Lucas 11
Kent Hughes · Citado em PreceptAustin
Lucas 11
Hughes points out OT illustrations of persistent prayers - When Hannah pled with God concerning her barrenness, so great was her passion that the priest Eli "said to her, 'How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine.' 'Not so, my lord,' Hannah replied, 'I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord'" (1 Samuel 1:14, 15). And God responded to Hannah's passionate prayer by giving her a godly son. Ezra, the restorer of Israel, says, "Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed" (Ezra 9:5, 6a). So it was also with his cohort Nehemiah, who prayed and wept over Israel's fallen walls (Nehemiah 1:4ff.). (Ibid) ILLUSTRATION - In 1935, Blasio Kugosi, a schoolteacher in Rwanda, Central Africa, was deeply discouraged by the lack of life in the church and the powerlessness of his own life. He followed the example of the first Christians by seeking the Lord's power in his life. He closed himself in for a week of prayer and fasting in his little cottage. Revival gripped his life and he emerged a changed man. He confessed his sins to those he had wronged, including his wife and children. He proclaimed the Gospel in the school where he taught, and revival broke out there, resulting in students and teachers being saved. They were called abaka, meaning "people on fire." Shortly after that, Blasio was invited to Uganda to share with other Christians what God had been doing. As he called the leaders to repentance, the fire of the Holy Spirit descended again on the place, with similar results as in Rwanda. Several days later, Blasio died of fever. His ministry lasted only a few weeks, but the revival fires sparked through his ministry swept throughout East Africa and continue to the present. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been transformed over the decades through this mighty East African revival. It all began with a discouraged Christian, setting himself apart to seek the fullness of God's Spirit. The tyranny of his discouragement demanded the urgency of prayer and getting deliverance from the Lord. He sought God and found Him. Jeremiah said we would find the Lord if we would truly seek Him. (Read Jer 29:12-13) (Rod Mattoon Treasures from the Scriptures) ILLUSTRATION - J.
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Hughes observes that in this great prayer the "initial focus is upward, with its first three requests (Luke 11 only has 2) having to do with God's glory. The remaining three requests are for our well-being. God first, man second - that is the ideal order of prayer. His glory before our wants. This is parallel to the Ten Commandments, the first four of which have to do with God's glory and the last six with man's well-being. This prayer is the perfect prayer. Of its perfection Bonhoeffer said, "The Lord's Prayer is not merely the pattern prayer, it is the way Christians must pray. . . . The Lord's Prayer is the quintessence of prayer." It is the perfect pattern for the followers of Christ, and its depth cannot be exhausted by exposition. No matter how one advances in the matter of prayer, it remains the model and the challenge. Sadly, it is more often mindlessly repeated than genuinely prayed. This is especially ironic because the context that introduces the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:7, 8 warns against meaningless repetition. The obvious problem for all of us is that "familiarity breeds contempt," in this case "surface familiarity." Some of us learned the Lord's Prayer at our mother's knees. We cannot count the times we have repeated it. We said it again and again as children. We repeat it today as adults. But there is a danger in our familiarity with its beauty - it can become just beautiful words, so that we "say" the Lord's Prayer without praying it. Some who live in the mountains of Colorado rarely see the incredible scenery that occupies their every glance, while flatlanders like me travel a thousand miles just to see the mountains' beauty for a few days - and we really see them! Those who have been dulled to beauty need to see things in a new way, and in respect to the Lord's Prayer we may need to see it anew - not necessarily discovering new truth, but seeing the old truth for what it is. An in-depth study of the Lord's Prayer can help us pray with greater singleness and greater power, just as it has done for thousands through the centuries. (See The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom) Martyn Lloyd-Jones - “Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when, upon his knees, he comes face to face with God” “Of all of the blessings of a Christian’s salvation, none is greater than this. We have access to God in prayer.”