And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than, having two eyes, to be thrown into the fire of Gehenna.
The eye is often connected with desires, envy, and a person’s inner impulses. Many sins begin with what or whom a person fixes his gaze on. Therefore, if our sight, our interests, or what we constantly look at becomes a source of temptation, then we must decisively renounce them. The Lord continues to teach that in the matter of the soul’s salvation, nothing is so precious that it is worth losing the kingdom of God for it. Outward wholeness is nothing if a person is drifting away from God inwardly. “To enter life with one eye” means to be saved, even through painful renunciations, while “to go to Gehenna with two eyes” means to keep outward advantages yet lose eternal life.