Reflective Bible Study

As Matthew shares more of the healing miracles Jesus helped people with, we come to another two miracles that don’t seem very connected. However, these two miracles give us insight into Jesus’ character and how Jesus worked His miracles of healing.

Our passage picks up right as our passage from the last episode ended, and it can be found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9. For this episode, we’ll be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 27, Matthew tells us that:

²⁷ As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” ²⁸ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” ²⁹ Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!” ³¹ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.

³² As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. ³³ After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” ³⁴ But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

Let’s stop reading here. In these two miracles, almost nothing is the same. In the first miracle, we see a clear example of Jesus attributing the success of the miracle to the faith of those being healed, but in the second miracle, the passage doesn’t indicated the person being healed had any faith. In the case of the first miracle, Jesus tells the men He healed to be quiet about it, even if they choose to share it with everyone, while the second miracle doesn’t have the same warning.

The second miracle prompts the religious leaders to challenge the source of Jesus’ miracle working ability and attribute Jesus as a messenger of Satan, while the first miracle has no such backlash.

But in these two miracles, we see a big picture summary of all the miracles Jesus did to help people. Within these two miracles, we see Jesus healing the blind and healing the mute. We see Jesus healing disabilities that were caused by demon possession and disabilities that were not. We see Jesus healing based upon the faith of those being healed, and we see Jesus healing regardless of the faith of those present. We also see Jesus healing regardless of whether those He healed would obey His instructions afterwards and we see a healing where no follow-up instructions are given.

In these two miracles, almost every detail is different. However, one detail is clearly the same. With all the unique details of these two miracles, we cannot get away from the common denominator of Jesus. The two blind men followed Jesus and the mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. In both these miracles, Jesus is present, active, and willing to help in the situation.

Will all the miracles in the gospels, and really with all the miracles in the Bible as a whole, we cannot get around the presence of God the Father, Jesus the Son, or the Holy Spirit being present and active in every significant event.

This is a key theme in the Bible, and those writing the various books that have been assembled into our Bible all believed that God was alive and working in the world during their time period in history. In the case of the gospels, the writers of these four books believed Jesus to be God who became one of us, and they risked their lives to share Jesus’ life with others.

However, too often, in our lives today, we are quick to discount God’s active involvement. We are quick to look at science for an answer, quick to look to an expert for an explanation, or quick to look to ourselves for a solution. In our lives, we are less likely to see God moving in the details, that is except for in one way.

The way every one of us can see God moving in our lives if we want to see Him is when we look at our past. When you look at your past and when I look at mine, there are countless ways that our lives could have been different if things went just a little differently. It’s possible that you have come close to seriously injuring yourself, or even killing yourself, but something happened that changed your path or prevented this accident. When I look at my past, I see a whole collection of unrelated events shaping who I am today.

While some people look back and see a series of coincidental events that randomly brought us to this point, other people, myself included, instead see a series of God-directed events where He was leading and directing our lives up to this very moment in history.

When faced with huge challenges in our present or in our future, it can be easy to forget God’s leading and His working in the past, including in our past lives. However, the way we can trust that God is still interested and in control is by remembering all the times in the past where things could have gone worse than they did, but for some reason they didn’t. We can attribute the series of events that brought us to where we are at right now in life to God.

Sometimes the events in our past are bad or negative. It also can be easy to blame God or to doubt His love because we went through some trial or challenge. However, while God might be worthy of blame for causing or not preventing something bad from happening, the only way we can move forward in our own lives is to forgive God and trust that there must have been a reason we don’t understand behind what happened.

While I don’t have all the answers to life’s tough questions, I do know that this world has anger, hostility, pain, sin, and struggle associated with it. If God were to remove all the bad in the world today, we would have no need of Him and no reason for a new life in a perfect recreated world. Instead, God wants to eliminate sin from the universe forever, and part of keeping sin from resurfacing is letting sin reveal its true colors. Sometimes bad things happen simply to remind us that our eternity is not in a sinful world.

Sometimes when bad things happen, God is reminding us to look forward to a new life with Him in heaven.

In the two miracles we looked at in Matthew’s gospel, there weren’t many similarities. However, both miracles had Jesus, and when we face trials in our lives, Jesus is the best place for us to look to and the best Person for us to lean on!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to trust Him and lean on Him when trials, challenges, and problems come into your life. Blaming God doesn’t solve anything, but trusting God helps us move through whatever trial comes our way and out the other side. Sometimes, when bad things happen, we are reminded that God is preparing a better place for us without all the sin and negatives in our current world. In other times, bad things happen to give us a connection point for others who may be facing what we have faced. Only God has all the answers, and we should look to Him when we question what is happening around us.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Grow your personal relationship with God so that you will have the faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus to withstand all the storms that Satan wants to throw our way. Our world is getting crazier each day, and only by staying connected to God can we remain grounded in Him.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or leave where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue our journey through Luke’s gospel, we reach a passage where Jesus begins to train the disciples for the time following His return to heaven. However, the disciples are unaware of this detail. All they realize is that Jesus sends them out to the surrounding towns to tell people about Him. In the instructions Jesus gives to His disciples, and the few verses following this mini-commission, we can discover some amazing things.

