Luke 11:36 Fun

Luke 11:36 seems to say something very odd, that our bodies can shine like a lamp. This is an odd thing to say about flesh and bone. It would make more symbolic sense if it was about the “soul” or “spirit.”

What does Jesus mean by describing a "body" as "shining?"Moses’s face shone after seeing the Divine, but did Jesus expect our whole bodies, in every part, to “shine?”

Understanding this verse requires thinking about how his listeners heard him. Jesus clearly wanted them to hear his words as non-symbolic, but modern translations like the NIV leave out his clues, not to hide them but not seeing their importance.

NIV: Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.

We can understand Jesus’s meaning only if we see how it was shaped by the surrounding context.

Like our word, “body,” the Greek word means our physical bodies, a dead body, and "the whole of a thing" as we say "the body of law," "the body of evidence" or "the body of congress. But what is the “thing?” It is us, as seen in the world. Here, the meaning is shaped by Jesus's use of the adjective/adverb "whole/wholly" twice. The second "wholly" is ignored in the NIV. It is also indicated by the word translated as “part.” Can “part” of a physical body be dark?

Part of the context was also the earlier verses, which point to what he meant, but we will cover those in a future article.

Here is what the people hearing Jesus would have heard.

Listeners Heard: If, certainly that whole body of work of yours [is] shining, not having any part dark, it will be wholly shining. Just like whenever the lamp, that lamplight, shines on you.

Of course, they didn’t need Jesus to say, “body of work,” because that was implicit in the context. We tend to hear Jesus’s words in a symbolic or religious context rather than as simple and easy to understand. We just accept the idea of a physical body or its parts as “shining” as symbolic rather than realistic. But a body of work can shine. A part of it can also be dark. This is why Jesus emphasizes “whole” and “wholly.”

This is not an easy standard, but it is a great goal.