Luke 11:34 Commentary and Bible Study

The body sees by means of the eye. The illustration is really quite simple. By my eye my leg, as it were, sees where to step, where to go. The eye gives a benefit to the whole body, because God has made us such an integrated whole that the seeing of the eye is communicated to every part of the body. This is the beautiful way it is expressed in the language of the illustration. My hand knows how to pick up this hymn book by means of the eye. My whole body is full of light. Without the eye, my whole body is blind. My hands and feet do not know where to go, where to move. ‘When thine eye is single’ – that means focused, seeing, just one picture. The Greek word speaks of two things folded together. When my eyes are synchronized on the same thing, there is no blurring, there is no double vision, there is no obscuring of the picture. When my eyes both work as one, single or good, then the whole body is full of light. He goes on to say, ‘but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.’ The Greek word for ‘evil’ is the word meaning harmful. When there's something wrong, creating a problem, the whole body is full of darkness. It all depends on the eye. If I have some fault in the eye by which it's all blurred over or obscured, or I'm seeing things in quite a distorted way, then I don't know where to put my foot I don't know where to put my hand it all comes through the eye that's the picture. But what does it mean? It's the application of the picture in the next verse which is so helpful to us.