(Studies in the Sermon on the Mount) Phil Newton - Our culture values doing over being. As long as we give ourselves to religious activities then we consider ourselves spiritual. Yet prayer provides more of a barometer of the soul than the most feverish activity. For in prayer we are encountering the living God, bearing our souls before Him, contemplating Him, and seeing Him alone as our Father and Lord. (THE LORD'S PRAYER: REVERENCE) Puritan Thomas Brooks - “The Lord’s prayer is given us as a directory for prayer, a pattern and an example, by which we are to regulate our petitions, and make other prayers Luke records a similar, abbreviated version of this model prayer in Jesus' answer to His disciple's query "Lord, teach us to pray" (and thus the moniker "The Disciple's Prayer"). As discussed previously, so often the "Disciple's Prayer" has been turned into a ritualistic recital that we mouth but do not genuinely pray from our heart. Such dead formalism is the very practice Jesus is warning them to beware of practicing! That is not to say that one could or should never pray this prayer...the question one must always ask when praying this prayer is "Am I praying it from my heart or am I mouthing it from memory as a mechanical, rote exercise?" Certainly, from the heart, the "Disciple's Prayer" is a valid, efficacious prayer. PETITION TO THE PATER Father (pater), hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. - Pater is Greek for Father. This is an especially precious truth to all of us who have been rejected by our earthly fathers (as I was at birth and then later by my step-father) so that when we meet God as our Father for the first time (when we are born again), we know that we are finally "home" at last. And it follows that we should desire dialogue with Him. As an aside, there are only two spiritual families on earth, redeemed and unredeemed, the former in the family of God, the latter in the the family of their father, the devil (Jn 8:44). This may sound harsh, but it is Biblical reality. "The name of a person in the ancient world had to do with the character of that person. We speak in a similar way when we talk about someone who has a good name in the community." (Stevenson) R C
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Hughes on Abba - When we say Abba today in our prayers, as we sometimes do, we are making the same sound that actually fell from Jesus’ lips—and from the lips of his incredulous disciples. Jesus transferred the Fatherhood of God from a theological doctrine into an intense, practical experience, and he taught his disciples to pray with the same intimacy. And that is what he does for us. “Our Father”—“Our Abba”—“Our dearest Father”—this is to be the foundational awareness of all our prayers. Does it undergird your prayer life? Is a sense of God’s intimate Fatherhood profound and growing in your life? Addressing God as Abba (Dearest Father) is not only an indication of spiritual health but is a mark of the authenticity of our faith. Paul tells us in Galatians 4:6, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ” The impulse to call on God in this way is a sign of being God’s child. Romans 8:15, 16 says the same thing: “you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” True believers are impelled to say this....Do you know that God is your Father? Do you think of him and address him as your “Dearest Father”? If you cannot answer in the affirmative, it may be that he is not your spiritual Father and you need to heed the words of Scripture and come into relationship with him through Christ. “Yet to all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). (See The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom) C H
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Hughes - the idea that God is our Father, our Abba, is not only a sign of our spiritual health and of the authenticity of our faith, it is one of the most healing doctrines in all of Scripture. Some grew up only with a mother and no father. Others grew up in conventional homes where the relationship with the father was negative at best. But whatever our background, we need the touch of a father, and our God wants to provide that. Some of us need to bow before God and simply say, "Dearest Father, Abba" and so find the wholeness and healing that he wants to give us... The problem among some evangelical Christians today is the opposite - they have sentimentalized God's fatherhood so much that they have little concept of his holiness. Many Christians are flippantly sentimental about God, as if he is a celestial teddy bear. Such flip familiarity outwardly suggests super-intimacy with God but actually hides a defective knowledge of God. (See The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom) Phil Newton adds a practical note to those who have had "suboptimal" relationships with their earthly fathers writing that... Some of you may have bad memories of your earthly father. I have observed through the years that some people have unfounded fears of God, and grave apprehensions of depending upon Him because they bear deep wounds of their own earthly fathers that disappointed them time and time again. The image of father brings pain to them and not delight. They could never measure up to their father’s expectations or demands. They never felt an intimacy with him because of his self-centered ways. That is why our Lord distinguishes the Heavenly Father from all sinful, earthly fathers. He is not like those bad memories that haunt your understanding of God. He is “Our Father who is in heaven.”