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!