{"id":457,"date":"2014-10-31T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=457"},"modified":"2014-10-27T19:15:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T19:15:44","slug":"matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe eye is the lamp of the body,\u201d Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount. \u201cIf your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light\u201d (Matthew 6:22). Jesus employs two familiar symbols for his audience in this teaching: eyes and light.<\/p>\n<p>In the ancient Jewish world, a person\u2019s eyes were considered \u201cwindows\u201d through which truth filled the mind and body. \u201cThe figure,\u201d notes one theologian \u201cis that of the one-room Palestinian house.\u201d If the window to the house was clean and well-maintained, sunlight could fill the whole house with warmth and light and possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, light was (and still is) a common metaphor for God\u2019s truth, God\u2019 presence, and the subsequent blessings of experiencing God firsthand. (See Psalm 119:05, Isaiah 60:19, 1 John 1:5, Revelation 21:23-24). So the idea was to keep one\u2019s spiritual \u201ceyes\u201d in good condition to receive and understand God\u2019s light of truth in a life.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to note that Christ\u2019s symbolic promise here, made in the context of the pursuit of treasure (see Matthew 6:19-24), is <em>not<\/em> a guarantee of external comfort or success. Rather, it\u2019s an internal pledge of God\u2019s presence, truth, and blessing within each of us\u2014in both harsh and helpful circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, Christ\u2019s promise is essentially this: If your spiritual \u201ceye\u201d is in good shape (that is, if your heart and mind are focused on the pursuit of his treasures of heaven), then the light of God\u2019s presence and truth will fill your soul with health and understanding and strength to face any and all situations in your life.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[IB7, 318; DBI, 510-511]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe eye is the lamp of the body,\u201d Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount. \u201cIf your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light\u201d (Matthew 6:22). Jesus employs two familiar symbols for his audience in this teaching: eyes and light. In the ancient Jewish world, a person\u2019s eyes were considered&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13],"tags":[188,81,111],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew","category-symbolism","tag-eyes","tag-light","tag-sermon-on-the-mount"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThe eye is the lamp of the body,\u201d Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount. \u201cIf your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light\u201d (Matthew 6:22). Jesus employs two familiar symbols for his audience in this teaching: eyes and light. In the ancient Jewish world, a person\u2019s eyes were considered&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-31T12:00:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-27T19:15:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"\u201cThe eye is the lamp of the body,\u201d Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount. \u201cIf your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light\u201d (Matthew 6:22). Jesus employs two familiar symbols for his audience in this teaching: eyes and light. In the ancient Jewish world, a person\u2019s eyes were considered&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-10-31T12:00:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-10-27T19:15:44+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html","name":"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-10-31T12:00:13+00:00","dateModified":"2014-10-27T19:15:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-619-24-treasures-in-heaven-symbolism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 6:19-24; Treasures in Heaven (Symbolism)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}