Matthew 4:23-25: Jesus Heals Many
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Matthew 4:23-25
Verse 23 tells us that three activities were peculiarly indicative of Jesus' ministry: teaching in synagogues, announcing the good news of the kingdom, and healing.
Teaching in Synagogues
Jesus himself pointed out that his itinerant ministry was restricted to the "lost sheep of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). While he was here in earthly form, this limitation was placed on his disciples too. He instructed them to steer clear of the non-Jews when he sent them out to minister in pairs (Matthew 10).1 With that focus in mind, going to the Synagogues was an obvious thing to do on arriving in each new location. With all the immigrants living in Ancient Palestine, it was the one place you could be sure of meeting the gathered Jewish locals. However, this geocultural restriction was only a constraint during Jesus' earthly ministry, which is something Matthew is at great pains to communicate. In fact, despite the focus of Jesus' own itinerant ministry, the inclusion of non-Jews is actually a major theme of Matthew's Gospel, which notably concludes with the instruction to go all over the world making disciples of all nationalities.
Proclaiming the Kingdom
For many years it bothered me that while the Gospels reported the preaching of the good news of the Kingdom, not one of them appeared to contain the text of that message. I am embarrassed to even hazard a guess at how many years it was before I understood that the good news of the kingdom is simply that there is a kingdom and that this is good news. To put it another way, the good news is that there is a king who loves us deeply, has dedicated himself to serving us, and who wants us (or more specifically, you) to step under his auspices and authority. If Jesus is your king, you are in the kingdom, and having a king like that is truly good news!
Healing the Sick
Jesus healed the sick. Verse 23 assures us that as he traveled throughout Galilee he healed every disease and sickness he came across. Verse 24 breaks that down a bit but does not add any limits to the prior statement. While the list includes healing of severe pain, seizures, and paralysis, and casting out demons, it also has a catch-all phrase: "all who were ill with various diseases." So both verses are very intentional in stating that there were no conditions Jesus was not able to heal.
The second verse does give a list of certain types of healing however. Three of the specific items listed have pericopes2 illustrating them later on in Matthew, but the other—healing of severe pain—does not. Why no specific instance of healing of pain is recorded in any of the Gospels is something I have no explanation for. Of course, each of the instances recounted by the authors of the four Gospels was included for very specific reasons and with theological intentions. Perhaps they concluded that a specific healing of pain without any greater redemptive impact introduced no new thought. After all, healing a blind person or a leper does far more than change the state of that person's body—it also changes their place and role in society. They are healed in a holistic sense that includes every aspect of their lives. One could argue that being relieved of pain, if it was severe but not debilitating, does not show anything of God's greater redemptive purposes. Whether that was the reason the Gospels include no such account, I cannot say. What we can make note of, however, is that such healings are listed here. Jesus healed people of pain. If a person had such intense pain in their back or their legs or their feet that they could not walk, they would be categorized as a cripple. The disability, rather than the pain, would define the condition. Here, however, we are only told they had severe pain, but Jesus still healed them. Their suffering was significant but not debilitating, but he did not consider that too trivial too attend to.
Putting that in a modern context, consider the testimony of Dianna Hobbs. For two years, Dianna suffered from the symptoms of fibromyalgia and of a particularly aggressive form of rheumatoid arthritis. By the time the diseases were finally diagnosed, irreparable damage had been done. Because of the damage to her bones and joints, she was no longer able to walk. However, when a prayer service was organized and those assembled placed their hands on her and prayed, she felt something like "a mixture of fire and electricity" surge through her, and she was instantly healed.3 Today, we define fibromyalgia and arthritis as causes of pain, but if they leave a person incapable of working they become a disability. In Jesus day there was no legal term like "disabled." If, for whatever reason, a person could not walk, they were functionally a cripple, and all they could do was beg for a living. Jesus healing of those people completely changed their place in society.
While Dianna's healing was well publicized (because she is a blogger and public speaker) not all healing of severe pain receives that kind of publicity. Healing of pain seems to be particularly frequent at Bethel Church in Redding, California, but gets little public attention. The church maintains a list of healing testimonies4 on their website, and people being healed of pain are among the most common testimonies in it, but it is more impressive healings that get the most attention outside of the church itself.5
As ungrandiose as they are, these kinds of hearings are often life changing for those who receive them, if only because it assures them of God's great love for them specifically. So, as easy as it is for us to breeze over "healing of severe pain" when reading Matthew 4:23, we should pause and take note of the fact that Jesus did not pass those people by. He took the time to heal people whose only apparent sickness was pain, and we should expect God to be as receptive to requests for healing for migraines and backaches as he is for any other condition. Furthermore, we should be every bit as willing to spend time ministering to people with pain as we would be for people with more obvious physical conditions.
