothing, not better than nothing but more than a bunch of yard birds.
On the surface, that doesn't seem like much of an endorsement of our value to God. But we know it was used to express the extreme value God places on us because the context is Jesus' reassurance: "Do not be afraid...you are worth more than many sparrows" (vv. 28-31).
The value is assigned by context and contrast. For instance, suppose someone said, "You're worth many pennies." That wouldn't sound like much unless you knew that the individual collected and highly prized pennies, that pennies were a standard of value. That this individual valued you in contrast to something he/she already valued highly.
God values his creation, all of it, even the sparrows. He values the sparrows so much that "not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your Father's care" (v. 29). God is intimately concerned about each sparrow but you, in contrast, are worth many or many times more than a sparrow.
As a little boy once mused, "God don't make no junk." God doesn't indeed. Everything and everyone he has created is of great value - so much so the Bible proclaims, "God so loved the world (you and me) that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). That's a lot of sparrows, right there. Jus' Say'n.
No comments:
Post a Comment