Our passage for this episode comes from Luke’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read from the New International Reader’s Version. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us that:

¹ Jesus called together the 12 disciples. He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to heal sicknesses. ² Then he sent them out to announce God’s kingdom and to heal those who were sick. ³ He told them, “Don’t take anything for the journey. Do not take a walking stick or a bag. Do not take any bread, money or extra clothes. ⁴ When you are invited into a house, stay there until you leave town. ⁵ Some people may not welcome you. If they don’t, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet. This will be a witness against the people living there.” ⁶ So the 12 disciples left. They went from village to village. They announced the good news and healed people everywhere.

⁷ Now Herod, the ruler of Galilee, heard about everything that was going on. He was bewildered, because some were saying that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. ⁸ Others were saying that Elijah had appeared. Still others were saying that a prophet of long ago had come back to life. ⁹ But Herod said, “I had John’s head cut off. So who is it that I hear such things about?” And he tried to see Jesus.

¹⁰ The disciples returned. They told Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him. They went off by themselves to a town called Bethsaida. ¹¹ But the crowds learned about it and followed Jesus. He welcomed them and spoke to them about God’s kingdom. He also healed those who needed to be healed.

In this short passage, we see Jesus sending out the disciples to announce God’s kingdom and to heal those who were sick. We see Jesus share a similar focus when He began His ministry. When Jesus started preaching shortly after His baptism and trip into the wilderness to be tempted, He began by sharing about God’s Kingdom, which in some places is also called the Kingdom of Heaven. This small detail tells me that if God challenges you and leads you into a ministry sharing about Him, the best place to begin is by sharing about God’s kingdom. This is what John the Baptist did, what Jesus did, and what Jesus tells the disciples to do.

However, it is also significant to point out that Jesus’ disciples also were given the authority to heal people and to cast out demons. The clear point in this short-term missionary trip was to know that God was with them. Specifically we could say that these disciples had the Holy Spirit with them when they went out on their trip to the surrounding countryside.

While Luke’s gospel doesn’t give any summary statement describing if the disciples were successful, Mark’s gospel does fill in the details that the disciples healed people and cast out demons while they were out ministering. Luke’s gospel hints at the disciples’ success because when they return to Jesus and then try to go to off by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, the crowds discovered this and came to see Jesus. I suspect that if the disciples weren’t successful, Jesus could have traveled more freely without being recognized as clearly.

While the disciples were out sharing the news about God with the surrounding region, Luke inserts a brief summary about John the Baptist. Part of me wonders if Jesus’ popularity and fame reached Herod during the disciples’ missionary trip, and that this was not long after John was beheaded. Matthew and Mark take some verses to describe what happened, and that Herod would rather have kept John locked up, but that his wife and her daughter plotted together to push Herod to execute John. Luke simply tells us the summary, while also including a brief note that Herod “tried to see Jesus” (in verse 9).

However, with all this said, what could we call the big theme in these verses in Luke?

What is one big thing this passage teaches us that we can apply into our lives today?

As I ask myself these questions, it becomes clear that the big emphasis in this passage is on trusting God and letting Him lead. When Jesus instructs the disciples about this trip, He tells them not to take anything for their journey. Instead, Jesus challenges His disciples to simply go and trust that God will provide.

I don’t know how long Jesus anticipated them to be gone for, but I suspect that it was several weeks at least. From Luke’s description, they disciples had time to travel to multiple villages, be rejected by some, and be welcomed by others.

Also, Jesus challenges the disciples to not force themselves into situations. If they are invited to stay in a town, then stay in one place where they are welcomed. However, if they are rejected by a town, they are challenged to simply leave and shake the dust off of their feet as they go.

One amazing thing to realize in this short missionary trip to the towns and villages in the region is that the disciple’s visit may have been the only invitation or visit these towns received while Jesus was present on earth. There were too many towns for Jesus to visit them all personally, and by sending the disciples out, Jesus was able to multiply what God wanted to do to help Israel. If a town rejected the disciples, as some likely did or else Jesus’ instruction about this would have been unnecessary, we could say this town rejected the messengers God sent to help them.

