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“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"

Matthew 6:22

This is a verse that perplexes me. Now, I'm surely not at a loss for how this can be applied to us today, but what exactly was Jesus warning those 2017 years ago about? I mean, these folks didn't have computers, magazines, T.V., or novels on every corner that are chock-full of immorality.
Maybe I was taught to look at this verse wrong- I'm not sure.

It's also a verse that seems out of place to me.. why is it grouped with the "treasures in heaven" message?

Scripture talks of the lust of the eye; if thine eye offend thee pluck it out, etc. Even back then, the eye saw things it should not have.

Hats Off wrote:Scripture talks of the lust of the eye; if thine eye offend thee pluck it out, etc. Even back then, the eye saw things it should not have.

I just wonder if there is any significance of it being where it is? It would seem right at place alongside the verses you've referenced. Why with the treasures in heaven?

We often tend to interpret this verse sexually... is this how it was taken originally I wonder?

The eye is a metaphor for the focus of your life. An eye that is healthy (KJV "single") is able to see a single image clearly. A life that is spiritually healthy has a single focus on serving God.

F. B. Meyer wrote:When our physical eye is in an unhealthy condition, the image is doubled and blurred....John Bunyan tells of Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, who kept one eye on heaven and the other on earth; who sincerely professed one thing and sincerely did another. He tried to cheat God and Devil, but in the end cheated only himself and his neighbors.

I remember a preacher explaining this passage by telling about a time he hit his head in a farming accident and had double vision. Realizing that driving was unsafe, he walked back to the house. He saw two sets of buildings, two mailboxes, two groups of children playing in the yard. When he saw two wives, he knew something was terribly wrong.

With that in mind, it fits the context of verses 19-24: You cannot serve two masters, God and money. If your eyes, your heart, your life are devoted to laying up treasure in heaven, you will be full of light. If you are double-minded and double-faced, trying to look at and treasure both heaven and earth, the loss of clear vision leads to great darkness.

That all makes a lot of sense. Thanks, OJ.

ohio jones wrote:The eye is a metaphor for the focus of your life. An eye that is healthy (KJV "single") is able to see a single image clearly. A life that is spiritually healthy has a single focus on serving God.

F. B. Meyer wrote:When our physical eye is in an unhealthy condition, the image is doubled and blurred....John Bunyan tells of Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, who kept one eye on heaven and the other on earth; who sincerely professed one thing and sincerely did another. He tried to cheat God and Devil, but in the end cheated only himself and his neighbors.

This is really good, OJ.

The KJV translation is good here - the Greek word normally means "single, with integrity", not "healthy". Mounce uses this definition:

pr. single; hence, simple, uncompounded; sound, perfect

The Cambridge Bible puts it this way:

The eye is not itself the light, but contains the light; it is the “lamp” or candle of the body, the light-conveying principle. If the eye or lamp is single, it admits the influx of the pure light only; if an eye be evil, i. e. affected with disease, the body can receive no light at all. The whole passage is on the subject of the singleness of service to God. There can be but one treasure, one source of light, one master. The eye is the spiritual faculty, through which the light of God’s truth is recognised and admitted into the soul.

I believe this is talking about our spiritual eyes not our physical eyes. Just like treasures in heaven are in a spiritual sense. Spiritual eyes allow us to apprehend the spiritual realities of life. If a person is not born again they have spiritual eyes (potential to see spiritually) but they are blind, spiritually cannot comprehend spiritual truth. The Gospel is foolishness to those who are spiritually blind.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God 2 Cor 4:3-4.

And as Christians our spiritual vision can also be blinded by the glare of what our physical eyes see. When we don't live by faith we are not seeing clearly spiritually as faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:18

Sudsy wrote:I believe this is talking about our spiritual eyes not our physical eyes. Just like treasures in heaven are in a spiritual sense. Spiritual eyes allow us to apprehend the spiritual realities of life. If a person is not born again they have spiritual eyes (potential to see spiritually) but they are blind, spiritually cannot comprehend spiritual truth. The Gospel is foolishness to those who are spiritually blind.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God 2 Cor 4:3-4.

And as Christians our spiritual vision can also be blinded by the glare of what our physical eyes see. When we don't live by faith we are not seeing clearly spiritually as faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:18

Probably to some degree both spiritual and physical. Generally visual stimuli are more effective than aural, Satan knows this as well.