The lamp
of the body is the eye. Therefore, if you are a generous person that
gives to the poor your whole body will be full of light. But if you are a stingy or greedy person who gives
his poor needy brother nothing, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light
that is in you is darkness,
how great is that darkness! (Matthew
6:22-23)
My
two previous blogs have unlocked the meanings of the two idioms Yeshua used in
the verses above:
(1) good eye
– a generous person that gives to the
poor
(2) evil eye
– a stingy or greedy person who gives his
needy brother nothing
Now
let’s turn our attention to the words light
and darkness. In the Jewish
culture light and life are often used synonymously. This
relationship can be found in numerous examples, like the one below.
"Better to extinguish the light on Sabbath than to
extinguish life, which is God's light" (Shab. 30b).[i]
The
parallels are clear:
(1) light
= life
(2) darkness
= death
The
relationship of the Creator and life is established in the opening words of the
first chapter of the Torah (Genesis 1). This revealed a foundational principle of
the Torah – life is the first priority
and highest value of the Creator. Life was also the first priority and
highest value of Yeshua. Now let’s add this information to the verses above:
The life
of the body is the eye. Therefore, if you are a generous person that
gives to the poor your whole body will be full of life. But if you are a stingy or greedy person who gives
his poor needy brother nothing, your whole body shall be full of death. If
therefore the life that is in
you is death, how great is
that death!
Even though a greedy stingy person, who does not help his poor
brothers and sisters (fellow humans), even though he is alive – he is living like a dead person. If his life
is like death – how great is that death? The acts of a greedy stingy person are
extinguishing the light of the Creator. On the other hand, the acts of a
generous person increase the light of the Creator.
The key to understanding the Torah and the teachings of
Yeshua is discovering the standard that the Creator and Yeshua shared. I call
it the TOV Standard and it was the standard the Creator used to judge His acts
of creation. In your English translation of Genesis 1, it is found in the
verses that read: “And God saw that it was good.” The Hebrew word translated “good”
is TOV. The word “good” does not sufficiently translate the meaning of TOV in
that context. Below is a much more accurate definition:
TOV is an an act
that is visible and concrete; beautiful and pleasant to the Creator’s eyes; that
makes something more functionally complete; that protects and preserves life;
and that enhances and increases the quality of life.
In the verses from the Hebrew Scriptures that we found the
parallelism that explained the meaning of the idiom good eye, we read:
He that has
a good eye shall be
blessed;
for he gives his bread to the poor.[ii]
A poor person was hungry and had no food to eat. Another
person saw that the poor person was hungry. He had bread and gave food to the
hungry person. Let’s use the Creator’s TOV Standard to judge that act:
Sharing food
with a hungry person is a visible and concrete act; it is beautiful and
pleasant to the Creator’s eyes; it makes the poor person more functionally
complete; it protects and preserves life; and it enhances and increases the
quality of the poor person’s life.
Now let’s measure the act of the one with an evil eye -- a greedy stingy person that does not share
his food -- with the TOV Standard:
The act of not
giving food to the poor is an act that is visible and concrete; it is not
beautiful and pleasant to the Creator’s eyes; it makes the poor person less functionally
complete; it threatens and destroys life; and, it decreases the quality of the
poor person’s life.
The
person with a good eye does TZEDAQAH – righteousness. A person with an evil
eye does RA – evil or wickedness. Those with a good eye or
evil eye in Judaism hold a very special status:
"For the living know that they will
die" (Kohelet 9:5) - this is referring to tzaddikim (righteous people),
who, in their death, are called living.
This
can also be seen in the words of Isaiah, which are no doubt the source of Yeshua’s
choice to use “light” and “darkness” in his teachings:
Is this not the fast I will choose? To
undo the fetters of wickedness, to unite the bands of perverseness, and to let
out the oppressed free, and all perverseness you shall eliminate. Is it not
to share your bread with the hungry, and moaning poor you shall bring home;
when you see a naked one, you shall clothe him, and from your flesh you shall
not hide. Then your light
shall break forth as the dawn, and your healing shall quickly sprout, and your righteousness shall go before
you; the glory of the Lord shall gather you in. Then you shall call and the
Lord shall answer, you shall cry and He shall say, “Here I am,” if you remove
perverseness from your midst, putting forth the finger and speaking wickedness.
And you draw out your soul to the hungry, and an afflicted soul you sate, then
your light shall shine in the
darkness and your darkness
shall be like noon.[iii]
Pay close
attention to what will happen to those with a good eye:
● your
light shall break forth as the dawn
● your
healing shall quickly sprout
● your
righteousness shall go before you
● the
glory of the Lord shall gather you in
● your
light shall shine in the darkness
● your
darkness shall be like noon
Yeshua saw something very important
lesson in Isaiah’s words. It was so important that it became his message and
promise of salvation:
Your
acts of righteousness will go before you when you are gathered in by the Lord
at death. Your life shall shine in death and you shall live. Your live will
rise from death!
Keep this principle in mind as you read
the words of Yeshua. He will repeat it over and over throughout his teachings.
It is also seen in the teachings of his followers. Below are a couple of
examples of teachings that stress the importance of doing acts that meet the TOV
Standard in the New Testament:
Then shall he
say also unto them on the left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food.
I was thirsty, and you did
not give me a drink. I was a stranger,
and you did not take me not in. I was naked,
and you did not clothed me; sick,
and in prison, and you did
not visit me.” Then shall they also answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see
you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not care for you?” Then he shall
answer them, saying, “Amen! I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did not do it for
one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.
(Matthew 25:41-46)
Marvel not at
this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear
his voice, and shall come forth. They
that HAVE DONE GOOD, unto the resurrection of life; and they that HAVE DONE EVIL, unto
the resurrection of damnation. (John 5:28-29)
What does it
profit, my brethren, though a man says he has faith, and does not have works? Can
faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked,
and destitute of daily food,
and one of you says unto them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled.” But you
do not give them those things which
are needful to the body -- what does it profit? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead,
being alone. Yea, a man may say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your
faith without your works, and I will
show you my faith by my works. (James 2:14-18)
The one person who seems to have missed
the most important message in the teachings of Yeshua was Paul:
James, Cephas (Peter) and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace
given to me. They
agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to
remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along. (Galatians
2:9-10)
When we read Paul’s epistles, we do not
find the salvation message that Yeshua, John or James taught. As a matter of
fact, Paul’s words have been used as the foundation of a very different
salvation message – one in which works
are discouraged.
There are thousands of churches that
teach salvation messages based on Paul’s gospel, but I can’t think of one church
that teaches Yeshua’s salvation message – can
you? The interesting thing about Yeshua’s salvation message is that it
doesn’t require anyone to believe any religion’s theology.
Think of what would happen if all of the
churches that are located in your town taught the message of Yeshua -- and their actively encouraged their members
and staffs to use their homes, facilities and budgets to do acts of TOV?
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Choose Life By Doing TOV!
Shalom
& be empowered!
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