In our own lives, not only are we called and challenged to trust God and let Him lead in our lives, we should also be willing and grateful for the messengers God sends into our lives. The towns Jesus sent the disciples to had the opportunity to accept or reject the messengers God sent to them. In a similar way, God sends people into our lives to challenge and encourage us. While we might not always recognize those God sends our way, we should be grateful and willing to accept those God brings into our lives.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to accept those He brings into our lives to challenge or encourage us. While we don’t always know, recognize, or understand who God sends, it is important for us to be willing and open to accepting messengers God sends our way. Otherwise, we might realize too late when we rejected the only messengers (also known as disciples) God sent our way like some of the towns in our passage did.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Through prayer and Bible study, we are able to grow closer to God, and the closer we are to God, the better able we will be to both recognize and accept the people God sends into our lives!

A short while after Jesus called Matthew to be a disciple, we discover a set of two miracles that display some unusual characteristics. Neither miracle is really like the other, but without both of these miracles put together, neither one would be as significant.

Let’s read what happened and then look for some things we can learn from this event. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 18, Matthew tells us that:

¹⁸ While Jesus was saying these things, a leader of the synagogue came to him. He bowed down before Jesus and said, “My daughter has just died. But if you come and lay your hand on her, she will live again.” ¹⁹ So Jesus and his followers stood up and went with the leader.

²⁰ Then a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came behind Jesus and touched the edge of his coat. ²¹ She was thinking, “If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

²² Jesus turned and saw the woman and said, “Be encouraged, dear woman. You are made well because you believed.” And the woman was healed from that moment on.

²³ Jesus continued along with the leader and went into his house. There he saw the funeral musicians and many people crying. ²⁴ Jesus said, “Go away. The girl is not dead, only asleep.” But the people laughed at him. ²⁵ After the crowd had been thrown out of the house, Jesus went into the girl’s room and took hold of her hand, and she stood up. ²⁶ The news about this spread all around the area.

In this event and this set of two miracles, we discover among other things, that Jesus was focused on helping each individual exactly how they needed help. It is also interesting in my mind that Matthew really summarizes this event and these two miracles.

In the other gospels that include this event, the synagogue leader who asks for help asks Jesus while His daughter is still sick and not dead yet. The other gospels also draw out the woman’s healing and her desire to remain hidden. In the other gospels, it seems that Jesus stops everything to discover the woman who touched His garment, and it delayed His progress to the synagogue leader’s home to the point that messengers were able to arrive and tell the synagogue leader that his daughter had died.

While Matthew summarizes many things about both these miracles, one thing Matthew does not skip over is Jesus’ reaction to the funeral musicians and those crying. Matthew also does not skip over sharing the woman’s thoughts and her belief that simply touching the edge of Jesus’ clothing would heal her.

Matthew includes the detail of the woman having faith in perhaps the least significant action she could think of. Touching the edge of Jesus’ clothing is pretty insignificant, but she believes that is all she needs to be healed. She may have been embarrassed about her condition, and would rather not have to explain it to a bunch of men why she was needing to be healed.

However, Jesus doesn’t want her faith or her miracle to be lost in the commotion of Him going to help someone else. Jesus stops just long enough to make sure she was healed and to draw attention onto her faith and her story so that we would be able to read and know it from what was recorded. If Jesus had not stopped, this woman’s miracle would have never been known outside of a handful of people.

Matthew also does not summarize or minimize Jesus’ reaction to those who were preparing for a funeral at the synagogue leader’s home. Jesus tells them all in verse 24, “Go away. The girl is not dead, only asleep.” However, those present laughed at Jesus. They knew the girl had died. A doctor had probably already called the time of her death a short while earlier.

However, I wonder if Jesus intentionally set the stage for this event by making sure that He hadn’t arrived before the girl had died. I wonder if Jesus wanted to challenge the faith of everyone present and if He wanted to teach us that death is nothing to be feared. When we read the Bible, we cannot get around the metaphor, both in the gospels and in the other parts of the Bible, that death is compared with a sleep.

In the context of Jesus’ statement here, those who viewed death viewed death as the end of life, with no immediate hope of a resurrection. If those present had believed in an upcoming resurrection, it is likely there wouldn’t be any tears present. It is clear in this event, that the crowd of mourners and funeral musicians did not have faith that Jesus could reverse death. Because they didn’t have faith, I believe this is why Jesus kicked them out of the house.

It is also interesting that if those present believed the girl to be in a much better place now that she had died, then they may have been sad at her death, but they wouldn’t have wished for her to be brought back to life. In this frame of view, Jesus resurrecting anyone, including Himself, would be one of the cruelest things for Him to do.

I don’t believe it is a coincidence that death is referred to as sleep in the Bible. The Bible contains many metaphors that God has written into the details of our physical world to teach us about spiritual truths. I believe sleep teaching us about death is one such truth.

