Judges 10. Jephthah, part 3:Title: Judges 10. Jephthah, part 3: "If your eye is singular, then your whole body will be full of light."
The Spirit and the word literally change our thinking into conformity with the will of God.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove [dokimazo] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
We prove to ourselves that the will of God is good, well pleasing [literal translation of euarestos], and perfect.
Good - flows from truth. It is guidance, confidence, purpose, singular of mind.
Good is a function of the truth. No longer confused about good and evil, what is truly good is no longer a mystery. This means that I have guidance and purpose. It also means that I am singular of mind or eye and so there is no longer conflict in my soul.
Acceptable - euarestos = well-pleasing. A heart full of joy, contentment.
The will of God brings an enormous side effect of pleasure or the joy of the fruit of the Spirit. To know good and to know he walks in God's good results in great joy within the disciple of Christ. He is also well-pleasing to the Father since the Father loves to see His children blessed, which blessing is never based on circumstances, but in how transformed the mind has become. The disciple is also well-pleasing to those around him, at least to those who have a capacity to receive his blessings, since all associated with the outflow of God's will are blessed by it, although many who are recipients of God's goodness reject it outright to their own detriment.
Teleios, "perfect" also means complete by which God reveals that His will lacks nothing and that it is perfectly filling.
In other words, by walking in His will, I will be made full or satisfied. I will lack nothing. Remember Christ's miracles of feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000. In each one all the baskets were full after everyone was fed, and not with scraps. God kept filling the baskets and if they were emptied again they would be immediately full. God fills us. The Spirit fills us. The word fills us. His plan fills us.
The word of God must be allowed to do this transformation. Any Christian who lacks these qualities has forsaken God's word.
2Pe 1:9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Once the will of God is proven to the believer, to use Paul's term, he is "convinced," then he will prove the will of God to others around him, although this doesn't mean that they will accept it.
[Go to these verses so that you can correct the translations in your Bible]
Mat 6:19 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
Mat 6:20 "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
What do you honor?
Mat 6:21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Mat 6:22 "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear [single], your whole body will be full of light.
And when we see the will of God our whole body will be filled with light.
Mat 6:22 "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear [single], your whole body will be full of light."
Mat 6:23 "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 the darkness!
This is a case where the translators attempt to help clarify the sentence without understanding what is truly being said and so they take away from it. The Greek work haplous means single or simple. The Greek adjective "clear" is lampros.
Christ is saying that the eye of the heart must perceive one thing - Him. He is the embodiment of the will of God.
Eph 5:7-10 Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn [dokimazo: proving] what is pleasing to the Lord.
As we noted in Rom 12:2, God's will is well pleasing to Him and once discovered, believed, understood, proven, it will be well pleasing to us as well.
In Judges, God told Israel to cry out to the gods that they worshipped for so long for deliverance. He said this because they had not repented of their idolatry. They confessed that they had sinned against Him, but they had not gotten rid of their idols.
Israel had given a verbal confession without repenting [changing their minds] from idol worship. Their hearts were not changed to worshipping God.
Jesus taught this in one of His simplest parables.
Mat 21:28 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go work today in the vineyard.'
Mat 21:29 "And he answered and said, 'I will, sir'; and he did not go.
Mat 21:30 "And he came to the second and said the same thing. But he answered and said, 'I will not'; yet he afterward regretted it and went.
Mat 21:31 "Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The latter." Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you.
Mat 21:32 "For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.
[back to] Jdg 10:14 Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress."
Jdg 10:15 And the sons of Israel said to the Lord, "We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to Thee; only please deliver us this day."
Jdg 10:16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them, and served the Lord; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer. |