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! – Mat 6:23 ESV
Security
Is the security of the believer simply a theological construct? Is there something more to the message of the Bible than just a head knowledge of security? Have I ever used a proof text to convince myself everything is good, when it seems everything in my character yells against that inner voice?
I think the Lord may have been addressing this very concern when He gave us the verse we are looking at this fine day.
Jesus is referring to a person who has “light in them”. But He calls it darkness! And what does it mean “if thine eye is evil”? The ESV translates it as “eye is bad”, but I grew up in the KJV, and the phrase “eye is evil” clicked in my reading of the Old Testament one day. I assumed to have an evil eye was to be of a murderous intent, entertaining wicked thoughts or evil schemes? I never really understood this verse until…
Deuteronomy 15:9 King James Version (KJV)
9 Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.
According to usage in Deuteronomy 15:9, that to have an evil eye is synonymous with selfishness and greed, even that of a lack of compassion to a brother.
If this is the spirit of my life, that is, of being uncompassionate to a brother in need, the Lord states that the light I think I have is simply darkness. And the self-delusion of being full of light while darkness resides, completes the “fullness of darkness”. Nothing worse than self-delusion, and that is why it is so critical to check our life against standards that are measurable, and not simply a subjective, “feel good” standard.
Compassion is a characteristic of Christianity. Without compassion, we show ourselves to not be the people we think we are. Not a very secure place!
That is unless you have convinced yourself otherwise.
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