IT’S A CLUE
In a mystery movie, the screenwriter spatters clues along the way, but
it’s only when we watch more of the
story, that we flesh out the clues and the whole story comes together to make
sense—mystery solved. The Bible is like
that. I’m reading the gospel of Matthew now, and there are so many passages
along the way that are like those clues in a movie, and I don’t fully
understand their meaning. When that happens, I go to a Concordance to start to
flesh out what God is really saying. A
Concordance gives me the fuller definition
of the original language before it was translated
into English. Here’s an example, with Matthew 6:22-24.
22 “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of
light.
23 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!
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 first word I looked up was “light” in
verse 22. In the original language, it is
a portable candle, 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 and soul. What we do
with our body and soul is maneuvered by our moral standards.
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.” 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.
The first part of Matthew
6, 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 “the Evil 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.” They are actively “bringing toil, hardships, annoyances, and trouble.”
If moral
codes are so deranged, the whole self is going to be full of darkness. “Full of darkness” is translated from one word that
means covered in darkness, like a tent. Things are opaque; vision is
blinded. Actions are shady and shadowy. There is “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 “persons in whom darkness
becomes visible and holds sway.”
And the last part of verse 23 says: “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 gets “great,”
which means great in number, magnitude, and degree.
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” 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. The consequences just
aren’t worth it.
Let’s
come to the feet of our merciful God and learn what it means to truly surrender all to Him.
Love,
Carolyn
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