Audio Transcript

Today’s Labor Day for us in the States. We’re taking a break from our work. But we can still use the day to learn new skills, specifically to become better Bible readers. Of course, we have dozens of episodes covering a host of very practical tips on overcoming the challenges of studying the Bible for ourselves. And I took all those episodes on Bible reading, Bible study, Bible memorization, even the struggle with Bible neglect — all those many episodes I put together in one big digest to show you all the ground we covered, in the APJ book in that first section, on pages 1–46. It’s the section I’ve heard the most compliments about, too.

And this episode will add to it. So, what do you do when a Bible verse doesn’t make sense on first read? The question is from Chris, and it’s specific: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast. You have said in the past that you didn’t understand Matthew 6:22–23 for a long time. But then you spent more time looking at the context before, in the treasuring focus in Matthew 6:19–21, and more time after the text, in the money focus in Matthew 6:24 — those contexts helped make sense of everything in between. Also, what you learned in Matthew 20:13–15 you brought into your discovery, too.

“Can you explain how you came to understand Jesus’s teaching on the healthy and sick eye using both the close context, before and after it, and the broader context together? These seem like Bible interpretation principles we all need to master when the text in front of us doesn’t make immediate sense. Thank you!”

Well, that’s true. Matthew 6:22–23 just seemed to dangle without connections to what went before, what went after. I couldn’t see it. I mean, it was my problem, not God’s problem, not Jesus’s problem. It’s my problem. I just couldn’t see it. Then one day, as I was reading in Matthew 20 — that’s 14 chapters later — and the ESV footnote clarified a phrase I saw, I said, “Oh, that’s going to help. That’s going to help make sense back in chapter 6.”

Lamp of the Body

So, here are the verses:

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 6:22–23)

Now, if we just take those two verses by themselves, I think I can make sense out of them. If you close your eyes, everything is dark. But if you open your eyes, there’s light, and it fills you with light. You can walk. You can not run into walls, you can not fall off a cliff.

And so, the eye is like a lamp. I get that. I like that, that it’s a lamp. And when it’s lit and burning, you can see where to go. If your eyes are shut or if your eyes are sick, if you have cataracts or something, then you can’t see where you ought to go. So, if the body is going to not kill itself by running into the wrong thing, it needs a healthy eye. “The eye is the lamp of the body.” I get that. That’s a good image.

But what puzzled me was that it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Why are you saying that here, especially in the sequence of these sayings?

Considering the Context

Before those two verses comes the familiar saying about not laying up treasures on earth:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19–21)

“Pray for eyes that look upon the things of this world as ways of serving God and loving people.”

So, before the saying about the good eye and the bad eye comes a saying about money — laying up treasures in heaven and on earth. Don’t hoard money here as though your life and your security were in money. Use money here in ways that piles up treasure in heaven. Use it in acts of love. Then, with no explicit connecting word, Jesus simply says, “The eye is the lamp of the body” (Matthew 6:22). And I just found that puzzling. Why do you follow up “lay up treasures in heaven” with “the eye is the lamp of the body”?

And then, after these puzzling verses — 22 and 23 — comes the saying, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). So, the sayings before and after the words about the good and bad eye deal with treasure or money. That seems significant to me.

So, the one in the middle seems like it should have something to do with that. But as far as I could see, the good and the bad eye don’t have any clear connection to money. So, the saying seemed to just dangle there, and I didn’t get it for a long time. And Chris, in his question, is right to notice a principle of interpretation that’s driving me here, and you can hear it’s been coming out all the way along.

I really don’t like it when I can’t see an author’s intention in how his words are connected to each other. Seeing connections in a paragraph, in a chapter, is really important. I don’t think I’ve got a good handle on what the author is communicating if I can’t see how his connections are working. So, why does Jesus link these two sayings about money with a saying about a good eye and a bad eye?

The Key That Unlocked the Meaning

Then I stumble upon the key in Matthew 20:15. Jesus had just told the parable of the workers of the vineyard, and some of them, you remember, had agreed to work from 6:00 in the morning till 6:00pm for one denarius, a day’s wage — a fair wage, a good wage. Others were hired at 9:00am. Others were hired at noon. And finally, he hired some at 5:00pm. All he had to do was work an hour.