The Effects of the Kingdom
It is common in the Scriptures to find the preaching of the kingdom and the demonstration of the kingdom in close proximity. In Matthew, this correlation is explicitly stated not only here (in Matthew 4:23) but also in the following verses: Matthew 9:35;10:7-8;11:5. This is, in fact, a normative pattern in the New Testament. The idea of preaching the gospel with no demonstration is, I would argue, alien to the Scriptures.
The beginning of verse 24 tells us that as news about Jesus spread, people responded by bringing him their sick. From this it is clear that the primary attraction was not the proclamation of the good news but its demonstration. This, however, does not mean that healing only happens in the context of evangelism. In the Epistles it is almost exclusively discussed in the context of church life, the exceptions being where Paul's own evangelistic ministry is referenced. Both the Church and evangelism have the kingdom in common, of course, so the correlation more properly lies between the kingdom and the effects of the kingdom, rather than just between the proclamation of the kingdom and its demonstration.
FOOTNOTES
1. In Matthew 10, Jesus sent out the twelve disciples in pairs with instructions to go neither to the Gentiles nor the Samaritans but only to the lost sheep of Israel. The term Gentile was own used by Jews to refer to anyone non-Jewish. Samaritans claimed to be half Jewish, so Jesus probably listed them independently to avoid any confusion—they were not included by the term the lost sheep of Israel. The commission of the twelve was to announce the nearness of the kingdom of heaven and to demonstrate the reality of that message by healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and driving demons out of people afflicted by them.
2. A pericope is a section of text from a larger document but the word is most commonly used to refer to a passage from the Bible. I use the word pericope here and throughout this book rather than stories, as the former does not carry with it the connotation of being fictitious.
3. A full account of Dianna's healing can be found in her book, God Did It: A True Story of Miraculous Healing. An article outline her story is available online here.
4. http://bethelredding.com/ministries/healing-rooms/testimonies
5. And possibly inside it as well. However, I have not visited Bethel Church, so I can only guess that human nature tends to give more focus to the "greater" miracles.
Matthew 4:23-25
Verse 23 tells us that three activities were peculiarly indicative of Jesus' ministry: teaching in synagogues, announcing the good news of the kingdom, and healing.
Teaching in Synagogues
Jesus himself pointed out that his itinerant ministry was restricted to the "lost sheep of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). While he was here in earthly form, this limitation was placed on his disciples too. He instructed them to steer clear of the non-Jews when he sent them out to minister in pairs (Matthew 10).1 With that focus in mind, going to the Synagogues was an obvious thing to do on arriving in each new location. With all the immigrants living in Ancient Palestine, it was the one place you could be sure of meeting the gathered Jewish locals. However, this geocultural restriction was only a constraint during Jesus' earthly ministry, which is something Matthew is at great pains to communicate. In fact, despite the focus of Jesus' own itinerant ministry, the inclusion of non-Jews is actually a major theme of Matthew's Gospel, which notably concludes with the instruction to go all over the world making disciples of all nationalities.
Proclaiming the Kingdom
For many years it bothered me that while the Gospels reported the preaching of the good news of the Kingdom, not one of them appeared to contain the text of that message. I am embarrassed to even hazard a guess at how many years it was before I understood that the good news of the kingdom is simply that there is a kingdom and that this is good news. To put it another way, the good news is that there is a king who loves us deeply, has dedicated himself to serving us, and who wants us (or more specifically, you) to step under his auspices and authority. If Jesus is your king, you are in the kingdom, and having a king like that is truly good news!
Healing the Sick
Jesus healed the sick. Verse 23 assures us that as he traveled throughout Galilee he healed every disease and sickness he came across. Verse 24 breaks that down a bit but does not add any limits to the prior statement. While the list includes healing of severe pain, seizures, and paralysis, and casting out demons, it also has a catch-all phrase: "all who were ill with various diseases." So both verses are very intentional in stating that there were no conditions Jesus was not able to heal.
