Luke 11:33–36

Read the passage.

On one hand, this passage is an easy metaphor with obvious application, but it’s really hard to connect with the context of the rest of the chapter, and that makes me nervous. I don’t see how lamps and eyes follow from talking about signs or demons. And the next verse indicates a clear break in time and space, so that context should be considered less. …

Actually, no. Verse 37 is meant to connect them with “While Jesus was speaking”. So the things Jesus taught in our passage for today are meant to inform what Luke tells us about the dinner conversation, which I will try to unpack tomorrow, if the Lord wills.

So, then, as a lamp is set up so that it can light up a whole room, so too must a person’s eye be opened that the light of truth and goodness may fill up the person’s whole body. If the eye is closed, the light is still shining, but it is blocked from getting to where it can do any good.

Open our eyes that we may be filled with Your light.