November 20

Nov 20 - Today from Proverbs 20 we look at verse 8
"When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes."

In Eastern theology the Teacher begins with an illustration, the student is challenged to draw out the concepts. This small proverb is pregnant with concept.
The eyes. The Teacher is not referring to the globular organs seated in the middle of the face. He is referring to interpretation of what is seen. The Old Testament contains hundreds of passages that verify this concept. Let me site the earliest example:
"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked." (Gen. 3:6,7) The first humans weren't like baby kittens, created with their physical eyes closed. Something changed when they rebelled against God and yielded to the tempting work of the Serpent - their perception changed. They suddenly interpreted the things they saw in a completely different manner. The world didn't change at that moment. Their bodies didn't change at that moment. What changed was their world view. God was no longer the center, man was. Sin entered in and corrupted man's vision. Their eyes were opened to a humanistic world view, and their souls became full of darkness. The death that God warned them about was plural; two deaths. The death of man's spirit was immediate, there was now a separation in the intimate relationship man had with God. Man would now also experience physical death, when his soul would eventually be separated from his corrupted body of flesh.
Jesus teaches about the world view in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:22, 23:
"The eye is the lamp of your body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" The Renaissance is often referred to as an age of enlightenment. It was the humanistic revival parallel to the Reformation of the church in Europe that took place in the 14th through 16th centuries. Both revivals lay claim to enlightenment. One was true light, the other was darkness that was embraced as light. Those who rejected 'religion' all together threw the baby out with the bath-water. They traded what little light was left in the Roman Catholic Church for the 'enlightenment' of the glory of man. The fathers of the Reformation traded the 'enlightenment' of the religious traditions of man for the true light of God's Word. Through them God restored the eyes of the Church. Once again the body of Christ was pretty much walking in the light.
Philosophy and religion continue to vie for the right to be the eyes of believers today. They only corrupt the eye and let in darkness claiming to be light. Leaders on any and every level ("When a king sits on his throne. . .") who must make leadership decisions (". . . to judge"), that are just and that honor God ("winnows out all evil. . ."), he or she must use a Biblical world view (". . . with his eyes"). Wisdom is not to lean on our own understanding of matters, but to view life as God meant it to be. He has revealed His purposes for us, He has given us a clear moral code, He has given us basic instruction of procedure, He has written and preserved it in His Word, and He has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. The world is ignorant. They have an excuse for walking in darkness. The Church has no excuse.