The eye is the lamp of the body. 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. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!
Matthew 6:22-23 (CSB)
Jesus is still talking about money here. Saturday’s verse said our heart follows our treasure. Now He talks about our eyes.
A lamp in His day was a small clay bowl with oil and a wick, and it lit the whole room. Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is good, the whole person walks in light. If the eye is bad, the whole person is in the dark.
But the two words Jesus picks, “healthy” and “bad,” are about money. The word for “healthy” means single, undivided, and the Bible uses the same family of words for being generous. And “a bad eye” was an old Jewish phrase for a stingy person, someone who holds tight to what they have. So a generous eye lights up a whole life. A stingy eye darkens it.
A stingy eye doesn’t feel stingy. It feels smart. It says, “I’m just being careful,” while someone in front of us really needs help. Jesus says that’s darkness, even when it feels like light.
So when we hear ourselves say “I’m just being careful” over someone’s real need, we ought to call it what Jesus calls it: darkness. We should not trust it, and we should ask God to clear our eyes. Then we can help the person in front of us, with a meal, an hour, or some money, and do it gladly.
We can’t fix our own eyes. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). The Bible says God “has shone in our hearts” through Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6). When He shines in, the whole person gets full of light.