NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
31 January 1844, evening
[Ste.01_025,01] ‘So do not be anxious and say, “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?” The Gentiles seek all these things. For your Father knows that you need them all.’
[Ste.01_025,02] See, My dear ones, here are two much longer passages again. They are already laid out plainly and openly in their full meaning and bear their spiritual sense so openly that almost anyone can grasp it with their hands for their own needs. In general you may remember that what is hardest to grasp does not lie in My spoken teaching. It always lies in My deeds. Why?
[Ste.01_025,03] The teaching had to be given in such a way that the world too could understand it without much trouble. What use to all the world would a teaching couched in the deepest wisdom be? It would be to the world much as Japanese is to you. The world would never understand so much as an iota of it.
[Ste.01_025,04] Take, for instance, the Revelation of John, written in somewhat deeper wisdom. You have read many explanations of it, yet at bottom you still do not know what to make of this Revelation and what good it is alongside the Gospel.
[Ste.01_025,05] For that reason My teaching was always given so that all the world could understand it at once in its true meaning. Whoever attends to the very apt and easily grasped sense of the letter will then all the more readily come upon the spiritual sense, which lies quite open.
[Ste.01_025,06] The two passages before us therefore belong to that part of My teaching which My disciples did not call hard. Nor do they belong to the parables which My disciples did not always understand. Rather, these two passages belong to the part of My teaching of which My disciples said, ‘Now You speak openly of what You wish, and we understand You!’
[Ste.01_025,07] What do these two passages contain, then? Simply a friendly, brotherly warning against the world. I mean by it that people should lay every care upon Me and seek My kingdom in deed alone. All else will be freely given them besides.
[Ste.01_025,08] That is the entirely natural sense of these passages, and in it the spiritual sense can already be grasped with the hands. What is advised against for the body holds also for soul and spirit, and could be put somewhat as follows:
[Ste.01_025,09] Do not anxiously concern yourselves with developing the spiritual powers of your soul through all sorts of laborious study. Do not worry about universities and all kinds of doctoral degrees. Love Me, your Father, and I will give you the wisdom of angels freely. That will surely be more than if you had earned all the doctoral caps and diplomas in the world!
[Ste.01_025,10] For all the greatest scholars of the world, with their diplomas and doctoral caps, cannot find out what happens to a human being after the death of the body. Yet the one to whom I have given wisdom carries this in his little finger, with the most convincing certainty.
[Ste.01_025,11] Yes, I tell you: in this respect the animals with their dim power of foreboding are better off than many a great worldly sage. Here too belongs the passage, ‘What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and suffer harm to his soul?’
[Ste.01_025,12] Whoever does not know what will one day become of him already shows that his soul is damaged. Just as a musician can accomplish nothing of consequence on a damaged instrument, so a spirit can do nothing of consequence for eternal life through a soul badly damaged by the world. It has to spend its strength making up the deficiencies of the soul. But how, as a perpetual cobbler patching things up, should it ever make a sound, perfect boot in which its firm foot of life finds proper protection and a firm footing?
[Ste.01_025,13] Therefore let no one be anxious for the soul any more than for the body about what he will eat and drink and what he will wear. I will provide for all of that when he acts out of love for Me according to My teaching.
[Ste.01_025,14] That is the whole, readily understood meaning. Whoever observes it in a living way will fare better than all speculators, usurers and scholars of every sort. Amen.