"God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." — Genesis 1:3
"This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine" — gospel children's song written Harry Dixon Loes in 1920
If you believe only physical things outside the mind only have light, then that is a shallow view of what illumination actually means.
Yet, who can fathom the illumination of the heart upon reading the word, then hearing it, and realizing that the faith of a mustard seed has been planted by the Illuminator, God?
In this way does the soul grow, not by mere words but by reflection on what the Bible says, and practising prayer and meditation with the fellowship of like-minded individuals.
Only the wise know what I mean.
References:
Illumination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumination_%28concept%29
"This Little Light of Mine": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Little_Light_of_Mine
2 comments:
II Corinthians 4:3-7 and Barnes Commentary with additional amplification:
3 Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who perish;
4 in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.
5 For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake;
6 seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
Barnes Commentary on II Corinthians 4:3-7 with amplification:
"Self was not the matter or the end of the apostles' preaching; they preached Christ as Jesus, the Saviour and Deliverer, who saves to the uttermost all that come to God through him. Ministers are servants to the souls of men; they must avoid becoming servants to the humours (i.e. human characteristics such as temper and mood, as well as appreciation of humour) or the lusts of men. It is pleasant to behold the sun in the firmament (sky); but it is more pleasant and profitable for the gospel to shine in the heart. As light was the beginning of the first creation; so, in the new creation, the light of the Spirit is his first work upon the soul. The treasure of gospel light and grace is put into earthen vessels (i.e. human bodies of the ministers)."
"In the Bible it is said that first there was the Word, and there was Light. That means, that the first or highest knowledge is the truth. Light gives knowledge, words give knowledge; in fact, they are knowledge. The Quran says that Allah is the light of the heaven and the earth. That means the illumination to which one attains." - Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, "THE PERSONALITY OF GOD" - Wahiduddin's Web, Volume 7, Chapter 3 http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_3.htm
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