Praising the God of Israel: Mark 7:31-37

Focus Passage: Mark 7:31-37 (NIV)

31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Read Mark 7:31-37 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Something interesting I find in this passage is what Mark does not say about the crowd’s reaction. Perhaps this is because Mark leaves a detail out, or perhaps this may have been the big distinction between the crowds who brought people to Jesus in the gospel of Mark when compared to the crowds that Matthew describes.

Our passage ends by saying, “People were overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He has done everything well,’ they said. ‘He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” (v. 37)

While this doesn’t sound odd, or like it is missing anything, when we bring in a similar event where Jesus heals many people from a different gospel, we see something else included. From Matthew’s gospel, we find the following verse to describe the crowd’s reaction to Jesus’ healing miracles: “The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.” (Matthew 15:31)

Matthew draws our attention to the fact that the crowd “praised the God of Israel”. This is important because Mark does not include this detail, and also in Mark, we see Jesus pulling the disabled man away from the crowd in order to heal Him. Jesus does not do this in Matthew.

Perhaps it is because these two crowds see Jesus’ ministry differently: the crowd in Mark wants to elevate Jesus as the great healer, while the crowd in Matthew sees Jesus as someone who God has chosen to work miracles through. Mark’s crowd sees Jesus as an extraordinary human, while Matthew’s crowd sees Jesus as someone sent from God.

This could be why Matthew’s crowd is not pushed away in this case while Jesus is healing, whereas Mark’s crowd is subtly told to “wait over there” while Jesus takes the man aside to heal him.

This makes me understand that Jesus wanted people to see Him as someone who God had sent to them. Jesus wanted to point people to God the Father as His source. Jesus did what He did to give glory to the Father, and it seemed that He tried to avoid situations where the glory would only go to Himself.

This also tells me that if I am to “be like Jesus”, I should focus on pointing people to God the Father (and Jesus) rather than drawing people towards looking at me.

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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