...Gardiner Spring gives us a picture of what it means to call upon God as Father. "Secrets may be committed to God that cannot be committed to another. The world knows not of this relief, to spread before Him the secret wants of the soul; to tell them one by one; to tell them all. The conscience, wounded by a sense of sin, finds healing there. Want there finds supply; distrust finds confidence and depression finds praise. Ignorance is enlightened there; poverty is enriched, and weakness becomes strong. Darkness is there dissipated and trembling hopes encouraged. The bruised reed is not broken there, nor is the smoking flax quenched. Grace there cherishes what it bestows, and completes what it begins…There are no broken cisterns at the mercy seat; it is all a fountain of living water, where streams flow from it, without which this earth were a desert."...It is in the sphere of relationship to God as Father that kingdom citizens find the significance of prayer. It is not a psychological exercise that helps us to cope with the troubles of life, but the heart of children gathering into the bosom of their Father to find peace, comfort, security, and provision for every need. Do you see the Father like that? Are you in relationship to Him through faith in Jesus Christ alone? Then pray, and pray often and boldly, to the Father in heaven. (THE LORD'S PRAYER: REVERENCE) One often hears someone begin a prayer with "Dear Jesus..." Although that is certainly not heretical, in fairness and in a desire to pray as Jesus teaches, it should be emphasized that Scripture does not instruct believers to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ or to the Holy Spirit. The Bible is our only guidebook for Scripturally sound praying and supersedes the experience or traditional practices of men, whether pastors or laymen. What we do observe is that the entire Godhead is integrally involved in the prayers of the saints. The Holy Spirit leads and initiates our prayers (see Praying in the Spirit). The Father is the One to Whom all of our prayers are directed or addressed. And finally, all of our prayers ascend to the Father's throne only through the Great High Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Ti 2:5) a truth which explains why we always end our prayer with a phrase like "in the Name of Jesus". In fairness one might argue that petitions to Jesus made while He was on earth set the precedent for prayers to Jesus. For example, Peter cried out "Lord, save me!" as he began to sink into the water (Mt 14:30). In Acts 7:59-60 Stephen directly addressed the Lord Jesus, so clearly prayers to Jesus have Scriptural precedent. Such prayers simply do not appear to be the norm if one follows Jesus' instructions on prayer. MacArthur gives us some practical thoughts on how to use the Disciple's Prayer as a pattern - You can say "Our Father" and then stop and pray your way through everything you can think about, about what it means to be a child of God. That's all inherent in "Our Father." And then you could say, "Hallowed be Your name," and you can pray your way through everything you know about the sacredness of God, the holiness of God, and how you as a worshiper are privileged to come before Him and worship Him. (Jesus' Pattern for Every Prayer) A PETITION TO REVERENCE GOD'S NAME Hallowed (hagiazo) be Your Name (onoma) - Hallowed is in the aorist imperative. “Let your name be hallowed” “May Thy name be held in reverence.”
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Hughes - Jewish contemporaries did indeed perform exorcisms (cf. Acts 19:13, 14; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 8.2, 5), and most people believed they did it by the power of God. Were they on Satan’s team too? Were all who cast out demons in league with Satan? Absurd! (See Luke That You May Know the Truth) Trent Butler - Then he turned the charge on them. They claimed to have people in their company with power over demons (Mark 9:38; Acts 19:13–14). Did this mean they were allied with Satan? Oh, no! Their people exorcised demons in God’s name. Well then, why could Jesus not do the same? Go let your exorcists be the judge and address the issue: Who has power to cast out demons? (HNTC-Lk) Geldenhuys - After exposing the absurdity of the accusation of His enemies, the Lord now reveals their wilful falseness by showing that they measure by two standards. It was at that time the general idea among the Jews that when a rabbi or other Jew delivered anyone from possession of the devil, it was a sign that God worked through him. But now that they see that Jesus (indeed in a far more signal manner) releases unhappy possessed people from demoniacal powers, they ascribe this in the wickedness of their hearts to the powerful workings of Satan. Thereby they declare, as it were, that their fellow-Jews also who in God’s power freed