Matthew 6:22,23
“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
The Berean Study Bible includes this as some commentary on this verse, “In the ancient world, the eye was often seen as a window to the soul, a conduit through which light and perception enter the body. The Greek word used here is “ophthalmos,” which not only refers to the physical eye but also symbolizes spiritual insight and understanding. In a conservative Christian perspective, the eye represents our focus and attention, which should be directed towards God and His righteousness. The eye’s role as a lamp suggests that it guides and influences our entire being, much like a lamp illuminates a room.” That is a great intro.
It begins by speaking of clarity. I would paraphrase that as our spiritual understanding. We get that by being in His Word. Being in a bible teaching church and hearing and reading the Bible produces that. There are stages of spiritual understanding. I John refers to them as children (or babies), young men (and women) and fathers (and mothers).
Being a child in Christ takes time. Unfortunately some are babes their entire lives. They are not in the Word or they aren’t applying it through obedience. Hebrews 5:12 says, “Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food!” Some basic principles are forgiveness, baptism, grace, temptation, doubt and so on.
When one is a child in the faith one’s eye isn’t always clear. They don’t know or haven’t experienced enough. They need protection and guidance. The Holy Spirit and other believers offer that.
Next is the young man phase. I John 2:14b says, “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” I can recall my young man phase. It was great. Much zeal. Maybe a little judgmental and impatient. Could have been more loving. But they were fun years full of action and good friends.
The beginning half of verse 14 says, “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning.” They know God. What a great description. They are all that which the young men aren’t. I would say patient and loving.
Those are the stages of christian development. The eye or spiritual understanding improves as we go through the stages. They are all age appropriate. That is unless we don’t participate whole heartedly. Jesus describes this as the eye being bad.
The bad eye could be in the unbeliever or the immature christian. Both get into trouble due to the poor vision. Jesus tosses out the question, “How great is that darkness?” That’s what differentiates these two. The immature christian has the Holy Spirit and has His light. He has a dirty windshield which causes problems. The unbeliever has no light. That is unless the Lord is working on him. They may have heard the Word and are contemplating it. As that seed is alive in them there is some light. The parable of the sower does a good job explaining this.
The interesting thing about spiritual understanding is that we need constant intake of God’s Word mixed with obedience to stay healthy. It’s like physical food. We need to eat multiple times daily to stay healthy. It’s not like we’ve learned the lesson and don’t need to hear it again. We should be reading and praying daily. If we don’t then we become dull of hearing and our eye or vision clouds up.
This is God working in our lives. I would never have thought I would be in my present stage or have gone through things I went through. What a blessing. His ways are perfect. They may not feel like that at the time. Thank You, Lord.
Thank You Lord that You are seeking our maturity. The amazing things You do in our lives. You bring us to maturity and to good places. Thank You.