Miracles Part 1: Healing Power

We ended chapter 7 with the crowds being amazed because Jesus SPOKE as one having authority. 

Many people can make many bold claims, right? Jesus said that people are known by their fruit - the good deeds done. In other words, their actions must match up to the acclamations. The works must line up with the words. We might say, “practice what you preach”. 

It appears as though chapters 8-9 are comprised of three sets of miracles each followed by a short discourse on discipleship to demonstrate just that. ⚡

MIRACLES 1 - 8:1-17 (leper, centurion, Peter's mom-in-law)

8:18-22 (cost of discipleship)

MIRACLES 2 - 8:23-9:8 (calming sea, demons and pigs, paralytic)

9:9-17 (call of Matthew & lesson on discipleship)

MIRACLES 3 - 9:18-34 (girl, bleeding woman, blind man, demoniac)

9:35-38 (mission of disciples - harvest)

These narrative writings demonstrates the authority of Jesus through divine ACTIVITY. They show Jesus living out kingdom principles and proving that he is, indeed, the God-man spoken of by the prophets and promised by Yahweh. 

This morning we are going to look at the first group of three miracles (8:1-17). 

What are Miracles?

First, I think we need to start by defining what miracles are.

Though different English translations vary on when the word “miracle” first shows up in our Bibles, they all mention miracles first in the Book of Exodus. [Exodus 3:20, 4:21, 7:9]. Here is one example:

Exodus 7:8–9 (CSB)
8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh tells you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh. It will become a serpent.’ ”

The word “miracle” is our English word. The Hebrew is often translated and signs or wonders. 

Exodus 4:21 (CSB)
21 The Lord instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, make sure you do before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he won’t let the people go.

Signs and wonders are a huge part of the Moses story. For that reason, and many others like the mountain references, some have paralleled the work of Moses and the life of Christ - with Jesus being the perfect Moses. 

In the Exodus story, signs and wonders were performed to prove to Pharoah that Yahweh (not Pharaoh) is God:

Exodus 5:1–2 LEB
1 And afterward, Moses and Aaron went, and they said to Pharaoh, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘Release my people so that they may hold a festival for me in the desert.’ ” 2 And Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice to release Israel? I do not know Yahweh, and also I will not release Israel.”

The miracles that Moses performed demonstrated the power of God and authenticated the message of Moses.

In the New Testament, we have the phrase “signs and wonders” that uses 2 Greek words to get across the similar meaning of the one Hebrew word. HOWEVER, we also have a third word that is added which we translate into English as “miracle”:

2 Corinthians 12:12 (CSB)
12 The signs of an apostle were performed with unfailing endurance among you, including signs and wonders and miracles.

It is the Greek word, δύναμις which means “power”. This is the root for our English words like “dynamo”, “dynamic” and “dynamite.” So the signs and wonders are also things that demonstrate power.

So, from a purely non-religious perspective, a miracle can be anything that is powerful and wonderful - that seems to transcend the ordinary.

Perhaps the best local legend use of this would be the “Miracle on Ice” when a group of US college athletes defeated the world's most dominant hockey team of its day from the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. It was so unexpected, and the odds were so much against them, that the US victory was dubbed “miraculous.”

From a religious perspective, "miracles” mean more. Let me go to a non-biblical source to provide a religious definition of miracles:

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) Miracle
mir•a•cle \ˈmir-i-kəl\ noun
[Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin miraculum, from Latin, a wonder, marvel, from mirari to wonder at] 12th century
1:      an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs

“Divine intervention in human affairs” is a much more focused definition than just any event that is amazing. However, though this is a narrower focus, I think it is much broader definition than we allow for in English. 

The flood… yeah that was divine intervention we would tag miraculous. BUT… Divine intervention took place when God removed man and woman from the garden. But we would not generally refer to that as “miraculous”. 

The events in chapters 8-9 of Matthews writing highlight extraordinary events where the divine intervenes in human affairs by breaking or bending the natural laws that our divine Creator made. These events demonstrate the authority of Jesus over humanity and physical creation through a series of signs and wonders. 