And when the day was done at 6:00, he paid all the workers the same thing, a denarius each. In other words, the master was lavishly generous to those who worked only one hour, and he paid a fair, agreed-upon wage to those who worked twelve hours. But those who worked all day, it says, “grumbled at the master of the house” (Matthew 20:11). They were angry that those who had worked so little were paid so much. They didn’t like the master’s generosity. They did not like grace.

Then the master used a phrase about the bad eye, which is just like the one in Matthew 6:23. He said, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” That’s Matthew 20:15. Now, that last phrase, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” is not a literal translation; it is a very loose paraphrase. And fortunately, the ESV gives the footnote and gives you the literal translation, which is, “Or is your eye bad because I am good?”

Oh my goodness, that made bells go off, right? Oh, the bad eye back in chapter 6. The bad eye here parallels the bad eye in Matthew 6:23, the verse I was puzzled about. So, what does the bad eye refer to in Matthew 20:15? It refers to an eye that doesn’t like generosity. It doesn’t like grace. It’s greedy. It’s a greedy eye. It’s a kind of eye that would treasure up things on earth. It’s the kind of eye that would serve money over God.

Pray for Good Eyes

So, if we interpret the bad eye in Matthew 6:23 the same way as in 20:15, the connection starts to make sense. The flow of thought would go like this. Matthew 6:19: “Don’t lay up treasures on earth. Lay up treasures in heaven. Show that your heart is fixed on the value that God has for you.” Now comes Matthew 6:22–23: “Make sure your eye is good and not bad. That is, make sure your eye is not greedy for earthly gain. Make sure that you see with this eye. See heavenly treasure as more precious than earthly, material treasure.”

When your eye sees things this way, you’re full of light. You know how to walk without falling off the cliff of greed. And if you don’t see things this way, you will, as Matthew 6:24 says, serve money instead of serving God. You will seek money, not God, as your treasure.

So, the bottom line lesson for us is this: pray for good eyes, healthy eyes — namely, the eyes that don’t disapprove of generosity or disapprove of grace. Pray for eyes that don’t look upon the things of this world with greediness, but look upon them as ways of serving God and loving people. Pray for eyes that see God as your supreme treasure.

Some spiritual darkness feels so woven into the fabric of our souls, so enmeshed in our personality and wiring, so deeply rooted and subtle, that escaping it can feel like trying to run from our own shadow. An ingrained and abiding lack of assurance, a distorted relationship with body image or food, the twisting temptations of unwanted desire — such darkness has a way of hounding at the heels.

Perhaps you feel, as I have, like “a man in a shipwreck who sees land and envies the happiness of all those who are there but thinks it is impossible for him to reach the shore,” as Henry Scougal once described the experience (The Life of God in the Soul of Man, 108). You see clearly enough what a life free from your darkness would look like, but every attempt to reach that happy shore has left you wave-tossed and battered upon the rocks. So you look wistfully from the deeps, still desiring deliverance, but no longer trying so hard. You settle into a life of treading water.

Some years ago, as this fatalistic spirit began to settle on me, I struck upon a piece of counsel that offered a mighty and needed shake. John Owen (1616–1683), addressing spiritual doubters in particular, writes,

Be not . . . heartless or slothful: up and be doing; attend with diligence to the word of grace; be fervent in prayer, assiduous in the use of all ordinances of the church; in one or other of them, at one time or other, thou wilt meet with Him whom thy soul loveth, and God through Him will speak peace unto thee. (Works of John Owen, 6:614)

“Up and be doing.” Certainly this is not the only counsel the spiritually stuck need to hear (nor is it the only counsel Owen offers). But in my own entrenched struggles, I have found great help from this gentle but firm hand on the shoulder, this kind but resolute look in the eye, this warm but weighty voice telling me I am no prisoner to my past or present and bidding me not to grow weary in seeking God.

