Every Miracle of Jesus Faithfully Explained

I’ve been a preacher and a Bible study teacher for more than thirty years. In my many years as a pastor, I’ve noticed that when adults read the scriptures, sometimes we unconsciously “read past” things that are important to the context of the passage that we’re looking at. We do this when we think we already know the story, and especially if we like or agree with the ending of it. Experts say that eighty percent of communication is nonverbal, and it’s true. I’ve seen this phenomenon many times while preaching on a Sunday, or teaching bible study classes during the week. I’ve noticed that when people think they are already familiar with the Bible passage I’m talking about, and if they either like it or agree with it, many of them will unconsciously tilt their heads slightly to the right. They also tend to open their mouths slightly and their eyes get a little wider. This is how I know that somewhere between knowing they’ll like what is being spoken or being read aloud, and the time the story comes to an end, they’ve unconsciously stopped listening to the passage! We need to stop fast-forwarding to the end of our favorite passages and pay more attention to everything that’s included in it. There are plenty of things Jesus talks about that we miss altogether, and there are parts of his ministry story that we usually miss as well. When we look at how Jesus started in his public ministry, and how it grew to reach hundreds of thousands of people in three years, we can understand what led to the creation of a new faith system called “Christianity,” that still exists throughout the world two thousand years later. Notice that Jesus’s ministry all started with the miracles he performed (Demonstrations of Holy Spirit power) and biblical teaching (Proclamation of the word of God). If we closely examine a particular passage we’ve most likely read over the years, we’ll discover a very big “gem” within the narrative. Let’s turn off the “Like” button for a while and think deeply about this passage. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. (Matthew 4:18-25) This is Matthew’s version of Jesus beginning his public ministry. We are most familiar with the part where Jesus meets Peter, Andrew, John, and James, and says to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." You’ll notice that there is no miraculous catch of fish in Matthew’s version of Jesus calling these first four men to become his disciples. The fuller version, with lots more details is in Luke 5:1-10. “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” This verse contains what I often refer to as Demonstration/Proclamation, or in this case, Proclamation/Demonstration. Sometimes Jesus teaches the word of God first (proclaims), and then he heals diseases and afflictions (demonstration of Holy Spirit power). Throughout his three years of public ministry, we most often see the demonstration of power leading up to the proclamation of the word. Here is why. Knowing the nature of man, Jesus had a logical reason for ordering things this way. He realized that when people witnessed miracles, they couldn’t understand how the things they saw happened from a natural standpoint. Jesus knew these people would need an explanation for how the super-natural occurred. This meant Jesus could teach from the scriptures, telling them the things that were prophesied from of old about what would take place when the Messiah would come to them, and they would listen more closely. Does this remind you of something we just discussed? People in biblical times were just as likely to stop listening to something they thought they knew as their modern counterparts. Jesus showed them through the miracles that the absence of all maladies is what the Kingdom of God will look like! Now we come to what I’m calling ‘The Gem’ that, in my opinion, the Church have read past for too long. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. Modern people tend to view Jesus from their own world view, seeing things through the eyes of someone living twenty centuries after his resurrection. We already know how the story ends, and we really love the ending., so it’s easy for us to miss things about his ministry that are pivotal to how and why it grew so quickly. We forget he lived during a time without mass communication, when information spread by word of mouth. “So his fame spread throughout all Syria…” I wonder if many of us can recall ever reading this carefully before. As we take a moment to rest our thinking and closely read the first part of the verse again, we’ll discover that it speaks volumes about the beginning of the Christian Church.