When I was in the Navy, seeing in the dark was an ability we were encouraged to protect. If you have never been to sea, let me tell you, it is DARK outside after the sun goes down.
When I had a watch in the upcoming evening, I prepared by staying indoors as much as possible during the day. If I did go out, I wore the first pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers that I ever owned. I bought them for $25 at the Navy Exchange. The payoff was sharper vision in the night. Since I did not expose my eyes to sunlight if at all possible, they were more sensitive to the light that is available in the night – The moon and stars.
I drifted into those memories as I was doing a little word study of 2 Peter 1:19. Peter is instructing his readers to pay more attention to the prophetic word than his own eyewitness account of the transfiguration!
What?
He calls the word a lamp – a lychnos – or in English, a basic portable lamp (or a candlestick since he didn’t have access to battery-powered flashlights, duh.) Another verse that should be very familiar to you is the one where Christ said that we don’t light a lychnos and put it under a basket. (Matthew 5:15)
That small light is enough for everyone in the house. It provides everything needed in that moment.
When it comes to moving about in the dark, even in such deep darkness at sea, the smallest light is enough to help avoid tripping, even though it does not reveal everything.
Our human tendency is to want the brightest light possible in the darkness. Peter is direct and strangely casual about the lamp’s limitations. It doesn’t need to be the sun; it’s doing everything it needs to do.
He downplayed the transfiguration as a confirmation of the word, not a permission for him to be the confirming authority. God’s word confirms itself. Peter is comparing God’s word to a lamp.
Sailors protect their vision before the watch ever begins. Maybe the takeaway from this is to ask myself, “Am I protecting my sensitivity to the lamp that I have already been given?”
The Lamp is Enough.