Taken in context, this is a scripture about taking things a step at a time and not troubling ourselves today with what will be trouble tomorrow - a compound exhortation to savvy sequencing and childlike blitheness. Neither is very deep nor at all original, and each is a crude aid to the simple. Valuable for what they are, though, and appropriate to the audience hearing the sermon.
But the single observation is also intelligible in isolation, and deeper. Taken apart, I understand this scripture thus:
- As admonition: Brethren, add no evil.
- As observation: Our labors are hard enough even when we work timely and well. So do not add yesterday's troubles to this day's by procrastination.
- As theory: The presence of evil is a natural result of material entropy and human disagreement.
- As encouragement: Evil is but one aspect of our time - it neither overtakes nor is the whole - it will press but not break us.
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