Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 10-11.

When the seventy-two disciples whom Jesus sent out to announce His ministry returned, they were overjoyed at the miracles they had been able to perform.  Jesus validates their response, but tells them, and us, that we should not rejoice because we can perform miracles.  Rather we should rejoice about what those miracles say about us.   Our joy should come from the fact that God has chosen to acknowledge us as His.  Perhaps He does not do so by allowing us to perform miracles, but in the way in which we touch the lives of those around us.  In fact, Jesus seems to be suggesting that we should not seek to do miracles, although He also says that we will do them (perhaps not all of us, but we should all expect miracles to happen around us).  Which brings me to Luke’s second account of Jesus using the metaphor of people not lighting a lamp and hiding it.  Jesus says when people light a lamp they put it on a stand so that everyone who comes by can see its light.  Then He tells us that our eyes are the light of our body…if our eyes are healthy our body will be healthy, and if our eyes are unhealthy than our body will be unhealthy.  There is some definite real-world truth to this, but, interestingly, the translators’ notes for the NIV say that the Greek word translated as “healthy” here has the connotation of “generous”, while the word translated as “unhealthy” has the connotation of stingy.  So, Jesus was telling His audience, and us, that if we look upon others and feel generous towards them we are spiritually healthy, if, on the other hand they inspire us to be miserly, we are spiritually sick, and our bodies are full of darkness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.