Episode 67 Matthew 8 More Infectious than Sin

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan, as always, I’m joined by my father, David Jackson. Today, we’re gonna continue our series. As we look through the book of Matthew, we’re up to Matthew chapter eight, Dad, and now Matthew chapter eight seems to have a theme, at least for the first half of it, of people who are unclean being healed by Jesus. We have, there’s a gentile in here. Peter’s mother is, has a fever. There’s I think a man with leprosy as well, and Jesus is gonna touch these people except for the Centurion’s child. He’s not gonna touch this, this slave child. He’s gonna actually be amazed at the guy’s faith. What, why is this theme here? What, what, what’s the point Jesus is making with these unclean healings.

David: (00:51)
It’s great fun. We we’ve just gone through COVID. We’ve had a whole bunch of people out in the street demonstrating about COVID restrictions and stuff. And there’s part of me that would like to walk them back into the book of Leviticus and give ’em a little sample of what, God does when people are sick infectious, when their health can be transferred to other people and leprosy is your classic example. so leprosy is, yeah, highly contagious and skin diseases. You don’t wanna touch all that stuff. So if, if you’re in the old, old covenant, and God’s trying to teach you this concept, that sin does damage to your body, sin is infectious. You know, we just inherit all of this stuff. so you try, you set up these quarantine fences and for the, the most extreme was leprosy. So if you’re a leper, you can’t live with people.

David: (01:53)
You’ve gotta stay outta town. if you want to go anywhere, you’ve gotta cover your face. We use face masks, they use their hand, and then you’ve gotta yell at people and say, unclean, unclean, get outta the way. so it’s a terrible lifestyle. And this guy comes up to Jesus and he doesn’t ask to be healed. He asks to be cleansed, which means get rid of this, uncleanness So I can go and socialize with people. Again, let me back in town and let me visit my wife. You know? So, and then Jesus does this ridiculous thing. He walks over and he touches the leper. and the leper is healed and you go, everybody’s cringing at the thought of him touching the leper and then the lepers healed and you go, what? Just how happened? Just broke every mould and the, yeah, I, I use the line Jesus’s wholeness. His holiness is more infectious than sin and death. So, and he demonstrates that over and over again.

Dan: (03:02)
yeah, he definitely does it in other miracles as well when he, he spits on people’s yeah. Tongues and in their ears and makes mud and touches. Lots of people who are disabled or are sick. Yeah. Including Peter’s mother-in-law’s gonna heal her as well over a fever. Yeah. And I like the, this concept of, you know, Jesus purity, his holiness, his, his health, his, beauty, his perfection, you, his is what’s contagious. It actually fixes all of, of the bad, rather the bad stuff. The rottenness. Yeah. Contagious. I

David: (03:36)
Use the example. You don’t send the sick to school to catch good health from the other kids, but with Jesus, that’s how it works. Yeah. That, that’s pretty cool. Yeah.

Dan: (03:47)
Yeah. Yeah. And you take the rotten bit of fruit outta the bowl.

David: (03:50)
Yeah. You don’t put yeah. Yeah,

Dan: (03:52)
Yeah. But we then gonna shift over to this calming of the storm. I think. Yes. I,

David: (03:59)
Oh, well, don’t forget the Centurion

Dan: (04:02)
Well, isn’t he part of the unclean stuff.

David: (04:04)
Yes. But you can’t, I like the idea. You got an unclean Centurion he’s unclean. Cuz he’s a Roman not because he’s got leprosy. Yeah. He’s he’s a gen I don’t, so you’re not allowed in the house of a Gentile and Jesus says, I’ll come to your house. And the gentle says, oh no, no, no, no, I’m unclean. So he’s owning this whole thing. in a, I mean for a Roman army of occupation officer to say to a Jew, I’m not worthy for you to come into my house. Cause I’m unclean would be staggering and Jesus just speaks a word and this little child slave is healed and you go, yeah,

Dan: (04:50)
Yeah, yeah. Well the centurion understands too, then, you know, you give an order, it gets carried out. Yeah, that’s true.

David: (04:56)
But, but yeah. And order to heal a child and he recognises Jesus has that authority. That’s pretty staggering.

