When my brother was six, he had beautiful shiny hair. It was slippery and dead straight. His fringe was a curtain of fine dark strands that looked like a solid mass from a distance. It was as if someone had split a coconut and plonked one half of it directly on his head. (Apparently, bowl haircuts were hot back then.)
One morning, his first-grade teacher made an important announcement. “Tomorrow is school photo day. Some of you might want to get a haircut.”
Those words pinged and ricocheted off the cog wheels in my brother’s skull. In a heartbeat, he coaxed a stray pair of scissors into his hand, and in the twinkling of an eye he was sporting a brand new look.
A conspicuous chunk of hair was missing from his fringe.
Did mum and dad blow their tops? I have no memory of them even raising their voices. They shrugged it off, resigned to yet another of my brother’s boyish antics, and abandoned the excellent idea to trim his jagged fringe straight.
The evidence of his awful self-inflicted hair cut was captured shamelessly by the camera on School Photo Day. His head shot bore proof of his rudimentary barber skills, and my parent’s charming sense of humour (You reap what you sow; you wear what you snip). Was it a case of parental payback for all my brother’s mischievous ways? Maybe.
Fast forward a few decades and I would have my own son, with dark brown hair just like his uncle’s hair at that age. My son’s hair grew fast, so investing in a pair of hair clippers for home hair cuts seemed like a feasible economic solution.
Why pay fifteen dollars for a cut at the barber shop, when a few rounds with the clippers could do the job just as well? But right on the first go—in an action that I could only describe as a sheep shearer running up his clippers against the grain—my son’s precious hairs got tangled up in the blades.
He screamed as we tried to dislodge the clippers off his poor little head, uprooting strands of his hair in the process. We felt awful. We were bad parents. The clippers were rightly tossed in the bin.
The saga of failed haircuts continued as we experimented with various hair lengths on him. Having decided that a number 2 length was a fraction too long, my husband instructed the barber to give my son a number 1.
So, when father and son returned from the barber shop, I thought my husband had brought home the wrong kid. My son was practically bald! If I’d wrapped him in an orange bed sheet and stuck him on the footpath of Sydney’s city streets, he would’ve passed for a Tibetan monk begging for loose change.
My poor boy. He spent the rest of that summer hiding his awful haircut under a baseball cap.
A head full of hair
It’s of some comfort to me that God knew the exact number of hairs that were uprooted from my son’s head in the disastrous clipper episode. Scripture informs us in Matthew 10:30
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Does God keep a log book of the number of hairs I have at any point in time? Does He like to keep tabs on hereditary balding patterns just for fun?
The ‘But’ at the start of the verse tells us that as a conjunction, we must consider the thought that precedes it. So, jumping back to the previous verse we find in Matthew 10:29 this declaration:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father.
Still, we’re left pondering. How does the price of sparrows relate to how many hair follicles exist on our scalps? So, we turn to the verse that comes directly after Matthew 10:30 for more insight.
Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. Matt 10:31
Reading in Context
It makes more sense when we examine the verse in light of the entire chapter.
In Matthew 10, Jesus was giving instruction to his inner circle—the twelve apostles. They were told to preach the good news of the gospel. Firstly, to God’s covenant people—the Jews—of the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As this was their first mission, to authenticate Christ’s message of salvation, Jesus delegated his power to them. Now they had the authority to do the inconceivable. They had the ability to exorcise demons and heal all manner of disease and sickness.
They would be wandering preachers, active in the service of God and ministering to the needs of the people. They would be far too busy to generate a regular income stream from a regular job, so how would they survive?
A sparrow’s worth
A farthing was a small copper coin. You could purchase two sparrows for a farthing, and in Luke 12:6, you could get an even better deal with two farthings buying you five sparrows.
Jesus was familiar with the price of a basic grocery item, much like us today, in that we all know the price of a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread.
During the time of Christ, the poor could purchase meat in the form of a sparrow—a small bird with not a lot of flesh on its body. It was one of the cheapest items sold in the market place.
Sparrows were found in great numbers and made their nests everywhere. (They were the pesky Ibis birds—aka Bin Chickens of their day). Sparrows were considered a nuisance. King David alludes to this in Psalm 84 where flocks of these small birds made nests on the altars of God.
How much more . . .
No one thinks twice about the death of a sparrow, or even flocks of sparrows. In the eyes of humans their lives are not worth all that much. Yet, Jesus brought attention to the fact that God cares for these seemingly insignificant birds.
