Matthew, the Evangelist, and apostle came from Capernaum. His father was Alphaeus and he was devoted to the Hebrew religion first. His birth name was Levi but he called himself Matthew. Matthew worked as a tax collector. Jesus asked him to give up his work and join Him because Levi knew human psychology well and had some good business habits that would be useful in his future missionary work. Those features of Matthew’s personality gave him an opportunity to make a way to the hearts of sinful and unfaithful people and convert them.
In Acts 1:1-15 Matthew is mentioned by name in the list of the apostles. Some historians claimed that he had been lived and worked as a disciple for about twenty years after Christ resurrection. He stayed in Jerusalem for about fifteen years and then continued his missionary work in other countries. According to the legend, Matthew died a martyr’s death in Ethiopia.
Matthew is one of the four Evangelists and the author of the Gospel. He was the witness of Jesus’ miracles and preaching and he recorded them. ("Bible Dictionary: Matthew")
In Chapter 6 of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus teaches about many things such as charity, pray, fasting moral and material values, troubles and worries.
We should help the others in secret and not to boast with our deeds (6:1-4). We should not also pray in public but do it privately at home and there is no need to beg Him for something because He already knows everything we need and the most important and desirable pray is “Our Father.”(6: 5-15) About behavior at the time of fasting Jesus says that we must not be sad and show our sadness to others but we should do it for God only and be clean by our body and pure by our hearts. (6:16-18) All materials things cannot last long but the lord’s love lasts forever. (6: 19-21) What you look at with your eyes affects your body. (6:22-23) Serving two masters means to collect the treasures on the earth and look for God at the same time. (6:24) Very often people worry about such things as food and clothes. God gives food to birds and animals and grows the plants and flowers and of course He will provide people with all the necessary things too. (6: 25-34) ("Book Of Matthew – Matthew Chapter 6 Summary | Big Savior")
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your body will be full of light.” (Matt. 6: 22 New King James Version)
“The lamp of the body is the eye.” (Matt. 6: 22 New King James Version) This statement means that we perceive everything with the help of our eyes. The eyes illuminate the visual environment because from the biological point of view, an eye is an organ of a human that provides the body with the light. With the help of eyes, people can see and evaluate things that surround them.
“If therefore your eye is good, your body will be full of light.”(Matt. 6: 22 New King James Version) From the religious point of view, an eye is the mirror of the human soul and it reflects our intentions and aims. If these intentions are good and right, our deeds that derive from those intentions are good and right too. To have “a good eye” can also mean to have some good qualities of a personality, such as kindness and generosity. From Jesus’s words, we can understand that an eye is rather spiritual than the physical organ that must be kept clean in order to let the light of goodness and faith elucidate the human’s personality and the course of life. Jesus says “an eye” instead of “eyes,” though people usually have two eyes. Jesus uses singular not because He considers people as narrow-minded or disabled or not intelligent. He means that an eye is an ability to be single-minded and focus on the spiritual and the light of God rather than on earthen things. ("Study Guide For Matthew 6 By David Guzik")
“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt.6:23 New King James Version)
“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” (Matt.6:23 New King James Version) From the medical point of view, a bad eye means a disease or blindness. If a person is blind or has a sore eye, he can see nothing and his body is in the darkness. It can also be applied to the human’s soul. A bad eye is opposed to a single eye that looks at God directly. To have a bad eye means to focus on the earth things more than on the faith affairs and spiritual life. If a person looks with the interest to both at the earthy and heavenly values, it makes him double-minded. Such kind of behavior usually leads to sins that cause the destruction of the body and minds.
“If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt.6:23 New King James Version) God brings people to this life with His light inside but within the years and under some circumstances this divine light can be replaced by the darkness. The darkness gets into a person’s eyes first in the form of visual things that sometimes are useless or even bad. If eyes cannot resist the darkness it affects the mind when people want something wrong, bad or evil. The mind commands the body to do wrong so a sin is committed. The soul suffers from sins and appears in the darkness.
Jesus exclaims “How great is the darkness!”(Matt.6:23 New King James Version) to show listeners His anxiety. Most of the people do not understand that they are in the darkness. It can be compared with a person who suddenly becomes blind but still remains unconscious about his blindness and tells the others to go out because it is dark in here. Such people see everything falsely and that is even worse than to be blind. They can hardly distinguish what is good and what is bad, where is light and where is darkness, is it a sin or a virtue. Thus, they need a guide in order to go in a right direction and not to stumble or fall into the ditch. ("Matthew 6:23 -")
It seems that people’s way of lives has not been changed within the centuries or even thousands of years. Money, power, and pleasure still remain the most important things for us. We live in the darkness with our bad eyes and mainly do not realize it. We are always busy with our work and family problems that we do not often have any time for pray or thank God for everything He gives us. We are arrogant and proud of ourselves that we achieve something due to our own strength or abilities. We cannot stop and speculate about He, who gives us everything from the first day of our lives. Our eye is bad because we often forget about the Lord’s divine laws and commandments and do not notice or pay attention to our sins. It is normal for us because we live in the darkness and do not realize where we are and what are the consequences of this eye disease. Our eyes are not able to see the beauty of grace and the brightness of generosity. We are blind to what is really nice, important and like by God. We try to serve two masters but as usually fail.
Contemporary world needs a guide or it will fall into the ditch of falsehood. This guide is the God’s word. Reading and understanding the Bible is a cure for our spiritual blindness.
So we should organize our life according to God’s laws. It is not easy because we live on the earth and our earthen part demands work for living and socializing with the others, take care of our family, relatives, and friends.
In order to keep our eye pure, we should not forget about God. We should improve or even change our personality in order to be a God-like person and have the divine light not only inside of us but share it with the other people. We must remember that treasures in heaven are eternal but the earthen ones can be easily spoiled or wasted. When we think this way, our eye is good. It is false and untruthful to serve money more than God. When we serve money like a slave serve his master we lost the divine quality of our soul, our eye is bad and we fall into the darkness that means living without God. Sometimes it is very comfortable and we apologize that we need it more than other things because it seems us the core of the life.
If we emotionally tend to material things, we should always remember these passages from the Bible, and ask Jesus to help us to keep the eye of our soul clean and always looking directly at God. ("Desiring God Articles")
Works Cited
"Bible Dictionary: Matthew". Biblehub.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
"Book Of Matthew – Matthew Chapter 6 Summary | Big Savior". Bigsavior.com. N.p., 2016.
Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
"Desiring God Articles". Desiring God. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.
Holy Bible New King James Version. (1983) (2nd ed.). Nashville, Tennesse.
"Matthew 6:23 -". StudyLight.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.
"Study Guide For Matthew 6 By David Guzik". Blue Letter Bible. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Apr.
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