While there are many physical and biological reasons for sleep and how our brains need sleep to function well, the spiritual component of sleep is simply rest from our daily work. If the day represents our life and sleep represents our death, then there is nothing to be afraid of when we ultimately lay down to rest at our life’s end because we know morning is coming. Following our rest in death, morning brings us a resurrection into a new life with God.

Whether we are close to death in this life or whether we have a lot of life left, we can know and trust that with whatever happens, God has placed us alive on this earth for a reason. We can know and trust that when we have accomplished what He has placed us here to accomplish, He will let us rest in peace until morning comes and the trumpet of resurrection sounds.

While we don’t know the rest of this girls story, what we do know is that from that moment forward, her life was a clear gift from God. This girl’s story would be significant and important in God’s eyes, because He had given her a new life, and her new life foreshadows our new lives when we are resurrected at Jesus’ return!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus and in His promise of a new life with God. While our new life with God begins at the moment we choose God, our ultimate new life with God begins at the moment He returns to take us home!

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself. Don’t take my word, or any pastor, author, speaker, or podcaster’s word for any spiritual truth. Instead, test everything through what the Bible teaches to discover God’s truth for your life with Him.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Continuing our journey through Luke’s gospel, brings us to a powerful example of God’s love as Jesus travels to a remote location seemingly to see just one person. However, I wonder if this wasn’t what Jesus had intended even if it was what happened.

In this event, and the miracle of healing Jesus does to help a man trapped by demonic forces, we are able to see just how powerful God is in relation to Satan, and just how much He loves those who are trapped by sin.

Our passage for this episode is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 8, and we will read from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 26, Luke tells us that Jesus and His disciples:

²⁶ [They] sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” ²⁹ For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

³⁰ Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. ³¹ And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

³² A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. ³³ When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

³⁴ When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, ³⁵ and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. ³⁷ Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.

³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

Whenever I read this event, I am amazed. From the details Luke describes, Jesus and His disciples sail across the lake, heal this one individual, and then sail away. While Jesus likely wanted to help more people from the region, I don’t think this rejection surprised Him. However, this event teaches us that Jesus was willing to travel to a region for one specific person.

Immediately before this, Luke recorded how Jesus calmed the worst storm the expert fishermen disciples had ever experienced with a simple word. Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat and the disciples were convinced that they all were going to die. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover this was a supernaturally created storm Satan caused to try to stop Jesus from reaching this man.

However, the big idea I want to draw our attention onto in this event is what we see Jesus allow the demons to do. From the details Luke shares about this event, there were hundreds, if not thousands of demons possessing this man. When we look at what Luke describes, the first thing the demons do when they leave the man and enter the pigs is to stampede the pigs off the edge of a cliff.

This brings me to an interesting observation. God allowed the demons to kill the pigs, but these demons did not, or maybe even could not, kill this man. Part of me wonders if God’s protective power was over this man’s life even if he was possessed by more demons than anyone could count. I wonder if Satan had dispatched a whole legion of demons to kill this man and the closest they could get was driving him from society. Satan then sent a massive storm in an attempt to keep Jesus from reaching this man.

However, nothing could stop Jesus from reaching this man. Nothing Satan could do could stop this from happening. While the demons weren’t restricted from killing the pigs, they were powerless to kill this man under God’s protection. It didn’t matter how many demons were present in this man, God’s protection of this man’s life was clearly stronger.

These demons may have been tired of not being successful and so when given the opportunity to leave the man and enter the pigs, they happily accepted because they wanted to succeed killing something and the pigs were the next best choice.

Little did the demons know that this would attract the attention of the town, and that would bring more people to see Jesus.

This whole event is amazing. One command from Jesus sent thousands of demons out of person they desperately wanted to kill. God’s protective hand on this man’s life withstood the attacks and attempts these demons used to try to kill this man. It is likely God also prevented these demons from leaving the region with this man when discovering that the storm the night before didn’t knock Jesus off course.

The biggest theme in this event is that when Jesus wants to heal a life, free a life, or change a heart, the best Satan can muster is no match for a single command from Jesus’ mouth. And from what Jesus did for us on the cross, nothing Satan can muster can steal eternal life away from those God has chosen and called!

God is calling you. Are you going to accept His invitation?

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to trust God. Know that God is infinitely stronger than Satan and nothing Satan can do is able to stop God from achieving His goals. One of God’s goals is eternal life for you and me, and the amazing thing about God is that He defeated Satan so we could have the choice of salvation. God isn’t going to force people into heaven against their will, and Satan is powerless to stop someone from accepting Jesus and turning to God when they choose to make that decision.

Also, pray and study the Bible for yourself and grow a personal relationship with God. God wants a personal relationship with you that begins in this life, because a relationship with God in this life leads to a forever, eternal relationship with Him when Jesus returns! Don’t let anyone, Satan included, trick you out of the life God has freely offered to you and me!