Sparrows hop on the ground to pick up grain, or they’ll peck around for bugs and worms. God has laid out food to sustain them.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Matthew 6:26
When a sparrow falls to the ground from being caught in a net, or receives a fatal blow from a slingshot, or dies from natural causes, God notices.
If He cares for something as small as a sparrow, how much more does He care for people? Especially his faithful servants.
Jesus was teaching his disciples to trust the Lord to supply their needs.
Providence
According to Unger’s Dictionary, Providence is a term that in theology designates the continual care that God exercises over the universe He has created. This includes the two facts of preservation and government.
God providentially controls the timing and circumstances of the seemingly insignificant ‘day in the life’ of a tiny bird. This care extends to us and applies to the minutest parts of our physical make up.
The number of hairs attached to our heads is governed by His sovereign will. God is in all the details. God takes care of us in every aspect of our lives right down to the deepest longings of our souls.
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. Psalm 145:9
The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Psalm 145:15
Random acts of kindness
The word Providence also means “foreseeing” and suggests the notion of providing for the future. The Lord makes all events work out according to His will and purposes.
Random, accidental or seemingly unimportant events are under His power.
When was the last time you had a terrible night’s sleep? You lay awake in the middle of night trying to fall back to sleep, but your mind was racing, so you got up and watched a mind-numbing TV show, or flicked open the pages of a book to distract you from your intrusive thoughts.
In the Old Testament, it was the Lord that caused a certain king to suffer a bout of insomnia
King Ahasuerus of Persia reigned over a vast empire from 486 to 465 BC. He kept an honours list. This was the book of records of the chronicles. In it were entries of memorable facts or special deeds done by his loyal citizens.
As a general rule these noble deeds were promptly rewarded.
Let’s have a quick look at Esther 6:1
On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.
He listened to the details about Bigthana and Teresh, once trusted servants, keepers of the door, who plotted to assassinate him.
A certain man uncovered and thwarted their evil plot and saved the king’s life. This individual was Mordecai, a devoted Jew and Queen Esther’s adoptive father.
And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him. Esther 6:3
A proper reward for Mordecai’s act of kindness had been overlooked. Thus, King Ahasuerus was more determined to repay Mordecai for his loyalty to the crown.
Now, Haman was the king’s right-hand man. It just so happened that he was in the outer court of the king’s house at that exact time.
Days earlier, Mordecai had refused to bow down to Haman. Infuriated, Haman was up early that morning in the hopes of requesting for Mordecai’s death.
Oblivious to all that had previously transpired between Mordecai and Haman, the king sought out administrative counsel.
He asked Haman for advice on the type of reward that was suitable for a man that deserved the king’s recognition. Haman’s ego was so inflated that he couldn’t imagine the king honouring anyone but himself, and mistakenly believed the king was speaking in a roundabout way to reward him.
And we laugh at the irony as we read the rest of Esther chapter 6.
Haman had to dress Mordecai, his mortal enemy, in the royal robe that Haman himself wanted to wear, and saddle him on the royal horse Haman wanted to ride. Lastly, Haman had to lead him through the city proclaiming, “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.”
It’s one of many providential threads in a rich tapestry that reveals to us that all things work out according to God’s purposes. I encourage you to read the entire book of Esther. In it you will see the golden thread of His providence illuminated.
And as children and servants of the most High God, we can rest in His continual care for us.
His Eye is On The Sparrow
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
Civilla D. Martin 1905
Bibliography
Barnes. ‘Barnes’ notes on the Bible’. StudyLight.org. Retrieved 1 August 2023 from: https://www.studylight.org/bible/eng/kjv/matthew/10-29.html
Henry, M. 1961, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Zondervan, Michigan.
Macarthur, J. 2019, The Macarthur Study Bible 2nd Edition, Thomas Nelson Publishers, China.
Martin. C. 1905. “His eye is on the Sparrow” Lyrics. Christianity.com. Retrieved 1 August 2023 from
https://www.godtube.com/popular-hymns/his-eye-is-on-the-sparrow/
Pawson, D. 2015, Unlocking the Bible, William Collins, UK.
Pfeiffer C,F. 1990, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Moody Publishers, Illinois.
Strong, J. 1995, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville.
Unger, M.F. 1988, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Moody Press, Chicago.
Keener, C.1993, The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament, IVP Academic, Illinois.
