Murray Smith
Most people have experienced the feeling of being ‘ripped off’ by someone else’s dishonesty. Having your trust betrayed by an unscrupulous person taking advantage of you is upsetting. Making it worse, is them feigning helpfulness and using deceptive means to win your confidence.
Traveling as a ‘tourist’ quite recently, an overly jovial taxi driver made me uneasy. Giving him the benefit of doubt, I hoped he was straight-up. Presenting as super-friendly, (language difficulties aside), he clearly committed to charging a pre-determined fare to get us to our destination in a foreign city.
Arriving, the LED electronic display revealed a ‘flag fall’ price in accord with our arrangement. But the price he demanded was much more. In a sharp, angry outburst he raged claiming other additional costs and manually altered the display to reflect his ‘new’ price. Avoiding a nasty confrontation, I unhappily capitulated to his demands feeling I had no choice. Trivial, I know in the light of worse stories that could be related, but it makes a point.
Devious people are everywhere. Jesus once described them as having an ‘evil eye’. He said, “The light of the body is the eye. If your eye is single (good, pure, sound) your entire body will be filled with light. But If your eye is evil, (clouded, unsound) your whole body will be full of darkness…”
The word meaning having a ‘single’ or ‘sound’ eye as expressed by Jesus was translated using the Greek adjective, ‘haplous’…It’s wonderfully descriptive…a ‘haplous’ person with a ‘single’ or ‘good eye’ is authentic, real – not ‘two-faced’.
In condemning the hypocrisy of anyone displaying fake piety, Jesus said their outward show of looking good to create an impression of being trustworthy, resembled a tomb… clean and white on the outside – yet inside lay corruption and decay.
Here’s an illustration. Imagine a lady goes to a market… a seemingly nice piece of fabric at a merchant’s stall attracts her interest. But the merchant and his fabric are not ‘haplous’. He fully knows there’s flaws in parts of the weave. Since he is as ‘flawed’ as his product, he deceitfully runs the fabric through his hands concealing its defectiveness.
Unaware, the lady buys the fabric. Arriving home excited, she inspects her purchase. To her deep disappointment, the fabric’s flaws are discovered. Returning it to the crooked merchant, he shakes his head in mock sympathy, saying “oh dear, this damage certainly happened to the fabric after you purchased it. You saw me show it to you it in perfect condition madam. A refund is not possible on an item that you yourself have damaged…’
An ‘evil eye’ inspired the merchant’s cruel con. His ‘eye’ was not ‘single’, opening the door to conceiving wicked deceptiveness. Jesus taught the state of our ‘eye’… our perspective and focus in life matters greatly. If our eye is ‘single’, it promotes a heart full of light and integrity. Integrity comes when truth reigns inside us. To be an ‘integrated’ person means being ‘together’, or whole, not ‘dis-integrated’… fragmented.
Christ’s truth and help alone, makes such living attainable.