people from demon-possession, did so through Satan. So they will be judged by their fellow-countrymen. (Borrow Commentary on the Gospel of Luke) Allison Trites - The point here is that in accusing Jesus of using Satanic power, the Jews were condemning their own people (assuming sons does not refer to His disciples which most writers do not favor) of doing the same. This effective use of logic turned the argument of Jesus’ opponents back against them....Their rejection of Jesus’ exorcisms alone was based upon sheer prejudice and was untenable. (See Luke, Acts Cornerstone Bible Commentary) So they will be your judges - If Jesus acted by the power of Satan, then your sons depended upon the same power. As discussed above the difficult question is who are your sons? Most favor these are Jewish exorcists. Others say they are the Lord's disciples. Either way, to condemn Him was to condemn either group. J C Ryle on Shall they be your judges. The meaning of this expression is, “They shall condemn your supposition that I cast out devils by Beelzebub, as unreasonable and absurd. They shall be witnesses that devils are not cast out by devils, but by the power of God.” (Luke 11) Nelson's NKJV Study Bible (online) comment on by whom do your sons cast them out - Jesus' question and the implied reply to it can be taken in one of two ways: (1) How did Jewish exorcists expel demons? If the answer is by God's power, then why not give Jesus the same credit? (2) How did Jesus' disciples, who were the “sons” of Israel, drive out demons? The dissenters not only had to explain Jesus' miracles, but those of His followers. Most scholars prefer the former interpretation. Steven Cole favors your sons as referring to Jewish exorcists rather than Jesus' disciples and writes that "the Pharisees had never accused them (JEWISH EXORCISTS) of being empowered by Satan. If they are going to be consistent, they must say that the Jewish exorcists also did their work by Satan’s power. Otherwise, those exorcists served to judge the Pharisees for their hypocrisy in singling out Jesus for condemnation, while accepting the exorcists, who did the same thing." (Luke 11:14-28 The Heavenly War) John MacArthur favors your sons as referring to Jewish exorcists rather than Jesus' disciples and writes "For the sake of argument, Jesus granted their point. Assuming that He was, as they claimed, using the power of Beelzebul (Satan) to cast out demons, the Lord then asked, By whom do your sons (i.e., rabbis, scribes, Pharisees, and their associates) cast them out? The Jews uncritically assumed that their useless exorcists were doing the work of God. Acts 19 records a typical failed attempt by some would-be Jewish exorcists to cast out a demon at Ephesus. Impressed by the miraculous power displayed by the apostle Paul (vv. 11–12), they decided to add the name of Jesus to their repertoire. But the consequences were disastrous (see Acts 19:13-16) The Lord’s question exposed their (PHARISEES/SCRIBES) inconsistency, hypocrisy, and lack of integrity. If casting out demons proved someone was in league with Satan, then why were they not suspicious of their own exorcists? How could they not apply the same standards to their failures as they did to Jesus’ successes? By insisting that their own exorcists’ ineffective attempts to cast out demons were from God, while rejecting Jesus’ uniformly effective exorcisms as being from Satan, they were in effect making Satan more powerful than God. (See Luke 1-17 MacArthur New Testament Commentary) Darrell Bock - The point is that what the opponents say about Jesus, they must accept for anyone else who does the same thing. If Jesus exorcises by Satan, then so do other exorcists. But if others—whether Jewish exorcists or the disciples—exorcise by God’s power, then so does Jesus. It is one or the other. Their works go together. If the opponents’ judgment about Jesus is wrong, they can know that these exorcists will judge them for their refusal to accept God’s work. (See Luke : Baker Exegetical Commentary) Bruce Barton - Jesus was not the first person to exorcise demons. In the first century, exorcism was thriving as a business in both Jewish and pagan societies (Mark 9:38; Acts 19:13–14). Many Jewish exorcists were Pharisees. “Now,” says Jesus, “if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out?” If it took Satan’s power to drive out demons, then those Pharisees who drove out demons were also working under Satan’s power. Those Pharisees who had performed exorcisms would act as judges regarding this allegation. Those accusers should go to those Pharisees and find out if they were working for Satan. (See Life Application New Testament Commentary) R C H Lenski favors your sons as referring to Jewish exorcists rather than Jesus' disciples and writes - The emphasis is on the subjects: “I—your sons.” The latter are not physical sons or just pupils of the Pharisees but, like the similar expression, “sons of the prophets,” Genossen eurer Zunft, experts of your own guild, whom you approve and are proud of because they are able to