‘Up and Be Doing’

Perhaps you read counsel like the above and sigh. “Read the Bible more? Pray more? Go to church more? I’ve already tried all that.” A similar sigh has passed through my own lips more than once. I’ve already asked, sought, and knocked, I’ve thought to myself, but it just hasn’t worked. Eventually, however, my mind drifts back to Scripture’s own examples of long and earnest seeking, and the words “I’ve already tried that” fall limply to the ground.

We could consider the Old Testament refrain to seek the Lord “with all your heart and all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29), or the prophets’ resolve, come what may, to “wait for the God of my salvation” (Micah 7:7), or the psalmists’ example of crying out “day and night before you,” even from the deepest, longest darkness (Psalm 88:1). But perhaps the Gospels offer the most powerful call to rise, lift up our heads, and seek God with fresh diligence.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you,” Jesus tells his disciples. Fewer words hold more promise for those seeking a deliverance as yet ungiven. Fewer too hold more challenge. For when Jesus illustrates the kind of asking, seeking, and knocking he has in mind, he offers the parable of the impudent friend, that noisy midnight knocker who wouldn’t leave without his loaves (Luke 11:5–9). Of the various charges that might be brought against my own prayer life, I fear impudence is rarely one of them.

Meanwhile, the Gospels give us living portraits of the same point: women who break through crowds to touch the hem of his garment (Mark 5:27–28), fathers half-beaten by unbelief who nevertheless carry their sons to Christ (Mark 9:24), mothers who persist in their petitions, undaunted by refusals, until they receive their request (Mark 7:24–30). Such desperate souls asked and sought and knocked — and asked and sought and knocked again — until the gift was given, the treasure found, the handle turned.

Compared to such as these, how much of my own seeking has happened from half a heart, from a split soul, with one foot stepping toward God and one dragging lazily behind?

Draw Near to God

To be sure, Jesus does sometimes surprise his struggling people and, quite apart from our diligent seeking, grant the deliverance we need. Our Christian lives began when he raised us, Lazarus-like, from the tomb — and sometimes, our Christian lives progress when he blesses us unsought, or sought only feebly.

But we have no warrant for presuming he will do so. The spiritual world, like the physical world, has its causes and effects, its means and ends, its principle that “whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Neither creation nor Scripture gives us a category for a sanctified sluggard, whose spiritual crop grows without diligent plowing and planting, weeding and watering. Our Spirit-dependent efforts cannot earn God’s blessing — only Christ can — but very often they are the divinely appointed means of experiencing his blessing.

Knowing that God uses our diligence as a means of deliverance, we might ask questions like these when darkness persists:

Am I actively killing every known sin, including those that seem unrelated to my main struggle, and by comparison small (Romans 8:13)?
Have my prayers for deliverance looked anything like that holy impudence that knocks and knocks again (Luke 11:8)?
Do I meditate upon God’s word day and night (Psalm 1:2) — and in particular, am I intimately acquainted with passages that address my struggle?
On Sundays, do I listen to sermons and take the Lord’s Supper expectantly, looking to my Lord “as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master” (Psalm 123:2)?
Have I kept pursuing Christian community, surrounding myself with Spirit-filled people rather than shrinking away into the shadows (Hebrews 10:24–25)?
Have I sought specific counsel from wise and trusted saints, inviting them to take a flashlight into the cellar of my soul?

Questions like these make me mindful of God’s mercy, which so often has met my half-hearted seeking with wholehearted kindness. He is a blessed and blessing God, always “ready to forgive” and give more than we ask (Nehemiah 9:17; Ephesians 3:20). Yet as I think about my own persistent struggles, these questions also remind me just how much territory remains to be explored in the promise of James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

Seeking from the Depths

We should beware, at this point, of reducing the deepest struggles to a mere matter of trying harder. Nor would I wish to imply that all who have sought some deliverance unsuccessfully have simply not sought earnestly enough. Sometimes, the shore remains out of reach not because we haven’t swum hard enough, but because the sea is long. Jesus promises that those who seek will find; he does not promise they will find immediately. So, in reality, our seeking may last much longer, and our progress may advance much slower, than we hoped.

“Sometimes, the shore remains out of reach not because we haven’t swum hard enough, but because the sea is long.”