The Purpose of Miracles

Why is a display of power necessary? Consistently, the purpose or miracles in the scriptures seems to be at least for the following three reasons (though there may certainly be more):

to provide authentication of the messenger (like Moses and his staff)

to do for others what they cannot do for themselves (like parting the Red Sea or healing)

sometimes to tangibly prove something that is intangible (which we will see in later miracles of Jesus - like the forgiveness of sin)

Matthew (II. Commentary: The King Demonstrates His Authority)
It is also important to understand the miracles of these chapters in light of the purpose of miracles throughout the Bible. Certainly miracles meet an immediate need, about which God cares very much (a disease, a demon possession, a threatening storm), but throughout the Old and the New Testaments, these immediate needs are always the secondary purpose for the miracle. In virtually every instance, the primary purpose of the miracle was to validate a messenger and his message. The healing was not the message itself.

Miracles and the Gospels

More than any other part of the NT, the gospels are loaded with miracles. Well, at least three of them are. John seems to have been doing his own thing with his account 🤨

The miracles we are going to look at today are found in Matthew, and some are also found in Mark, others in Luke and some in both Mark and Luke. 

• Leper: Luke 5:12-16 & Mark 1:40-45 (compassion)
• Centurion: Luke 7:1-10
• Peter’s Mom & Crowds: Mark 1:29-34 & Luke 4:38-41 (touched the crowds)

When you read of these miracles in each gospel, they might seem to contradict each other a bit. They vary on when they seem to take place or certain details seem different in one than another. 

We should not see this as error. 

While Luke seeks to put together a more effective timeline of events (what he calls an, “orderly sequence”) Matthew groups his content together in a different way - sometimes avoiding chronology completely and often leaving out many details to zero in on just the details necessary for this point.

We should not be surprised, we do the same thing! Let me give you a live example this morning:

ILLUSTRATION:

Find 2-3 people who were at the last open table and have 2 of them leave the room. Have them, one at a time, explain what happened that night. 

Each person will have certain details they remember different from others and all may have certain things in common. All were there and none of them is a wrong account of what took place. At the same time, none of them is a complete, minute-by-minute account of everything that took place during those 3 hours.

While each gospel author shares different details, they all serve to teach us about the Chosen One of God - Jesus. They are all providing the details they deem necessary to demonstrate the deity and authority of Jesus.

STUDY TIP: as you study the gospels, it is a good practice to see what certain authors leave out that others mention, and what some mention that others do not. In doing so you can gain insights into the message they are sharing about Jesus and his ministry. I hope to point out a few of those things for you today.

Physical Healings

OK. Enough introduction - let’s read our passage in Matthew:

Matthew 8:1–17
1 When he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. 2 Right away a man with leprosy came up and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 Reaching out his hand, Jesus touched him, saying, “I am willing; be made clean.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus told him, “See that you don’t tell anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible agony.” 7 He said to him, “Am I to come and heal him?” 8 “Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. 11 I tell you that many will come from east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus told the centurion, “Go. As you have believed, let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that very moment. 14 Jesus went into Peter’s house and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 So he touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and began to serve him. 16 When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick, 17 so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: He himself took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.

There are 4 different miraculous events presented in our passage. Some might say three ;) Let’s look at them one at a time.

The Leper

The first miracle we encounter is the healing of a leper.

Matthew 8:2–4 CSB
2 Right away a man with leprosy came up and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 Reaching out his hand, Jesus touched him, saying, “I am willing; be made clean.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus told him, “See that you don’t tell anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

There are many things that leprosy could have been defined as. In the Torah, leprosy could be in a house, on fabric or on a person and carried a much wider range of definitions than just a skin disease that we associate with it. Today we also call is Hansen’s Disease, and it can be treated if caught early. It is a skin disease that also attacks the nervous system and literally will eat a person up from the outside in. 