expel demons. We know nothing further about these Jewish exorcists, especially as to what means they used, or what success they had. We know only that exorcism was practiced, that it was not very successful, judging from the many demoniacs that came to Jesus for healing, and that the means used were not objectionable. The fact that Satan did not and, in fact, could not lend his hand to such expulsions the previous argument has placed beyond question. Whoever drives out demons can do so only by being in the necessary connection with God. What a desperate self-contradiction, therefore, to say: when Jesus drives them out, the connection is Satan; but when their own experts drive them out, the connection is God! Something is viciously wrong with men who ascribe the identical effect to absolutely opposite causes. “Because of this,” i. e., the thing Jesus exposes, “they,” their own associates, “shall be your judges” before God’s judgment bar. God will let these Pharisaic exorcists pronounce the sentence on these blaspheming Pharisees, and what that verdict will be need not be stated.(See The Interpretation of St. Luke's Gospel) Luke 11:20 "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. NET Luke 11:20 But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. GNT Luke 11:20 εἰ δὲ ἐν δακτύλῳ θεοῦ [ἐγὼ] ἐκβάλλω τὰ δαιμόνια, ἄρα ἔφθασεν ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. NLT Luke 11:20 But if I am casting out demons by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you. KJV Luke 11:20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. ESV Luke 11:20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. NIV Luke 11:20 But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. ASV Luke 11:20 But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you. CSB Luke 11:20 If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. NKJ Luke 11:20 "But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. NRS Luke 11:20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. YLT Luke 11:20 but if by the finger of God I cast forth the demons, then come unawares upon you did the reign of God. NAB Luke 11:20 But if it is by the finger of God that (I) drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. NJB Luke 11:20 But if it is through the finger of God that I drive devils out, then the kingdom of God has indeed caught you unawares. GWN Luke 11:20 But if I force out demons with the help of God's power, then the kingdom of God has come to you. BBE Luke 11:20 But if I, by the finger of God, send out evil spirits, then the kingdom of God has overtaken you. the finger of God Ex 8:19; Mt 12:28 then the kingdom of God has come upon you Lk 10:9,11; Daniel 2:44; Acts 20:25; 28:23-28; 2 Th 1:5 Luke 11 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries Luke 11:14-23 The Vilification of Jesus, Part 1 - John MacArthur Luke 11:14-23 The Vilification of Jesus, Part 2 - John MacArthur Related Passages: Matthew 12:28+ “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. THE FINGER OF GOD IS THE POWER OF GOD But - This term of contrast presents a contrast between two "IF'S" - the "IF" of Lk 11:19 and the "IF" in this passage! And so Jesus introduces another explanation for His ability to cast out demons and it is the antithesis of the accusation made by the Jews. If (since) I cast out (ekballo) demons (daimonion) by the finger of God - "IF" is not an expression of doubt, but a first class conditional statement (see Conditional statements) which can be paraphrased "Since by the finger of God I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." it doesn’t even require God to use His arm; just His little finger is enough!)Jesus casting out of demons demonstrated He had defeated the kingdom of Satan. Jesus having demolished their scandalous charge that He was empowered by Satan, now gives the true source of His power, the finger of God. The passage in Matthew 12:28+ says "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that the finger of God is synonymous with the Spirit of God. And we know from Luke 4:14+ "Jesus returned to Galilee (ALTHOUGH NOW HE WAS IN JUDEA) in the power of the Spirit." Acts 10:38+ Peter summarized Jesus' ministry declaring that "God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power." The fact that Jesus was casting out demons by the Spirit of God was evidence indeed that the kingdom of God had come upon the people of that generation. The kingdom had come in the Person of the King Himself. The very fact that the Lord Jesus was there, performing such miracles, was proof positive that God's anointed Ruler had appeared upon the stage of history. We see this same phrase finger of God in Exodus 8:19+ where Pharaoh's magicians even admitted that Moses signs pointed to the fact that his power was from God. "Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said." Compare these other allusions to the finger of God - The Ten Commandments were inscribed by the “finger of God” (Ex 31:18; Dt 9:10). Ps 8:3 says the heavens are the work of God’s fingers. In sum, the finger of God is clearly anthropomorphism referring to God's power and not to the power of Satan as proposed by the protagonists. Jesus exorcised the demons by the power of God and the Spirit of God Who filled Jesus and empowered Him for ministry (see Lk 4:1, 14+). Steven
