Do not worry in Kinywang’anga: Reading Matthew 6:25–34 in a Tanzanian village

Abstract

One of the presumptions of this article is that most of the people in the nascent ‘Christian’ communities were ordinary people struggling with questions of living under harsh conditions in a country that was occupied by an enemy force. Another presumption is that the history of these ordinary people from antiquity needs to be heard. The article aimed, with the help of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social history of antiquity, literature of the time as well as other disciplines, to create a social context of Jesus and his disciples. The article approached the Gospels in the New Testament from the poor, the majority of people living in the 1st century Roman Empire. It gives a brief analysis of one of the poverty texts, namely Matthew 6:25–34. By means of interviews, stories of villagers in Tanzania, as well as their interpretations of the Gospel texts, have been documented. The people of Kinywang’anga serve as a test case for reading the ‘do not worry’ exhortation in the Matthean passage.