Spiritually speaking, we may feel somewhat like the woman with the twelve-year flow of blood, stuck in a place of undesired darkness despite our best efforts. Why did God let her sickness linger for twelve years instead of ten — or two? We don’t know. We do know, however, that in the fields of God’s kingdom, no seed of diligence, buried and watered with patient perseverance, remains fruitless forever (Galatians 6:9). God has never told his people, “Seek me in vain” (Isaiah 45:19). Nor does he show us the happy shore to merely tantalize us in the water. He shows it because it really can be ours — maybe not immediately or all at once, but really.

So, in the midst of long seeking, don’t lose heart. Your God sees you. His ways may soar high above your understanding, but they are never unwise or unkind (Isaiah 55:8–9). And if you go on seeking him, if every time you fall you rise up again and be doing, the sun will sooner drop from the sky than you be put to shame (Isaiah 49:23).

Our Hand on His Hem

Diligent seeking also holds its dangers, of course. And chief among them may be this: as we pray, and read, and gather with God’s people, and hear counsel, we may rely more on these means than on the One who made them. We may hang our hopes for deliverance not upon Christ, but upon all our efforts to seek him, like travelers too focused on the road to see their home.

Here again, a mind immersed in the Gospels may be our best guide. For in all our seeking, we are doing spiritually what so many Gospel characters did physically: getting as close to Jesus as we can, certain that he is our only hope.

“All our best efforts are only the hand on the hem of Christ’s garment, and all the blessing belongs to him.”

Our prayers may rise like Bartimaeus’s cry, but they are not the voice that bids us see. Our Bible reading may kneel us like the leper before Jesus, but it is not the touch that heals us. Our Sunday worship may stretch out an arm like the sick and anguished woman’s, but it is not the power flowing. All our best efforts are only the hand on the hem of Christ’s garment, and all the blessing belongs to him.

But oh, what blessing awaits those who do cry out and keep crying, kneel and keep kneeling, reach and keep reaching. In all our hardest wrestlings, we are not bound to the narrow fences of our own personality, our own power, our own past: we are bound to Christ himself. And in him, the long and desperate darkness can finally begin to lift, and the shipwrecked saint can finally draw near to shore, carried on the waves of his strength.

Lord of the harvest, I pray earnestly that, as obstacles are removed, you would send laborers from this gathering into the harvest that you are preparing among the unreached peoples of the world. (Matthew 9:38)

This morning Andrew Scott sought to overcome four obstacles to involvement in God’s global purpose of putting his glory on display for the salvation of the nations. Those obstacles were:

“I’m not worthy.” Christ has made you worthy.
“I’m not called.” You were made for this.
“I’m not able.” You have Spiritual gifts, Heart passions, Abilities, Personalities, and Experiences.
“It’s not on my job description.” Yes, it is.

I have three more obstacles I want to help you overcome, through positive incentives.

Obstacle 1: Many emphasize civic reform over against soul-saving.

The present emphasis in America is for many on culture warfare and nation-building as the most urgent form of neighbor love. So, missions can lose its urgency before the political spectacle of fighting for the outward forms of American civic virtue.

In 2012 Robert Woodberry published the astonishing fruit of a decade of research into the effect of missionaries on the health of nations. Titled “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” Woodberry’s article in the American Political Science Review defends this thesis: “The work of missionaries . . . turns out to be the single largest factor in insuring the health of nations” (36). This was a discovery that he says landed on him like an “atomic bomb” (38).

To be more specific, Woodberry’s research supported this sweeping claim:

Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations. (39)

There is one important nuance (or bombshell) to all this: “The positive effect of missionaries on democracy applies only to ‘conversionary protestants.’ Protestant clergy financed by the state, as well as Catholic missionaries prior to the 1960s, had no comparable effect in areas where they worked” (40). And “conversionary Protestant” missionaries are those who believe that to be saved from sin and judgment one must convert from false religions to faith in Jesus Christ.

