Daily Devotional

Read this verse flat and you will be bankrupt by Tuesday. Augustine, with characteristic precision, said it best: “The text says give to everyone who asks. It does not say give everything to everyone who asks.” J. Adams, in his blunt counseling style, adds that this is not a command to bankroll every lazy scoundrel. The verse is not regulating amounts; it is rearranging hearts. The disciple of Jesus does not reflexively close their fist first. The default posture is open.


Doriani points out that this is the fourth and most ordinary of Jesus’ illustrations. The slap is occasional. The lawsuit is rarer. The forced mile is foreign to most of us. But begging and borrowing happen constantly: family members in chronic financial trouble, neighbors with awkward needs, coworkers who ask too much. In every sphere, Jesus says, open your hand. Sometimes the answer will be a check. Sometimes it will be a phone call to someone better positioned to help. Sometimes it will be a hard no, lovingly given. But the posture is generosity, not self-protection.

Stack these four illustrations together: honor, legal, political, economic. France notes that Jesus has covered every sphere where the human heart wants to grab and hold. The closed fist is the universal native posture of a sinner. The open hand is the supernatural sign of someone being remade by grace. The reason this is hard is not that you do not have enough. The reason this is hard is that your heart, like mine, has been trained for decades to clutch.