During the time Jesus was walking the earth, there was no known cure for it. Only God could heal this skin disease. We see this with the story of Naaman:

2 Kings 5:1–15 (CSB)
1 Naaman, commander of the army for the king of Aram, was a man important to his master and highly regarded because through him, the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man was a valiant warrior, but he had a skin disease. 2 Aram had gone on raids and brought back from the land of Israel a young girl who served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his skin disease.” 4 So Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 Therefore, the king of Aram said, “Go, and I will send a letter with you to the king of Israel.” So he went and took with him 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothing. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, and it read: When this letter comes to you, note that I have sent you my servant Naaman for you to cure him of his skin disease. 7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a man of his skin disease? Recognize that he is only picking a fight with me.” 8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you torn your clothes? Have him come to me, and he will know there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go wash seven times in the Jordan and your skin will be restored and you will be clean.” 11 But Naaman got angry and left, saying, “I was telling myself: He will surely come out, stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the skin disease. 12 Aren’t Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and left in a rage. 13 But his servants approached and said to him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he only tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?” 14 So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the command of the man of God. Then his skin was restored and became like the skin of a small boy, and he was clean. 15 Then Naaman and his whole company went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “I know there’s no God in the whole world except in Israel. Therefore, please accept a gift from your servant.”

Naaman recognized that only God could heal him and the purpose of the miracle was to demonstrate the power of God and make his name great among the nations. 

When Jesus healed this man with leprosy he was declaring his authority over the disease, which, to the Jewish crowds would put him on par with Elisha doing the work of God.

Lets look at some of the details together: 

The Faith & Humility of the Leper

I want to look at the FAITH of the leper. He had no doubt that Jesus *could* heal him, it was just whether of not he *would* want to. “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

There is no demanding. He bowed or bent his knee and made a statement, which became a request. But even in the way the request was made, it pointed to power of Jesus and not the condition of the man. 

To believe that God can do something is faith, to acknowledge his sovereignty is humility. I believe this is a great model for us. God wants us to bring our requests to him, but we should ask with faith and humility. God is not obligated to heal us, though he can. Our submission to him matters more than our physical condition.

The Action of Jesus

So, how did Jesus respond? He touched the leper. 

All three of the synoptic gospels use the same phrase which has two components: “reach out his hand” and “touched him”. It was a very deliberate action that they all wanted to mention. 

I believe this speaks of his compassion, and the leper would not have been able to touch another person while unclean. 

Mark mentions Jesus had compassion on the leper, and that the leper couldn’t keep his mouth shut - two items that Matthew never mentions [Mark 1:40-45]. Luke, the physician, is the only one that mentions the leprosy was all over the man and shows the desperation by mentioning he fell face-down [Luke 5:12-16] - Matthew just says he bowed or kneeled. 

Did Jesus become unclean? No, because the man was cleaned immediately. 

Jesus touched and was not infected. He touched the realm of the unclean and made it clean without becoming infected himself. This is a wonderful picture of what Jesus did on the cross when he became sin for us. [see 2 Corinthians 5:21]

We will understand this a bit more when we look at the QUOTE at the end of the passage.

Then, Jesus shows his regard for the law by commanding the leper to go complete the 8 day ritual of being declared clean by the priest in Jerusalem and offering sacrifices to God. Remember, he did not come to destroy the law but complete it.

The Result of the Encounter

Jesus touched him. Jesus spoke to him. The man was healed immediately. In this miracle there was a combination of touch and words that are connected to the healing. 

The Centurion

The second miracle is the healing of the servant of a Roman soldier.

Matthew 8:5–13 CSB
5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible agony.” 7 He said to him, “Am I to come and heal him?” 8 “Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. 11 I tell you that many will come from east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus told the centurion, “Go. As you have believed, let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that very moment.

First I want to pause… because this is the ONLY passage where we read that Jesus was amazed. People are amazed at him, but this is the only time we read of Jesus being amazed and both Matthew and Luke record it. 

There are at least two tensions here: 

1. For a Jew to enter the house of a gentile would make him unclean. Both Jesus and the centurion knew this. So part of Jesus question to the officer was, “do you want me to become unclean for you?”

This brings up a translation struggle. Some translations read, “Am I to come and heal him?” as a questions. Other translations read, “I will come heal him” as a statement. In either case, there was a tension - would Jesus enter the house of a Gentile?

