Matthew 8:1-17

Re-read Matthew 7:28-29 Jesus acts with authority

Matthew ends the Sermon on the Mount by saying that Jesus “taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.”  What does it look like when someone teaches with authority?

Who has been someone who taught with authority in your life?

Matthew has shown Jesus teaching with authority.  Now he is going to show Jesus acting with authority.  In chapters 8 and 9, we will see 10 miracles in 9 separate incidents, presented in groups of 3, interspersed with brief but pointed dialogues.

Matthew 8:1-17 Jesus cures all who come to him

Who are the kinds of people Jesus helps here?  Who is Jesus for?

The ones Jesus helped here include an outcast leper, a lowly servant, an enemy commander in need, a mother-in-law who probably spent most of her life being overlooked, and then many others who suffered various afflictions.

What does this tell you about Jesus and about Matthew’s sense of who Jesus cares about – who God cares about?

Who do we care about?  Do we care about the same people Jesus cares about?  Explain.

How are Jesus’s priorities a challenge to our society?

Now let’s focus on each of these three stories separately.

Matthew 8:1-4 the leper

What happens in this passage?

Recent translations of the Bible mostly replace “a leper” with “a man with a skin disease,” because the word was used for a variety of skin diseases, not just leprosy.  Any persistent skin disease rendered a person unclean, under Old Testament law (Lev. 13-14), both in a hygienic sense (such diseases can be transmitted through touch) and in a religious sense (ritual impurity).  Therefore, people with skin diseases were supposed to live in isolation, away from others.

What attitudes or character traits does the man with leprosy show?

In verse 2, the man said, “You can make me clean.”  What is the significance of being made clean?  How were lepers treated and what would being made “clean” do for him?

What does Jesus do?

Why is touching so significant beyond just being an action used in the healing?

Jesus’s willingness to touch the man violated Old Testament norms both with regard to health and with regard to religious purity, so it was probably shocking to onlookers.

In what way does Jesus’s touching the man communicate not only a willingness to violate social conventions but also a special type of caring?  What effect does touching someone have?

Why does Jesus tell him to tell no one?

Why does Jesus tell him to go to the priests?

Note that the purpose of going to the priests is to satisfy the priests; Jesus does not make it his own concern – i.e., he does not say, for example, that going to the priests was necessary in order to receive the healing.  Jesus stands above the Law, even as he tells the man to fulfill the Law.

What do you discern about Jesus’s/God’s character from this incident?

Who are we called to “touch” or care for today in or lives, in order for them to receive God’s healing?

How might our choice to “touch” people whom society shuns shock people around us, and should that affect us?  What should we do about the fact that if we follow Jesus we will sometimes show care for people that others think we should stay away from?

Matthew 8:5-13 the centurion’s slave

A centurion was a commander of 100 men in the Roman army.  He was a Gentile.

The Greek word for the centurion’s “servant” is ambiguous and could mean “son.”  John 4:46-54 has a similar but not identical story about a royal official’s son.  But if we follow the common understanding that it is the centurion’s servant who is sick, how do you think he felt about this servant cared as a person?

The centurion was an officer in a hated army that occupied the land, oppressed the people, and treated with harsh brutality anyone who dared to cross it.  Why would Jesus want to help him?

Jesus says, “I will come and cure him.”  What Jewish cultural expectation would that have been violating?

Observant Jews did not enter the homes of Gentiles, because they would becoming ritually unclean from any interaction with any unclean items in the home.

Why do you think Jesus makes the offer to “come”?

How does the centurion see himself relative to Jesus (verse 8) and relative to other people (verse 9)?

What does he ask Jesus to do?

Why does the centurion think that a word from Jesus will be enough?

Matthew 7 ended with a reference to Jesus’s authority.  How does this passage help us understand the authority of Jesus?

For what does Jesus praise the centurion?  What does he think of the centurion’s faith?

How does Jesus turn this event into an indictment of the failure of the people of Israel to believe in Jesus?

How can we be more like the centurion?

Note: We can’t conjure up faith by our own willpower.  Faith is a gift.  But we can choose to be open, we can take the time to approach God, and we can welcome God’s presence and lordship in our lives.  If we create the conditions for faith by nurturing whatever seed of faith we have, that openness can allow faith to grow.

Matthew 8:14-17 Peter’s mother-in-law, and many other people

What does Peter’s mother-in-law do when she is healed?

How can she be a model for us?

What happens that evening?

In verse 17, what Old Testament passage does Matthew quote, and what does it mean?

What is Matthew trying to suggest to us about Jesus?

The quote is from one of the Suffering Servant passages of Isaiah, and the Suffering Servant ultimately makes reparation for the sins of the people, so Matthew sees it as a prophecy about Jesus as the Messiah.

Take a step back and consider this:

In Matthew 8:2, the leper is confident that Jesus can cure him; he is only unsure if Jesus is willing to cure him (he says, “if you wish”).  In Matthew 8:8, the centurion is confident that Jesus can cure his servant, and he has a solution to the question of Jesus’s willingness (“only say the word”).  With both of those issues laid to rest, the crowds that follow Jesus come with great expectation.

When it comes to asking God for healing for yourself or others, do you get stuck on the question of whether God wishes to heal?  Do you get stuck on the question of whether God is able to heal?  Or are you able to get past both of those questions?

In our time, we know that some people for whom we pray are healed and some are not.  How do you approach God when healing is needed?

There is power in the passage from Isaiah that Matthew applies to Jesus in verse 17.  In what ways do you find it to be true of Jesus that he bears our weaknesses and diseases, and how does that help you to approach him in prayer?

The next time you pray, how can you approach the Lord with greater confidence that he bears your afflictions?