Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / How to Find the Meaning of a Bible Verse

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How to Find the Meaning of a Bible Verse · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast on this new week. Today's
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  Speaker 1: Labor day for us here in the United States, and
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  Speaker 1: we're taking a break from our work, but we still
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  Speaker 1: can use the day to learn new skills, specifically to
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  Speaker 1: become better Bible readers. And of course we have dozens
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  Speaker 1: of episodes covering a host of very practical tips on
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  Speaker 1: overcoming the challenges of studying the Bible for ourselves. And
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  Speaker 1: I took all of those episodes on Bible reading, Bible study,
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  Speaker 1: Bible memberization, even the struggle with Bible neglect, all those
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  Speaker 1: many episodes, I put them together in one big digest
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  Speaker 1: to show you all the ground that we've covered in
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  Speaker 1: the APJ book. That first section on pages one to
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  Speaker 1: forty six, which is also the section that I've heard
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  Speaker 1: probably the most compliments about to this point, and this
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  Speaker 1: episode will add to it. So what do we do
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  Speaker 1: when a Bible verse doesn't make sense? On first to read?
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  Speaker 1: The question is from Chris and it's specific Pastor John, Hello,
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  Speaker 1: and thank you for this podcast. Chris writes, you have
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  Speaker 1: said in the past that you didn't understand Matthew six
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  Speaker 1: verses twenty two to twenty three for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: but then you spent more time looking at the context
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  Speaker 1: before in the treasuring focus in Matthew six nineteen to
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  Speaker 1: twenty one, and more time after the text in the
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  Speaker 1: money focus in Matthew six twenty four, and those contexts
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  Speaker 1: before and after helped make sense of everything in between. Also,
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  Speaker 1: what you learned in Matthew twenty verses thirteen to fifteen
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  Speaker 1: you brought back into your discovery as well. Can you
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  Speaker 1: explain how you came to understand Jesus's teaching on the
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  Speaker 1: healthy and sick eye using both the close context before
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  Speaker 1: and after it and the broader context together. These seem
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  Speaker 1: like Bible interpretation principles we all need to master when
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  Speaker 1: the text in front of us just doesn't make immediate sense.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, well, that's true.
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  Speaker 2: Matthew six twenty two to twenty three just seemed to
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  Speaker 2: dangle without connections to what went before, what went after.
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  Speaker 2: I couldn't see it. I mean, it's my problem, that
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  Speaker 2: God's problem, No, Jesus problem is my problem. I just
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  Speaker 2: couldn't see it. Then one day, as I was reading
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  Speaker 2: in Matthew twenty that's what fourteen chapters later and the
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  Speaker 2: ESV footnote clarified a phrase I saw, Oh, that's gonna help.
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  Speaker 2: That's gonna help make sense back in chapter six, So
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  Speaker 2: here are the verses. The eye is the lamp of
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  Speaker 2: the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole
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  Speaker 2: body will be full of light. But if your eye
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  Speaker 2: is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
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  Speaker 2: If then the light in you is darkness, how great
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  Speaker 2: is the darkness? Now, if we just take those two
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  Speaker 2: verses by themselves, I think I can make sense out
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  Speaker 2: of them. If you close your eyes, everything's dark. But
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  Speaker 2: if you open your eyes, there's light, and it feels
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  Speaker 2: you with like you can you can walk. You can
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  Speaker 2: not run into walls, you cannot fall off a cliff.
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  Speaker 2: And so the eye is like a lamp. I'd get that,
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  Speaker 2: that's really it. I like that it's a lamp, and
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  Speaker 2: when it's lit and burning, you can see where to go.
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  Speaker 2: If your eyes are shut, or if your eyes are
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  Speaker 2: sick you got cataracts or something, then you can't see
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  Speaker 2: where you ought to go. So if the body's going
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  Speaker 2: to not kill itself by running into the wrong thing,
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  Speaker 2: it needs a healthy eye. So the eye is the
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  Speaker 2: lamp of the body. Now I get that that that's
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  Speaker 2: a good image. But what puzzled me. Was it just
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  Speaker 2: seemed to come out of nowhere, Like, why are you
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  Speaker 2: saying that here? Especially in the sequence of these sayings.
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  Speaker 2: Before those two verses comes the familiar saying about not
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  Speaker 2: laying up treasures on earth. Do not lay up for
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  Speaker 2: yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and
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  Speaker 2: where thieves break in and steel. But lay up treasures
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  Speaker 2: for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys,
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  Speaker 2: and where thieves do not break in and steel. For
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  Speaker 2: where your treasure is there will your heart be also
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  Speaker 2: So Before the saying about the good eye the bad
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  Speaker 2: eye comes a saying about money laying up treasures in
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  Speaker 2: heaven and on earth. Don't hoard money here as though
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  Speaker 2: your life and your security were in money. Use money
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  Speaker 2: here in ways that piles up treasure in heaven, use
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  Speaker 2: it in acts of love. Then, with no explicit connecting word,
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  Speaker 2: Jesus simply says, the eyes of the lamp of the body.
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  Speaker 2: And I just found that puzzling. Why do you follow
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  Speaker 2: up lay up treasures in heaven with the eyes of
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  Speaker 2: the lamp of the And then after these puzzling verses
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  Speaker 2: two and twenty three comes the saying, no one can
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  Speaker 2: serve two masters, for either he will hate the one
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  Speaker 2: and love the other, or he will be devoted to
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  Speaker 2: the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
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  Speaker 2: and money. So the sayings before and after the words
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  Speaker 2: about the good and bad eye deal with treasure or money.
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  Speaker 2: That seems significant to me, So the one in the middle,
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  Speaker 2: it seems like it should have something to do with that.
