Jesus Verse by Verse...
This material is emailed regularly, section by section, each week, as part of a 52 Week study scheme which provides spiritual food for the year. Sign up to receive the weekly material here
8:3 Touched him- All would’ve been shocked. Touching a leper made a person ritually unclean, and risked contracting the illness. Jesus did this to show the extent to which He did not believe in “guilt by association”.
8:16,17 ‘Demon possession’ was the language used in the first century to describe mental illness. Note the parallel between ‘casting out demons’ and being cured of disease. ‘Demons’ don’t in fact exist- see the “Doctrinal Summary”.
8:22 Jesus, the Lord of all grace, can at times be very demanding. He wants our immediate response. Likewise He exaggerated the situation in v. 21- He did often have somewhere to sleep, e.g. the home of Martha and Mary, but that night perhaps He had nowhere.
8:23 His disciples followed him- The impression is given of them walking behind Him. They are symbols of us all.
8:25 Awoke Him- Jesus surely only appeared to be sleeping, in a small boat about to sink. But as in our lives, He appears silent only to bring us to the point of realizing our desperation for Him.
8:25 O you of little faith! – Remember the Gospel records were written by the disciples. They are transcripts of their preaching to others. They appealed for others to believe in Christ by pointing out how they had themselves been of such weak belief in Christ. Such humility, recounting our failures to others, is what makes our witness powerful rather than pretending we are perfect. Self-righteousness turns people off.
8:32 Jesus agreed to the mad man’s request in order to provide him with a visual aide memoire for the rest of his life. Mental illness is usually intermittent, and the man needed assurance that this time the cure was total. His illness may have been caused from eating pig meat.