The point?  You must decide between Jesus and your money.  In other words, who or what is your God?  Rather than build your heaven on earth, Jesus is calling you to be generous and so store up treasure in heaven.  Or to put it another way, have a good eye rather than an evil one.  So, the simple lesson is, the ability to apply the analogy of Scripture trumps creativity, though, or course, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.  

I recently read of one man’s experience as a student in the classroom of a famous professor. One student asked the professor, “What one trait separates the great scholar from all the rest?” The students sat in anticipation.  Would it be pedigree, proclivity for languages, resilience, intelligence, work ethic or a host of other good choices?  What would the good doctor laud as the distinguishing characteristic of a stand out scholar?

Creativity. The one trait that makes a man stand out from an already extraordinary crowd is creativity, said the professor.  Now, that was the end of the article. But it’s that sort of ending that allows the reader to argue a bit with the claim in the story. Yes, creativity can be a help. It can make a scholar stand out. But creativity is not always the best virtue to rely upon when it comes to interpreting a hard passage.

Let me give you an example. Find your Bible and read Matthew 6:19-24.  Now, focus on verse 22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” The eye in this passage has been interpreted in a plethora of ways. But what may appear hard is actually not all that difficult if we apply a simple interpretive rule called the analogy of Scripture, which simply states that Scripture is Scripture’s best interpreter.

So, let’s look at some Scripture that might help us. Let’s first notice Deuteronomy 15.  Moses is giving laws concerning indebtedness and generosity toward the poor.  He says in v. 9, “Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,’ and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the Lord against you, and it become sin among you.”  In other words, the wicked and ungenerous man is described as having an evil eye.

Read More