The second verse does give a list of certain types of healing however. Three of the specific items listed have pericopes2 illustrating them later on in Matthew, but the other—healing of severe pain—does not. Why no specific instance of healing of pain is recorded in any of the Gospels is something I have no explanation for. Of course, each of the instances recounted by the authors of the four Gospels was included for very specific reasons and with theological intentions. Perhaps they concluded that a specific healing of pain without any greater redemptive impact introduced no new thought. After all, healing a blind person or a leper does far more than change the state of that person's body—it also changes their place and role in society. They are healed in a holistic sense that includes every aspect of their lives. One could argue that being relieved of pain, if it was severe but not debilitating, does not show anything of God's greater redemptive purposes. Whether that was the reason the Gospels include no such account, I cannot say. What we can make note of, however, is that such healings are listed here. Jesus healed people of pain. If a person had such intense pain in their back or their legs or their feet that they could not walk, they would be categorized as a cripple. The disability, rather than the pain, would define the condition. Here, however, we are only told they had severe pain, but Jesus still healed them. Their suffering was significant but not debilitating, but he did not consider that too trivial too attend to.
Putting that in a modern context, consider the testimony of Dianna Hobbs. For two years, Dianna suffered from the symptoms of fibromyalgia and of a particularly aggressive form of rheumatoid arthritis. By the time the diseases were finally diagnosed, irreparable damage had been done. Because of the damage to her bones and joints, she was no longer able to walk. However, when a prayer service was organized and those assembled placed their hands on her and prayed, she felt something like "a mixture of fire and electricity" surge through her, and she was instantly healed.3 Today, we define fibromyalgia and arthritis as causes of pain, but if they leave a person incapable of working they become a disability. In Jesus day there was no legal term like "disabled." If, for whatever reason, a person could not walk, they were functionally a cripple, and all they could do was beg for a living. Jesus healing of those people completely changed their place in society.
While Dianna's healing was well publicized (because she is a blogger and public speaker) not all healing of severe pain receives that kind of publicity. Healing of pain seems to be particularly frequent at Bethel Church in Redding, California, but gets little public attention. The church maintains a list of healing testimonies4 on their website, and people being healed of pain are among the most common testimonies in it, but it is more impressive healings that get the most attention outside of the church itself.5
As ungrandiose as they are, these kinds of hearings are often life changing for those who receive them, if only because it assures them of God's great love for them specifically. So, as easy as it is for us to breeze over "healing of severe pain" when reading Matthew 4:23, we should pause and take note of the fact that Jesus did not pass those people by. He took the time to heal people whose only apparent sickness was pain, and we should expect God to be as receptive to requests for healing for migraines and backaches as he is for any other condition. Furthermore, we should be every bit as willing to spend time ministering to people with pain as we would be for people with more obvious physical conditions.
The Effects of the Kingdom
It is common in the Scriptures to find the preaching of the kingdom and the demonstration of the kingdom in close proximity. In Matthew, this correlation is explicitly stated not only here (in Matthew 4:23) but also in the following verses: Matthew 9:35;10:7-8;11:5. This is, in fact, a normative pattern in the New Testament. The idea of preaching the gospel with no demonstration is, I would argue, alien to the Scriptures.
The beginning of verse 24 tells us that as news about Jesus spread, people responded by bringing him their sick. From this it is clear that the primary attraction was not the proclamation of the good news but its demonstration. This, however, does not mean that healing only happens in the context of evangelism. In the Epistles it is almost exclusively discussed in the context of church life, the exceptions being where Paul's own evangelistic ministry is referenced. Both the Church and evangelism have the kingdom in common, of course, so the correlation more properly lies between the kingdom and the effects of the kingdom, rather than just between the proclamation of the kingdom and its demonstration.
FOOTNOTES
1. In Matthew 10, Jesus sent out the twelve disciples in pairs with instructions to go neither to the Gentiles nor the Samaritans but only to the lost sheep of Israel. The term Gentile was own used by Jews to refer to anyone non-Jewish. Samaritans claimed to be half Jewish, so Jesus probably listed them independently to avoid any confusion—they were not included by the term the lost sheep of Israel. The commission of the twelve was to announce the nearness of the kingdom of heaven and to demonstrate the reality of that message by healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and driving demons out of people afflicted by them.
2. A pericope is a section of text from a larger document but the word is most commonly used to refer to a passage from the Bible. I use the word pericope here and throughout this book rather than stories, as the former does not carry with it the connotation of being fictitious.
3. A full account of Dianna's healing can be found in her book, God Did It: A True Story of Miraculous Healing. An article outline her story is available online here.
4. http://bethelredding.com/ministries/healing-rooms/testimonies
5. And possibly inside it as well. However, I have not visited Bethel Church, so I can only guess that human nature tends to give more focus to the "greater" miracles.
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