SEEING CLEARLY

SEEING CLEARLY

Why do people act the way they do? Matthew 6:22-24 gives us answers to that question. But for most people, this section of scripture remains a mystery, until one can understand the meaning of the original words that were used. A Concordance helps with that. Let's take a look at the passage and break it down, so we can see clearly what Yeshua God wants to tell us. 

 

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

 

“But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

 

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:22-24).

 

First let’s look at the word “light” in verse 22. In the original language, it is a portable candle or oil lamp, one that can be lit, or it can go out. The next word I looked at was “eye.” Here it used metaphorically, of ethical qualities.

 

The candle guiding us is our ethical qualities – our moral standards. Our moral or ethical standards guide our whole body. The “body” is the whole man—body, soul, and spirit. What we do with our body and soul is maneuvered by our moral standards. So, if we carry a lamp that is full of good Biblical morals and ethics, it will guide us in a good direction. But if that light burns out, or the wick is pinched, the good standards slip away and are replaced by other standards, beliefs, and actions that are not Biblical.

 

In the second part of verse 22, what does it mean, “if thine eye be single“? The word single means simple, clear, in which there is nothing complicated or confused; without folds (not double-minded). Jesus was saying that if our eyes (ethical qualities) are clear and not jumbled, our “whole body will be full of light.”

 

So, we have these meanings for the words we read in the King James Version of the Bible:

 

Light = portable oil lamp or candle

Eye = ethical qualities, moral standards

Body = whole man (body, soul, spirit)

Single = simple, clear, not confused or double-minded

 

People think they can take some standards from the Bible, some from Buddhism, some from Hinduism, or Islam, or New Age, or situational ethics, but if those standards don’t jive with what the God of the Bible says, there’s going to be double standards, ethical difficulties, and a confused, jumbled mess. Granted, a person needs to understand what the Bible actually says, and not just blindly believe what’s “always” been taught. Asking questions is perfectly okay with our God, and there are plenty of verses documenting that.

 

Verse 23 goes on to say: “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” The word “eye” is again ethical qualities. The word “evil” is poneros, “the Evil, malignant one,” so this is saying that if a person’s ethics are inspired and motived or manipulated by the evil one, Satan, then the intent is “wicked, actively bad, actively causing sorrow or pain.”

 

If moral codes are so deranged, the whole self is going to be full of darkness. “Full of darkness” is translated from one word, skoteinos, which means covered in darkness, like a tent. Things are opaque; vision is blinded. Actions are shady and shadowy. There is skotos - “ignorance respecting divine things and human duties.” People whose moral standards begin to deteriorate, become prey to the Evil one’s ethics, or lack thereof. They become skotos - “persons in whom darkness becomes visible and holds sway.”

 

The last part of verse 23 tells us: “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” The word “light” in this part of the verse means the light of God. If that gets compromised, the darkness becomes “great,” which means large in magnitude, number, and gravity.

 

God has the antidote to going to the dark side. It’s in the next verse, Matthew 6:24: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

 

The word “hate” doesn’t mean what we think it does. In this verse, it’s a relative preference. It means a person prefers one over another. He or she cares about serving the interests of one rather than the other, for whatever reason. A straightforward analysis would be if a person has two jobs, two bosses, and both want the person to work on the same Saturday. The worker can’t do both, so he or she analyses the pros and cons, and picks one.

 

When Jesus says: “He will hold to the one, and despise the other,” it means he’ll “hold fast to, cleave to” (the Greek word anticho) one, and not really think much of the other. To “despise” means to” think less of, disdain, to look down on.”

 

We can’t be disciples (disciplined ones) of the Lord and get all the benefits of God if we play in the devil’s sandbox. And the consequences just aren’t worth it. Darkness perpetuated out from a person will eventually come back around to destroy that person.

 

Let’s fall to the feet of our merciful God and learn what it means to truly surrender all to Him. Mark 8:25 says: “Then again Jesus laid His hands on his eyes; and the man stared intently and [his sight] was [completely] restored, and he began to see everything clearly.”

 

With so much confusion entering our cultures, lots of people really aren’t totally sure of what God’s moral standards really are, so we need to get back to studying our Bibles so we aren’t walking around in partial darkness, but that we can once again see clearly.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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