2. for a Roman official to refer to Jesus as “lord”, even if not in the form of him as God but just as someone in authority, is quite an act of humility and possibly even treason against Rome.

The Centurion's Faith & Humility

He was a Roman citizen and placed in Capernaum as a spokesperson for Rome and an enforcer of Roman rule. As a leader who commands people and they obey (as he points out) and as one who could ask any Jew to carry his gear for a mile and someone who has complete control of the local law enforcement, he is referring to Jesus as one above himself. 

I think THIS is one aspect of the greatness of his faith! Humility.

Matthew leaves out a few details such as the character of this man who, “loved his servant” and the generosity of this man who, “help fund the building of a synagogue” which Luke brings up in his account [Luke 7:1-10]. Mark does not mention this healing. 

What we know is he is a Gentile, and he needs something that is out of his control - healing. It is often in times of great duress and situations that are beyond our control that we come to God begging for his intervention. 

Yet, the focus is Matthew not on the type of person he was, nor how he supported the synagogue, nor his desperation. This Gentile is said to have more faith than anyone Jesus met in all of Israel - that is the focus.

The emphasis is on FAITH. He did not require the physical presence, nor a physical touch. It simply takes the WORD of God. The same word that spoke the world into being has the power to speak healing into our lives - physically, but even more important, spiritually (which Jesus will teach later through miracles).

His faith came by recognizing Jesus’ authority. “Authority”. This is a very important word! As we ended chapter 7 stating that he crowds recognized he taught with authority, we have this word appear again and the Centurion is basically saying, “Jesus, I recognize that you are a person of authority like I am, but you have authority over the physical world that I do not have!”

Remember, these miracles also attest to the authority of the messenger, like Moses and Elisha.

The Result of the Encounter

There are at least three outcomes:

1. The centurion is commended by Jesus for his faith.
2. The servant was healed at that very moment, or immediately - through WORD and not touch.
3. The Jews were put to shame by a Gentile.

Jesus’ words to the Jews are less than flattering and more than severe. There is a very stern warning and teaching that the people of the kingdom are those that have faith in Jesus and obedience to the father (hears these words and obeys them) - and not just those born of Abraham. 

Peter's Mom-In-Law

Matthew 8:14–15 CSB
14 Jesus went into Peter’s house and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 So he touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and began to serve him.

The Faith of the Woman

I want to talk about the FAITH here… there is none mentioned. We have no record of her asking for healing, nor of Peter or the disciples asking for healing.  We cannot say the woman was healed because she asked to be healed, because that was not mentioned. 

The Outcome

Jesus saw her, touched her and healed her. After which she immediately began to serve them. She was healed by touch and not by WORD.

The Crowds

We began our passage with a crowd following Jesus and we end with Jesus healing the crowd. Matthew wraps it nicely with a bow for us. 

Matthew 8:16–17 CSB
16 When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick, 17 so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: He himself took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.

Interestingly, we never hear anything about the faith of the crowds. Yet, Matthew says that Jesus healed them all with his WORD.

Mark says that Jesus healed “many” [Mark 1:29-34] and Luke says that Jesus “laid hands on each of them” [Luke 4:38-41]. Remember to always read the other parallel passages to see what is included and omitted - and to make sure we do not form doctrines wrongly.

Faith and Healing

Only in one of these passages did Jesus mention someone’s faith. I believe that these passages teach that faith is NOT the basis of the healing. It was simply the purpose and pleasure of the Savior. 

This concept has been abused in many churches. People have been told that they have not been healed because they did not have enough faith.

Though this passage says that Jesus healed “all” who came, Mark states that he healed “many”. God does still heal, but whether or not he does is up to his pleasure and purpose. Let us not pretend that something on our part is capable of bringing about healing. While he wants us to come to him and he delights in our asking and seeing him, he can heal without us. 

One the flip side of that, I cannot think of a single passage where Jesus refused to heal someone because they had too little faith! Think about that… The reality is that God shows compassion on whom he chooses - it is totally up to him - for his glory and goodness:

Exodus 33:18–19 LEB
18 And he said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I myself will cause all my goodness to pass over before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion.”