Dan: (05:03)
Yeah. Yeah. He doesn’t need to be present in order to, to fix things. Okay. So now we’re moving to the, this let’s go

David: (05:11)
Storm Storm.

Dan: (05:13)
So this passage Dad talks about, you know, this disciples are on the sea of Galilee and most people’s translations are gonna say a storm comes up and it’s, you know, they’re all scared and all the rest of it. And Jesus calms a storm and says, you know, you have little faith, can you firstly, correct the bit that’s wrong in that story. And then explain the significance of it.

David: (05:38)
Okay. So the word that’s used, that we translates storm is the word for an earthquake. And it just so happens that the lake of Galilee, the Jordan river, the dead sea that’s, that’s all part of the great Rift valley. And the great R valley is where two tectonic plates come together and they’ve pulled apart so that the middle drops down. And this is the lowest point on planet earth down at the dead sea. So we are up here at the lake of Galilee and it, the text says in Greek that there was an earthquake and you, you picture being in a fishing boat, on a lake when there’s an earthquake. Yeah. And you know, I went and had a look at the geological survey people and they say that when there is an earthquake, you also get atmospheric stuff happening. So this is not your usual fisherman in a boat, out on a lake when there’s a thunderstorm, this is much bigger than that. So you think of the tsunami effect of an earthquake and that’s why these guys are terrified.

Dan: (06:44)
Yeah. You take your tsunami effect that happens in an ocean

David: (06:47)
And put

Dan: (06:48)
It on a lake and put it in a lake. Yeah. Really small lake

David: (06:50)
Putting it in Sydney Harbour, you know, that would be terrifying and it’s at night. So, you know, suddenly you’ve got winds suddenly and you’ve got this earthquake happening and you’ve got waves that are way bigger than normal. And Jesus sleeps through the whole thing.

Dan: (07:08)
And then they arrive on the other side of the lake and Jesus gonna heal, another very unclean person who’s hanging out, cutting himself.

David: (07:18)
We’re we’re in gentile territory. Yeah. So we’ve actually nevermind the Centurion I won’t go in your house. We’re gonna go over to Gaulanitas, which is Gentile country where they’re farming pigs and you’re at the side of the lake where there’s caves and tombs. So you’re near a cemetery. How or unclean can we get yeah. like

Dan: (07:39)
At a demon possessed man. Yeah.

David: (07:41)
Just, you know, have some naked guy running around screaming at you. Yeah.

David: (07:46)
Yeah. Follow Jesus. It gets interesting. And I just love the irony of it. You know, you speak the word, get lost and the demon, the demons go out, jump in the pigs and you think the reason they wanted Jesus to send them away, not send us into the Abys don’t send us into final judgment. and Jesus just calmly says, oh, you know, off you go, you can go and join the pigs. And of course the pigs run straight down, jump into the lake and drown and you’re in the Abys. and the whole place is terrified. So, you know, there there’s fear because he has the authority to speak these words. He crosses these unclean boundaries. and he just destroyed your pig farm.

Dan: (08:36)
Yeah.

David: (08:37)


Dan: (08:38)
So yeah, but then the, the Gentiles who come don’t want anything to do with him, they come and they see the guy he’s all good. And they just say, yeah, he leave please.

David: (08:48)
Isn’t it. Isn’t it interesting when you, when you have the, when Jesus comes along and he takes something that is so just violates everything and smashes life and he fixes it and the response is go away. I think that speaks vast amounts about the nature of Satan’s rule over people. We would rather be broken, dysfunctional, you know, smashed to pieces, sick and dying than have Jesus interfere with our lifestyle. It’s it’s crazy. But that’s what we’re dealing with.

Dan: (09:32)
Well, Dad, that does bring us to the end of chapter eight, which is the end of this episode, which is episode 67,

David: (09:41)
Must be 67, somewhere around there,

Dan: (09:43)
Hopefully it’s 67. So if you would like to grab the study notes for this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/67. If you enjoyed the episode, we would love it. If you could leave us a and make sure you hit the subscribe button and come back and join us next week, we’re gonna continue working our way through Matthew. We’re up to Matthew nine next week. And I’m looking forward to finding out what I’m gonna learn from Jesus healing paralytics and a few other things.