Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Matthew 5:14 - 5:15

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Matthew 5:14 - 5:15


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The same admonition under a different figure:

v. 14. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

v. 15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Christ is, strictly speaking, the only true light of the world, Joh_8:12; Joh_9:5; Joh_12:35. But His disciples partake of His nature; they are a light in and through Him; they receive their illumination as well as their power to give light to others from Him, 1Th_5:5; Php_2:15; Eph_5:8. Their illumination, like His, is therefore not confined to their immediate neighborhood, but is supposed to extend to the ends of the world. So self-evident is this thought that Christ merely refers to a fact well known to His hearers. Many cities of the Holy Land, probably some of the smaller ones visible from the hill where they were assembled, were located on prominent elevations, and all Jews were familiar with Mount Zion. Cities thus situated could not be hid, they were the most conspicuous objects in the entire landscape. The Christians, by virtue of their discipleship, are like such a light, like such a city. Their very difference makes them marked people. That is as it should be, that agrees with the nature and with the object of their calling. To light a candle or a light, one of the small lamps used in Palestine, and then to place it under an overturned measure, a modius , an earthenware grain measure holding a little more than a peck, might be done occasionally for special reasons. But the purpose of such kindling was evidently another. The lamp should be placed on a stand, a small projecting stone in the wall in the cottages of the poor, or a lamp-stand in the form of a tripod, which could easily be moved about in the house. Then only can a lamp serve its purpose, namely, to illumine the house.