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Hughes - There is much-needed instruction and correction here for segments of Christianity that have gone headlong in pursuit of miraculous signs and wonders. It is imperative that we recognize that miraculous signs do not ipso facto guarantee that one will believe. This is both implicit and explicit in Luke 11. Verse 16 records that “Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.” These were people who did not want to believe. They were maliciously testing Christ. That is why he indicted them here in verse 29 by saying, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign.” Ten million signs and wonders would not make the world turn to Christ. Belief is a choice, an act of the will, not a convincing of the intellect. Second, the ultimate sign is “the sign of Jonah,” because it makes Christ everything. Jesus was not interested in giving signs abstracted from his person. He is the sign. He is the gospel. (See Luke: That You May Know the Truth) John
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Hughes - The idea here is simple but beautiful. The eye is pictured as the window through which light comes into the body. If a window is clean and the glass is clear, the light that comes in will properly light every part of the room. If the window is dirty, or if the glass is uneven or tinted or discolored, the light will be hindered, and the room will not receive the full benefit of the light. The amount and quality of the light that comes into a room depends on the condition of the window through which it comes. So it is with the eye. The condition of the eye determines the quality of the light that enters the body. If you are color-blind, all the reds and greens of Christmas decorations are lost to you. If you have cataracts, you may sit next to someone and perceive only a shadow. If your eye is blind, "how great is that darkness." There are no colors, no forms, no motion. Of course, Jesus is not giving us a lesson on optics. He is saying that the light that comes into a man's soul depends on the spiritual condition of the eye through which it has to pass because the eye is the window of the body. (See The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom) Don Fortner - The evil eye here is not talking about the evil eye of witchcraft, but the understanding that is perverted, so perverted that light is turned into darkness. In the natural world light can never become darkness; but in spiritual matters it often does. Take heed to the gospel and the ministry of the gospel, take heed, lest you despise the light and it become darkness to your soul. Light despised will become darkness; and there is no blindness like judicial blindness. From such there is no recovery. Perhaps you are thinking, “How can the light that is in a person become darkness?” Let me show you. Men turn light into darkness when… ·They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. ·They pervert the ordinances of the gospel into sacraments. ·They make God’s holy law a means of holiness. ·They make freedom from the law a license to sin. ·They make the graces of the Spirit conditions of grace. ·They make the doctrine of Christ salvation. ·They make divine sovereignty an excuse for irresponsibility. ·They make character and conduct meaningless. ·They make character and conduct a basis of hope and assurance. David Thompson has an interesting note on clear (haplous) writing that "This is a rare word that comes from a root word that means to go on a voyage (Ibid., p. 866). The point Christ is making is that when an eye keeps its single focus on the light of the word and does not go on some voyage away from the light, the entire body will be full of light. On the other hand, if an eye goes on some voyage into evil, then the whole body will be full of darkness. A great illustration of this very point is a camera. That camera will reproduce what the focus of the lens is. It will reproduce a picture of its focus. So it is with people spiritually. They will produce a picture of their real focus. If they are focused on the righteousness of God and Jesus Christ and the word of God, they will reflect it. If they are focused on the things of this world, things of religion, their lives will reflect it. Whatever you feed into your eyes and lens will eventually fill up the picture of your life. Clear (single, generous) (573)(haplous from a = negation + pleko = twine, braid, weave, knit) means single (as translated by the KJV), simple, uncomplicated, sincere, generous, sound. In Luke 11:34 haplous is used in the sense of sound, healthy, normal. Haplous pertains to being motivated by singleness of purpose so as to be open and aboveboard, without guile, sincere, straightforward, i.e. without a hidden agenda. Marvin