Read Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45 and Luke 5:12-16. Leprosy in this day was similar to what AIDS was not too long ago, not in the specific disease, but in the results. It was fatal, often taking years before death came. It was a social disease; a person with leprosy was a social outcast, quarantined from everyday life and relationships.
1. Why was it unusual for Jesus to touch this man in healing him?
People in that day simply did not touch lepers for fear of contracting the disease.
2. Why, in your opinion, did Jesus not want the leper to tell anyone about his healing except those he was required to tell by the Law?
He wanted to avoid the publicity. It cut down on His time to teach and pray.
Read Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26. Jesus was teaching in a home, possibly His own. Many religious leaders from throughout all Judea and Galilee, having heard of Him, had come to listen to Him and check Him out. During the lesson, four men who were unable to get inside due to the crowds knocked a hole in the flat roof and lowered their paralyzed friend to be healed. Had this been our own house, our reaction probably would have been far different than our Lord’s. We would immediately think of all the damage done and the cost of repairing the roof. We probably would have said something far different than what our Lord said to the man as he lay before Him.
3. Why was what Jesus said to this paralyzed man unusual?
He, instead of healing him (the outward need), told the man his sins were forgiven (the inward need).
4. Whose faith was important in the healing of this man?
The faith of the whole group is what our Lord saw. It says when Jesus saw THEIR faith.
5. What problem did the religious leaders have with what our Lord said to the man?
They did not think that Jesus, as a man, had the authority to forgive sin.
6. How did Jesus prove that He, as Messiah, had authority on earth to forgive sin?
He healed the man. Jesus begins by asking these leaders, “Is it easier to say to the man (not stated but understood is the idea, “and bring it to pass”); ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’ (again understood but not stated, “and bring it to pass”).” Both may be easy to say, but to bring either to pass is humanly impossible. They are accomplished only with divine authority, God’s authority. It has to be God! Then our Lord says, “So you may know that I, as Messiah (the Son of Man), have God’s authority to forgive sin, I am going to tell this man to pick up his pallet and walk.” He did, and the man did. While it is hard to see visibly the proof that Jesus as Messiah had the authority to forgive sin, it was not hard to see He had the authority to heal the man. The man walked! If Jesus, as Messiah, had God’s authority to heal, then He had God’s authority to forgive as well!
7. What does the title “The Son of Man” signify?
It is a title for the Messiah (See discussion in Unit 4, application #2)
Read Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:13-17 and Luke 5:27-32 Jesus had been proclaiming His message in Galilee. John the Baptizer had preached the same message earlier in Judea. Many, who were coming to hear Him and John and who believed, were among the lowest of the Jewish social classes, including tax collectors and prostitutes. One of these very likely was Matthew or Levi as he is also called.
8. What kind of man was Matthew or Levi?
He was a tax-gatherer which meant he was considered a traitor by most Jews. The Roman government did not collect taxes directly from its peoples; instead, they contracted it out. Individuals and often joint-stock companies bought the contract by paying the designated amount of the taxes into the treasury (in publicum, from which the name publicanni or publican comes). These people, often among the wealthiest Roman citizens, resided in Rome while their deputies went to the various Roman provinces to see to the collecting of the taxes. These deputies, in turn, usually hired local inhabitants to collect for them. Profit was made by collecting as much as possible, over and above the designated tax by Rome. Extortion, bribery and violence were often employed as methods of collection. Most Jews, especially the conservative Pharisees, hated and despised Roman rulers and anyone connected with them. They viewed paying taxes to Rome as an abomination but could not do much about it. Anyone who would have contact with Gentiles was considered unclean, especially when it was with Romans. To be collecting taxes for Rome was considered traitorous. Any Jew that did this was, for the most part, excommunicated from Jewish society.
It is not surprising that Matthew’s friends included other tax collectors and prostitutes; he certainly was not accepted by the Jewish society as a whole. This probably indicates that he probably did not have a very high moral background, at least before he started listening to the preaching of Jesus, or perhaps earlier to John the Baptizer.
9. What complaint did the religious leaders have concerning our Lord and Matthew?
He was associating with immoral people. No doubt not all of Matthew’s acquaintances who were invited to this dinner were believers. Indeed it is probable that most were not. The Pharisees saw Jesus associating with those that looked and acted like unrepentant tax collectors and prostitutes, no doubt because the were!
