Preaching and Healing

Matthew 4:23-25. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria;and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.”

 

There is a wealth of detail in this passage, and I suspect it may take more than one post to cover it all.  It’s an amazing three verses, covering a lot of time and work. 

This is the third section in Chapter 4 describing the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  Did you notice that He just jumps right in?  No planning sessions, no fund-raising, no reservations in the local inns and restaurants. 

Have you thought about how hard He worked?  It wasn’t a walk in the park!  He made the whole round of Galilee.  He taught in their synagogues, preaching the Kingdom and healing every disease  that was brought to Him. He walked everywhere He went–no comfortable, air-conditioned limousines with armed guards  surrounding Him.  Also, a great blessing, no paparazzi 🙂

However, we are told that the people followed Him wherever He went.  It would be logical to assume that the crowds grew to huge proportions as His fame was spread throughout the area. I’m sure there were many who came just as they would have gone to a circus or a gladiator contest–to be entertained.  But I’m also sure that there were hundreds who came out of desperate hope for relief from their disease, their poverty, their subjugation to Rome and the local tax collectors.  There were surely some who came because they had heard His story and believe  Him to be Messiah. 

Whatever the reasons, they followed Him.  Some may have stayed with Him for many days; there must have been a run on the grocery stores for whatever the people could carry with them for nourishment.  The officials of the towns along the way must have dreaded seeing this crowd of people descending on their quiet hamlets, wondering how on earth they were going to deal with the sudden population explosion.  People must have slept wrapped in their cloaks, on the ground, for many nights.  The Sheraton-Ritz wasn’t available in their province.   Sanitation must have been a problem.

One more general comment, and I’m finished for today. Why did Jesus take the time to heal all these miseries?  What was there to be gained by His doing so? 

Closely connected to the preaching of the Kingdom, the healings were signs that the King is Jehovah, that the Kingdom had drawn nigh. These signs of healing every disease were the powers of the world to come. When we get to Chapter 8, we’ll look more closely at the matter of healing, and its importance.  For now, I want to emphasize that it is not the gospel of salvation by grace through faith that Jesus is teaching, but that of the Kingdom.  The gospel of grace needs no outward sign by healing of disease to show that it is of God. Nowhere in the New Testament epistles are we taught that physical healing  is connected with Gospel preaching.  Makes you wonder about the prominence today of healing and other supernatural “gifts.”

Next time, we’ll look at why there was so much disease of every kind in this land.