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  Speaker 2: But as far as I could see, the good and
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  Speaker 2: the bad eye don't have any clear connection to money.
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  Speaker 2: So the sayings seem to just dangle there. And I
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  Speaker 2: didn't get it for a long time. And Chris in
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  Speaker 2: his question is right to notice a principle of interpretation
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  Speaker 2: that's driving me here, and you can hear it. It's
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  Speaker 2: been coming out all the way along. I really don't
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  Speaker 2: like it when I can't see an author's intention in
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  Speaker 2: how his words are connected to each other. Seeing connections
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  Speaker 2: in a paragraph in a chapter is really important. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think I've got a good handle on what the
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  Speaker 2: author is communicating if I can't see how his connections
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  Speaker 2: are working. So why does Jesus link these two sayings
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  Speaker 2: about money with a saying about a good eye and
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  Speaker 2: a bad eye, And then I stumble upon the key.
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  Speaker 2: In Matthew twenty fifteen, Jesus had just told the parable
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  Speaker 2: of the workers of the vineyard, and some of them,
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  Speaker 2: you remember, had agreed to work from six in the
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  Speaker 2: morning till six pm for one denarius a day's wage,
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  Speaker 2: fair wage, good wage. Others were hired at nine am,
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  Speaker 2: others were hired at noon, and finally he hired some
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  Speaker 2: at five pm. Now all he had just work an hour,
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  Speaker 2: and when the day was done at six, he paid
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  Speaker 2: all the workers the same thing, a denarius each. In
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  Speaker 2: other words, the master was lavishly generous to those who
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  Speaker 2: worked only one hour, and he paid a fair agreed
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  Speaker 2: upon wage to those who worked twelve hours. But those
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  Speaker 2: who worked all day, it says quote, grumbled at the
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  Speaker 2: master of the house Matthew twenty verse eleven. They were
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  Speaker 2: angry that those who had worked so little were paid
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  Speaker 2: so much. They didn't like the master's generosity. They did
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  Speaker 2: not like grace. Then the master used a phrase about
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  Speaker 2: the bad eye, which is just like the one in
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  Speaker 2: Matthew twenty three. He said, am I not allowed to
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  Speaker 2: do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or
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  Speaker 2: do you begrudge my generosity. That's verse fifteen. Now that
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  Speaker 2: last phrase, do you begrudge my generosity? Is not a
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  Speaker 2: literal translation. It is a very loose paraphrase. And fortunately
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  Speaker 2: the ESV gives the footnote and gives you the literal translation,
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  Speaker 2: which is, or is your eye bad because I am good? Oh?
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  Speaker 2: My goodness? That may bells go off? Right? Oh? The
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  Speaker 2: bad eye back in chapter six. The bad eye here
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  Speaker 2: parallels the bad eye in Matthew six twenty three, the
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  Speaker 2: verse I was puzzled about, So what does the bad
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  Speaker 2: I refer to? In Matthew twenty fifteen, it refers to
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  Speaker 2: an eye that doesn't like generosity, it doesn't like grace.
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  Speaker 2: It's greedy. It's a greedy eye. It's a kind of
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  Speaker 2: eye that would treasure up things on earth. It's the
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  Speaker 2: kind of eye that would serve money over God. So
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  Speaker 2: if we interpret the bad eye in Matthew six point
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  Speaker 2: twenty three the same way as in twenty fifteen, the
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  Speaker 2: connections start to make sense. So the flow of thought
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  Speaker 2: would go like this Matthew six ' nineteen. Don't lay
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  Speaker 2: up treasures on earth, lay up treasures in heaven. Show
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  Speaker 2: that your heart is fixed on the value that God
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  Speaker 2: has for you now comes Verse twenty two and twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: Make sure your eye is good and not bad. That is,
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  Speaker 2: make sure your eye is not greedy for earthly gain.
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  Speaker 2: Make sure that you see with this eye see heavenly
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  Speaker 2: treasure as more precious than earthly material treasure. When your
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  Speaker 2: eye sees things this way, you're full of light. You
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  Speaker 2: know how to walk without falling off the cliff of greed.
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  Speaker 2: And if you don't see things this way, you will,
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  Speaker 2: as Verse twenty four says, serve money instead of serving God.
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  Speaker 2: You will seek money, not God, as your treasure. So
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  Speaker 2: the bottom line lesson for us is pray for good eyes,
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  Speaker 2: healthy eyes. Name the eyes that don't disapprove of generosity
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  Speaker 2: or disapprove of grace. Pray for eyes that don't look
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  Speaker 2: upon the things of this world with greediness, but look
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  Speaker 2: upon them as ways of serving God and loving people.
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  Speaker 2: Pray for eyes that see God as your supreme treasure.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, pray for eyes that see God as your supreme treasure.
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  Speaker 1: Great way to end. Thank you, Bester John, and thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us today. Have a question on Bible study
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  Speaker 1: ask Pastor John. Find a link to email us, and
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  Speaker 1: find our complete episode archive at askpastor John dot Com
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  Speaker 1: every episode with audio and full transcripts. Well here on
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  Speaker 1: the pod, we talk every so often about wartime living,
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  Speaker 1: and we talk about minimalism too, but those are not
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  Speaker 1: the same thing. The Christian life is not simply about
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  Speaker 1: decluttering our closets and living a simpler life. No, we
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  Speaker 1: aim at wartime simplicity, which is a more specific goal,
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  Speaker 1: material simplicity in this world. That's on mission, not simply
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  Speaker 1: trying to be more organized. That comes up next time
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  Speaker 1: because we're going to turn our attention to hoarding. Hoarding.
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  Speaker 1: That's Thursday. I'm Tony Ranky, See you next time.