The Good Eye And The Bad Eye- Matthew 6:22-23

In our previous post, we examined the first of Jesus three teachings here in Matthew 6:19-24. This teaching tells us that our hearts will seek after that which is most precious to us. In the second of His three teachings here, Jesus proceeds to tell us about “eyes”, in verses 22-23. He tells us here that the “eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness”. Two questions immediately arise here: 1) What do eyes in this passage have to do with the “treasures” He taught about in the preceding passage 2) What does He mean by “good” and “bad” eyes? As to the first question, the expressions a “good eye” and a “evil (bad) eye” were quite common in the culture of the time, and would have been familiar to all of Jesus hearers. The phrase an “evil eye” referred to a covetous eye, to a person who was not generous with possessions but rather sought to obtain the possessions of others. The phrase a “good eye” referred to one who was not covetous but generous, who sought to share his possessions with others. One with a good eye is one who was generous, who possessed his material treasures rather than having those material treasures possess him. One with a bad eye was one who was possessed by his material treasures rather than his possessing them. This is how the mention of eyes here connects this teaching with the one which precedes it, showing them not to be random teachings strung together, but rather to be related teachings, one building upon the other and leading to a climatic point, one to come in the third teaching in this passage. The phrases “good eye” and “bad eye” here do not only refers to whether one is covetous or generous here, but have here a “double meaning”, which is how Jesus brilliantly leads us into His third teaching here, one about “masters” in verse 24. The second “meaning” found here has to do with the Greek word translated “good”. The normal Greek word “good” is agathos, but this is not the word Jesus uses here. Here He uses the word haplous, a Greek word having two “meanings”. Its first definition is “good”, but it has a second definition, for it can also be defined as “single” (as opposed to divided). So what does Jesus mean here by the expression a “single” eye versus a “divided” eye? There is a biblical expression used in Psalm 16 and quoted in Acts 2:25 that the Lord is “before my face”. An alternate translation of this expression is that the Lord is “in my eye”. This expression is used metaphorically in the Old Testament to refer to an intense, single-minded focus on and devotion to whatever is “before our face” or “in our eye”. We must note here that the eye is the “lamp of the body”, it is the bodies source of light, and also here refers metaphorically to how we “source” our lives. In other words, the way we “see” things determines how we source our lives. This is why Jesus uses the expression “full of” here. We are controlled by what we are full of (Ephesians 5:18), we are controlled by the way we see things. A good eye, then, is one which is singly focused on and devoted to heavenly things, on the truth of the word of God and the face of Jesus. A bad eye is one whose focus is divided, which is not singly focused on and devoted to the word of God and the face of Jesus, but is partly focused on “earthly” things. Those who see things the way Jesus does, who interpret and process life from a biblical worldview and perspective, will live with the “good” eye, will be controlled by the “light”, by the Holy Spirit. Those who see things the way the world does, who interpret and process life from a secular worldview and perspective, will live with the bad eye, will be controlled by the darkness. So we find here Jesus adding to what He taught us in verses 19-21. Our heart will seek after what is most precious to us (verses 19-21), and we learn here that what is most precious to us will also help determine the way in which we see (interpret and understand) the world. If heavenly things are most precious to us, we will see the world as Jesus does, from a biblical perspective. If earthly things are most precious to us, we will see the world as the devil does, from a worldly perspective. May we treasure the things which are above, keeping Jesus continually “in our eye”, with a single minded focus on and devotion to Him and Him alone, seeing all things only from His perspective, not distracted by the false “treasures” the world has to offer.