Matthew, Mark, and Luke each preserve this saying, and the differences between the three tell as much as the agreement does. Matthew places it in the Sermon on the Mount as a statement of identity. Mark and Luke place it after the Parable of the Sower, as a statement about what happens to truth once it has been received. Together the three accounts describe both what a believer is and what is owed to the truth a believer has been given.
Light Placed on a Stand
"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 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."1 The statement is not a command to become something. It is a declaration of what is already true. A city built on a hill does not decide whether to be visible. Its position decides that for it. The same is said of a lamp lit and placed in a room. Once lit, it either sits where it can do the work a lamp is for, or it is placed somewhere that defeats its own purpose.
The bushel named in the saying was a measuring container used for grain, large enough to smother a small flame entirely rather than merely dim it. Covering the lamp did not conceal a little of its light. It put the flame out. The absurdity Jesus describes is not a lamp burning less brightly under cover. It is a lamp lit for no reason at all, since covering it accomplishes the same result as never lighting it.
The candlestick named alongside the bushel was simply a stand built to lift the lamp above the level of the room, so that a single small flame could reach every corner of a house that had, in that world, ordinarily one room to light. Placing the lamp there cost nothing beyond the placing. The oil was already burning. The wick was already lit. Nothing further needed to be done to the lamp itself once it existed; the only remaining question was where the man holding it would choose to put it down.
The Purpose of the Light
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."2 The command names both the visibility and its end. The good works are to be seen, and the seeing is to end in one place only, the glory of the Father. Jesus does not commend visibility for its own sake. A light shown off for its own sake has already missed the purpose stated here. The works are seen so that praise passes through the one doing them and lands on the one who gave the light to begin with.
This ordering matters because it forecloses the opposite error along with the error of hiding. A lamp under a bushel gives no light to anyone. A lamp held up to draw attention to itself rather than to what it illuminates gives light for the wrong reason. The saying asks for neither concealment nor self-display. It asks that the light be placed where it can do its proper work, which is to make other things visible while drawing the credit toward God rather than toward itself.
Nothing Hidden That Will Not Come to Light
Mark records the saying in a different setting, immediately after the Parable of the Sower, where it governs the truth a hearer receives rather than only the visible works that follow from it. "And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?"3 The bed joins the bushel as a second impossible hiding place, equally certain to smother the flame or to be knocked over by it. "For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."4
The truth entrusted to a disciple is described here on the same terms as the lamp. It was never meant for storage. What is hidden in a parable during Christ's ministry is stated as moving toward open disclosure, not toward permanent concealment, and the one who has received it is charged to hear it rightly rather than to sit on it.
What the Light Is Owed
Luke's version adds a detail neither Matthew nor Mark records. "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light."5 The lamp is placed for the benefit of those entering the house, a picture of hospitality rather than mere display. What Jesus goes on to say ties the image directly to responsibility. "For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."6
The principle stated here, that having leads to more and neglect leads to loss, is not a comment on material possessions. It describes what happens to truth once it is received. A hearer who acts on what has been given is entrusted with more. A hearer who receives truth and does nothing with it eventually loses even the appearance of having held it. The lamp under the bed and the truth left unused are the same failure described twice, once in an image and once in a principle.
The Light Believers Reflect
None of the three accounts asks a believer to generate light out of nothing. John records Christ's own claim standing behind every other statement about light in the Gospels: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."7 What a believer carries is derived rather than original, and Paul states the same movement from one condition to the other without hedging it: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light."8 The change described is not an improvement of an existing light but a transfer from one state into an entirely different one.
Paul writes to the Philippians in the same terms Jesus had already used of the city on the hill, calling believers to be blameless in the midst of a crooked generation, "among whom ye shine as lights in the world."9 Peter states the purpose for which the calling was given at all: "that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."10 The light shown before men in Matthew's account and the praise given to the Father are the same transaction described from two directions. John states the source of it in the fewest possible words: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."11 A lamp does not manufacture the fire it carries. It carries a flame lit elsewhere, and its only remaining choice is where it will be set.
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