10. How did Jesus answer their complaint?
He stated that He came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous. These were sinners; who else did they expect Him to minister to?
The Applications:
What are the applications of these passages to our lives today? Identify as many as you are able.
1. The issue is not so much who we spend our time with, but rather why do we spend it with them. There is no doubt we as believers need a support group of other believers to grow and mature in our faith. That is why we are commanded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It is vital! Yet all too often, believers, just like the Pharisees, try to insulate themselves from as much contact as possible with those that do not believe. We end up spending all our time with those in our safe, secure group of friends and acquaintances and having minimal contact with those that need the message most.
We need, as those sent by God to a dying world, to cultivate relationships with those outside for the purpose of bringing them into the light and life of Christ.
2. While the paralytics’ four friends may not have audibly asked our Lord to heal their friend, their silent cry for help was deafening. Why else would the man be lying there before Jesus? Yet Jesus did not immediately heal him; instead, He told the man that his sins were forgiven. The Father, through the Holy Spirit, guided our Lord to see the man’s most pressing need, the forgiveness of his sins.
So it is when it comes to our lives today when we come to God in prayer. So often, we pray for the physical needs of those around us. While the physical needs are important, how much more crucial are the spiritual needs?
There are times when God does not seem to answer our prayer, at least not in the way we expect. We must remember that He often deals with the most important needs, needs for which we have not asked and needs which often we do not see.
A mature faith looks at prayer and realizes that our Father is going to do what is best regardless of what we ask (Don’t stop asking though!) and trust Him no matter what seems to be going on. In college, I worked with Young Life, an organization that attempts to reach unchurched young people. We had a week-long snow camp planned for about a hundred high school students from the Arlington, Texas area, at a retreat facility in Colorado. When we arrived there, there was a significant problem, or so we thought. Although it was cold enough, there was no snow on the ground. We just knew it would improve the morale of the whole camp if there were snow for the “Snow Camp.” Therefore a group of us began to meet every morning in the dining hall and pray for this particular need. The second or third morning, as we were praying, we looked out, and there were large fluffy flakes falling. We praised God for His faithfulness and answers to our prayers. Fifteen minutes later, it stopped; we never saw another flake that week!
Why? We asked. Snow would have made the camp more successful, or so we thought. We did not understand why God answered our prayer by sending us fifteen minutes of useless snowfall. It was as if He were telling us, “I can make it snow. See this, but I’m not going to do so.”
On the last night, there was a time of testimony for the kids to share what the camp meant to them. Two girls, cheerleaders, I believe, got up and shared how they had accepted the Lord after they had climbed one of the hillsides surrounding the camp. It was a steep climb, not one they could have made had there been snow on the ground. In a nutshell, their testimony was that they were so impressed with the beauty of God’s creation, the message of the speaker must have been true. And they decided to put their faith in Jesus Christ.
We realized then that God did tell us, “I can make it snow. See this, but I’m not going to do so. I’ve got something better in mind. Just wait, you’ll see.”
So it is that God very often does what is very best and most important for us instead of doing just what we asked. Most of the time, He doesn’t give us fifteen minutes of snow to show us He heard us, but we are to trust Him that He knows exactly what is best.
3. When the paralytic was healed, the text tells us that Jesus saw THEIR faith, not HIS faith. It was the faith of the man and/or his friends. This is why it is so important that we share our needs and requests with our friends in Jesus Christ. It may be that when our faith grows weak, and we are unable to stand spiritually that the faith of our friends will carry us through. This is why it is so crucial for us to pray for those we know and trust God in prayer; for it may be our faith that sustains them when they are weak. God has given us great responsibility in our prayer and faith for those we know.
4. If we were to look at a group of people in our Lord’s day and pick from them who would make a good minister, we would almost certainly have not chosen the twelve men that He did. We would have looked at Matthew and said, “This man’s a loser. Look at his life. He cannot get much lower. God can never use him.” Aren’t we glad that we were not responsible for looking and choosing the Twelve Apostles?
The Spirit of God chooses and uses whom He will. It is not what we’ve been that matters so much as what God can make of us. It is what we can become through His grace and power!