God has not changed. He is still compassionate and it is still up to him who he chooses to heal. Jesus actually taught this and it is recorded in the gospel of Luke:

Luke 4:24–27 CSB
24 He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy, and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

Jesus, after reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue, teaches about Yahweh showing compassion on whomever he pleases. In this case, he mentions a woman and a leper also! Neither of which, was Jewish by the way!

Our faith, our lineage, our position in society have no bearing on the compassion of God and his choice to heal. 

Bringing it Together

In this section of miracles, the first of 3 sections, Jesus shows his authority over sickness - leprosy, paralysis and fever. There is a reason that Matthew broke the chronology of the events, and there was a reason he chose to leave out certain details. 

Matthew is demonstrating that Jesus is a healer of sickness and infirmities. Why does this matter?

THIS was the description of the serpent crusher, the chosen one of God - the Messiah. At the end of the miracles (8:17), Matthew makes that connection for us by quoting Isaiah 53: 

​Isaiah 53:1–6 CSB 1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. 4 Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. 6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

The crowds most likely saw Jesus as a prophet - like Moses or Elisha. Matthew sees him as the Messiah - and also as the very incarnation of God on earth. 

In our highly advanced medical society, it is easy for us to count on medicine to heal us. It is only when medicine fails - like in advanced stages of cancer, or cures of COVID - that we begin to comprehend the reality that even medicine is subject to God and ultimately only he can overrule sickness and disease at will.​

Exodus 23:25 CSB
25 Serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will remove illnesses from you.

Exodus 15:26
26 He said, “If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Psalm 103:2–3
2 My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget all his benefits. 3 He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases.

The Final Outcomes

While I am confident the primary purpose of these miracles is to demonstrate that Jesus was God and was the anointed one sent by the Father to redeem creation, I believe there are a few other side lessons we can take along with us if we look a little harder.

The Marginalized

The third thing I think we should notice is that these miracles were performed for those that would have been outcasts or less favored in their culture. It was not the religious leaders, the scribes, or even the Jewish elders or men that sat at the gate for which Matthew records the first miracles. 

While many churches seek to reach the wealthy, prominent and affluent of their region, we are reminded the the kingdom of God is for all who will hear and respond.

The Temple

As I have pondered why Matthew might have mentioned these miracles first and in this order I have recognized another possible teaching. Since Matthew was a Jew and would have been familiar with the temple, it seems he might have been using the order of miracles to start a pattern or motion that leads towards the center of the temple. 

Herod’s temple 

Jerusalem had walls and gates around it. Inside those walls, on a hill, stood Herod’s temple. The porch and stair area on the outside of the temple was the court of the Gentiles. Going inside of that was the court of the women. Then, inside of that was the priests section and then the holiest of places where God’s glory used to dwell.

Overlaying these miracles with the geography of Jerusalem there is a possible pattern:

The leper was banished outside the city walls. They were not allowed in the city or near the temple until they were cleansed.

The Centurion, as a proselyte, could enter the court of the Gentiles, but no closer.

The woman could enter the outer court, closer than the court of Gentiles, but not as close as the men, nor the priest nor the high priest.

There is a progression from the outside to towards the very presence of God. Since the ultimate goal of the Messiah is to reconcile people to God, this progression is pretty awesome to consider. 

Community

Finally, each of these healings demonstrates the importance of community and the connection Jesus has on community. 

Leper - was an outcast and totally isolated from community - living outside the walls of the city. The healing of Jesus restored him to community and relationships. 

Centurion - this Gentile leader was not born a Jew, but was accepted into the community through faith.

Woman - after she was healed her response was to serve the community around her.

It is by faith that we have fellowship or community with God and each other. And as part of the community we have the joy and purpose of serving each other.

Jesus demonstrated that he not only spoke with authority, but had the power (miracles) to back what he said. He proved he was the Messiah, the chosen one of God who carries the sickness of mankind on his shoulders.

ALL that accept him and place their faith in him receive healing - spiritually regardless of their station in life. That healing draws us close to God and makes us part of His community - his kingdom where were have the privilege of serving others and telling others about Jesus.​