Jesus Healing People On the Porch at Peter’s
[29] And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. [30] Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. [31] And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
[32] That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. [33] And the whole city was gathered together at the door. [34] And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
Mark 1:29–34 ESV Read More
Jesus goes from the synagogue to a house. The news and the fame about Him are spreading, but not by Him and His travels just yet. It was a Jewish man’s job to sit in the front row at the synagogue and pay attention to everything that happened. He would then go home and teach his family everything that he had heard. He would teach them what the Rabbi taught that day as well as bring home all of the news and events that he heard from all of the other men.
Many times, the best evangelism isn’t telling somebody something they didn’t know, but instead telling somebody something that you are learning. If I tell you about the cool things I’m learning, I have a built-in humility in my conversation. If I tell you something I know that you don’t know, I can have built-in pride. When all of the people at the synagogue went to their homes, they must have relayed the day’s events to their families. By nightfall, the whole town is looking for this Rabbi that taught with authority and had authority over demons.
There is something beautiful about Jesus doing all of this at Peter’s house. Peter left his nets and followed Jesus just days before. If you read that event in isolation, you’d think that they never saw their families again. But here is Jesus, not only at Peter’s house, but healing the woman of the house (generations of a family would live together in a single house) and doing a lot of healing and ministry right there with Peter’s family.
Jesus heals and teaches all kinds of people from the town. The zinger at the end of this passage though: The demons knew Him. This passage makes it rough to argue that a person is healed only by how great their faith is. The people of the city knew that Jesus was an amazing man. Only the demons knew that He was the anointed Son of God. The big difference in this case is all about submission to authority. The demons, like the one in the synagogue, aren’t submitting to Jesus out of obedience, but out of authority.
The people that come to Jesus are coming out of obedience. “We’ll do whatever you say” because they recognize He’s the most powerful person they’ve ever seen. It’s the same way for the demons, but they come first with “I know who you are!” with a tone of having one-up on Jesus with that knowledge.
These demons show us that it’s better to have an incomplete faith than to be rebellious. Let’s go to Jesus today like all of the townspeople, not like the demons. Even though we have a lot to learn about who He is and what He is like, we can submit ourselves to Him as the Maker of our Souls and watch what happens. Those are the kinds of people going out healed and proclaiming the good news about Jesus.
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