Greetings members and friends and welcome to another commentary and preview to this Sunday’s study of the Word. This Sunday’s study text is entitled “Healed By Faith” and it is based on the NT gospel according to Matthew 9:18-26.
In today’s text, the power or authority of Jesus over physical circumstances as we know and perceive them is again evident and displayed. The text, which is also recorded in Mark and Luke in more detail, is about the healing of one person which occurred on the way to heal another.
It all begins when a Jewish leader of a synagogue comes to Jesus on behalf of his daughter who is on a “death bed” to ask Jesus to come to his house and save her. Matthew reading makes is seem like the ruler knew his daughter was already dead and was asking Jesus to resurrect her.
But Matthew’s account combines the serious urgency of the situation and the fact that the child dies before Jesus could reach the house. He indeed may have suspected his daughter was dead by the time he reached Jesus or would die before he could get Jesus to lay hands on her, but by faith he had to try to get her some help.
Another fact about the ruler that Matthew omits is that this girl was this ruler’s only child and that she was only twelve years of age. Jesus agrees to come and on the way to the ruler’s house another unusual healing takes place.
A woman who had what the bible appears to describe as a menstrual cycle which would not stop or dry for 12 years, the same age of the child, believed Jesus could help her. She had spent everything she had searching for someone to help her only to no avail.
As a crowd surrounded and followed Jesus to Jairus’s house, this woman was so desperate for help that she believed if she could just touch Jesus’s clothes as He passed by, she would be healed. She managed to touch him and was healed and Jesus didn’t see her when she touched Him but He knew someone had. When the woman admitted it was her who had touched Him, Jesus told her to go in peace and that her faith had healed her.
Jairus’s daughter dies before Jesus makes it to his house but He tells Jairus not to fear or give up hope. When they enter the house, Jesus allows only the mother and father and those disciples, Peter, James and John, who became known as His inner circle to enter the room where the child was.
Jesus is reported to have taken the child by the hand and said “child arise” and her life returned unto her. Here again the Creator in the person of Jesus exercises His knowledge of how things work in our world to do something we can’t explain or understand how it could happen. Jesus would tell us we too could do it if we exercised faith in a manner consistent with the challenge before us.
It should also be noted that He did not want the details and the facts of what happened from the perspective of those who were in the room to be published or broadcasted among the people. His reasons for giving this command is not clear, but could have been given in order not to draw unwanted or premature attention to Himself.
The bottom line in this study and many others like it is that the works that Jesus is reported to have done and made possible continue to testify of His person and mission to our world. In the future, mankind will continue to do what seemed impossible to people of earlier generations and to us today. That fact lets us know because we don’t know or understand how something can be done, doesn’t mean it can’t be done or hasn’t been done.
One of the key hurdles to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ is overcoming the question of how could Jesus do what was reported he did, accepting that He did it and believing that God was in Him reconciling His own creation unto Himself. We must keep reminding ourselves, if God truly created this universe, what is it that this God can not do?
Well, be sure to look over the lesson again and come prepared to offer your comments, questions and perspective on the meaning of the lesson. If you can’t attend your own Sunday School class this Sunday, you can join us live and online at 9:00 am at www.fbmbc.org and clicking the online services link.
You can also join us live by dialing 508 924-2890. If you have any comments or questions, be sure to place them in the comment section or you can share them on Sunday. So, let’s all have a great lesson and discussion this Sunday and remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