Thus Woodberry points out that, even though missionaries have often opposed unjust and destructive practices like opium addiction, and slavery, and land confiscation, nevertheless “most missionaries didn’t set out to be political activists . . . [but] came to colonial reform through the back door.” That is, “all these positive outcomes were somewhat unintended” (41).

The implication is that the way to achieve the greatest social and cultural transformation through missions is not to focus on social and cultural transformation, but on the “conversion” of individuals from false religions to faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. Or to put it another way: missionaries (and pastors and churches) will lose their culturally transforming power if they make cultural transformation their energizing focus.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:6–9)

Incentive: This means that the missionaries that will do the most good for eternity and for time — for eternal salvation and temporal transformation — are the missionaries who focus on converting the nations to faith in Christ, forming healthy, faith-maturing churches, and then from that root, teaching them to bear the fruit of all that Jesus commanded us (Matthew 28:20).

Obstacle 2: Missions seem hopeless as countless hearts grow cold.

The end of the age is near when the love of many will grow cold and lawlessness is multiplied and wars and natural disasters will increase, so there is little hope for missions to advance with any significant triumphs.

And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:4–14)

“It is not ‘cold’ Christians who will take the gospel to all the nations in the last and darkest days.”

It is not “cold” Christians who will take the gospel to all the nations in the last and darkest days. It will be white-hot lovers of Jesus who are ready to be killed for the name. Where will they come from? Your churches. Do not surrender to the notion that the love of many growing cold means your love or your church must grow cold.

Incentive: We have biblical assurances that in the darkest final hours, Christ will lead his faithful, martyr-like witnesses to triumph in finishing the Great Commission.

Obstacle 3: Leaving comfort for hardship appears foolish.

If I leave all that is familiar, giving my whole life to an unreached people, I will lose so many enjoyments of secure, healthy, comfortable life in America, and meet so many hardships, that I’m not sure it will be worth it.

“Whatever is lost for the sake of Christ and his gospel will come back to you a hundredfold.”

Incentive: That is not true. Consider these nine biblical responses.

First, whatever is lost for the sake of Christ and his gospel will come back to you a hundredfold. No matter what — or how much — you sacrifice, you cannot wind up with less.

Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:28–30)

Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

Second, this life of earthly enjoyments is as short as a mist breathed out on a winter morning, but pleasures at God’s right hand are forevermore.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (James 4:14)

Moses chose to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (Hebrews 11:25)

Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.” (James 1:9–10)

All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. (1 Peter 1:24–25)

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

Night will be no more. [The servants of the Lamb] will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:5)

Third, though all forget you or even turn against you, if God is for you, what can man do to you? He who did not spare his Son will give you everything you need.

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31–32)

Fourth, if you lose your audience, and there is no one to rejoice with you over small successes, know that millions of angels are rejoicing in the presence of God.

I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:10)

Fifth, if you feel alone, with no one even aware of you (let alone praising all the good that you do), remember your Father sees and will reward you.

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. . . . But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1–4)

Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:8)

Sixth, if you feel that what you accomplish is small and that you are wasting your life, remember that absolutely nothing done “in the Lord” is wasted.

My beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Seventh, if you feel that it is simply too hard to keep on giving and giving while you get so little return in this life, while people back home are recognized and blessed for the good that they do, remember: you will be repaid at the resurrection.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. (Luke 14:13–14)

Eighth, if you think, “Yes, I get rewards in the life to come, but the folks back home get rewards in the life to come and get pleasures in this life that I miss out on, and I’d like both,” remember: there is greater reward for greater sacrifice.

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

“A life devoted to rescuing people from the wrath of God through faith in Christ is precious in eternity.”

Ninth, when the thought of loneliness threatens to overwhelm you, go deep through the promise of Jesus and experience this reality: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:4–6)

Overcome Obstacles with Incentives

A life devoted to rescuing people from the wrath of God through faith in Christ, and building their faith through healthy churches, is precious in eternity and powerful in time.
In the darkest last days, Christ will have a white-hot people for himself and will lead them in triumph to finish the Great Commission, even at the cost of their lives.
Whatever you lose by leaving the familiarity and security and comforts of your own people for the sake of Christ, it will be worth it, and in the eternal day you will never regret it.