Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S23 || Are You Spiritually Deaf ? || Mark 7:31 - 8:9 || Session 23 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Meet a deaf man whose life changed forever when Jesus touched him. His fingers in the ears, saliva on the tongue, and the powerful command "Ephaphatha" ("be opened") instantly transformed not just his physical abilities but serves as a profound metaphor for our spiritual condition. We're all spiritually deaf and mute until Christ touches us, opening our ears to truly hear God's Word and loosening our tongues to proclaim His truth.
Witness the extraordinary compassion of Jesus as He feeds 4,000 people who had been so captivated by His teaching that they remained with Him for three days without food. Despite having performed a similar miracle before, the disciples still wondered how they could possibly feed such a multitude in a desolate place - a striking reminder of our own tendency to forget God's past faithfulness when facing new challenges.
What small offering can you bring to Jesus today, trusting Him to multiply it beyond what you could imagine? Your spiritual deafness can become divine proclamation when you allow Jesus Christ to touch you.
Thank you for listening!! Please give us a five-star rating to help your podcast provider's algorithm spread RTTB among their listeners.
You can find free study and leader resources at the following link - Resource Page - Reasoning Through the Bible
Please prayerfully consider supporting RTTB to help us to continue providing content and free resources. You can do that at this link - Support RTTB - Reasoning Through the Bible
May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve Today. We are at the last part of Mark, chapter 7, so if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. We've been seeing Jesus as he works his way through, meeting a long series of people. The Gospel of Mark has a lot of interactions with other people and, as usual, jesus is in charge. With other people, and, as usual, jesus is in charge. We now have first up in front of us a healing, yet another healing, but this one, as always, will teach us some great spiritual truths. Steve, can you start reading at Mark 7, 31 and read to the end of the chapter?
Speaker 2:Again. He went out from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, within the region of Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty and they implored him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself and put his fingers into his ears and after spitting, he touched his tongue with the saliva and, looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, he said to him Ephaphatha, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he began speaking plainly. And he gave them orders not to tell anyone, but the more he ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. They were utterly astonished, saying he has done all things well. He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.
Speaker 1:With this we have Jesus again going and doing. In verse 31, it tells us where he left from and where he was going to. In Mark is a lot of action. Jesus is always going places. He's always accomplishing things. We get a sense throughout the entire book of fast movement and we have that yet again here.
Speaker 1:He went out from the region of Tyre where in the previous section he had met the Syrophoenician woman and healed her daughter from a distance. Here he leaves Tyre, but he stays within the realm of where the Jewish people are. This is the area north of the Sea of Galilee where there'll be some Gentiles and some Jewish people. In verse 31, he's leaving one area and going to another. Then, starting in verse 32 and following, he heals this man who was deaf and has a speech impediment.
Speaker 1:Mark picks out one of the many healings and many miracle healings that Jesus did and describes it here. This man could not hear and when Jesus touched him he could then hear. The spiritual lesson for this is that we as natural people cannot hear the Word of God and we cannot go out and speak the Word of God, but if Jesus comes and finds us and touches us, then now we are able to hear the words of God, and we are then able to proclaim the Word of God to those around us. As natural people, we are deaf and mute. We are unable to hear or please God by proclaiming His Word. But once we encounter Jesus, all things change. Our ears are now opened, our tongues are now loosed, we can hear what God has for us and we can proclaim it to other people. Steve, that's one of the tremendous things that's available to the Christians.
Speaker 2:We're also seeing a difference in the people in this Decapolis area. It was around this Decapolis area earlier that he had healed the demoniacs that were there and at that point in time they all gathered around him and wanted him gone, because he took the evil spirits and put them into the swine and they went over the cliff and they said go, get out of here, we don't want you here. Now he's back and we can see that people are coming to him and wanting him to heal them. And we get into chapter 8 here in just a little bit. We'll see another feeding of 4,000 people. This is all a part of.
Speaker 2:When we went through the session with the demoniacs, jesus told him go out and tell everybody what's going on. But here we see that the people are coming to him. Now one of the things that we see is that when he comes to Jewish people, usually he tells them don't go and tell others, whereas with Gentiles he does say go and tell others. So at the end here of this story, when he tells the man don't go and tell others but of course they always do, I mean, how can you hold something back? That's naturally what we want to do too. Whenever we become believers, we want to go out and tell so. There's an indication that at least this crowd or these people that were presiding on him and this particular person is a Jewish person. But we'll see that change here in a little bit as we get into chapter 8.
Speaker 1:In verse 32, they brought to him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored him to lay his hand on him. This man's friends bring him to Jesus and implore Jesus, can you please touch my friend? When Jesus does touch him, his life is forever changed. He can now hear the word of God, he can now proclaim the good news of Jesus. That's how we are as Christians. When we have a friend that needs Christ, we can bring that friend to Jesus and say Jesus, will you please reach out and touch? That's what is going on here. Jesus will indeed touch people. When he touched us, we are forever changed when he touches those around us. Anyone Jesus touches will be forever changed. They will not be the same. They will have something that wells up inside of them that will just want to tell others about the great news and what Jesus has done for us. And that's what this man was doing.
Speaker 1:In verse 34, he's looking up to heaven with a deep sigh. We get the impression here that Jesus was very emotional, one. That tells us he was very human. Yes, he's divine, but he's also human. He had very human reactions. He is touched very deeply here. He looks up to heaven and sighs deeply as if he's praying to the Father.
Speaker 1:He also, in that same verse, mark our writer. He translates from the original Aramaic into the language he's writing in. We always have to point this out. Somehow there's a lot of people running around the countryside today that think that translation is some sort of difficult, mysterious issue. Well, mark could translate. The people nowadays that are scholars that just know both languages can translate as well. We can have a high degree of confidence that the original meaning that God wanted us to know comes out in our good modern translations. We can trust our Bibles Also, as you well pointed out here, steve, he tells this man don't go tell.
Speaker 1:He goes and tells. So Jesus told them not to tell anybody and they went out and told everybody. He tells us to tell everybody and we don't go tell anybody. We should also realize, the same as this man is, that when Jesus has touched us, then we need to tell others. We can measure how close we are to the Lord by our desire to reach others with his message. Once Jesus truly changes us, it's difficult to keep it to ourselves. We want to go tell others, steve. I just find that to be a tremendous lesson here, this little vignette of touching this man gives us such great spiritual truths for today.
Speaker 2:It really does. And at the end, in verse 37, it says they were utterly astonished. The word there of astonished is like somebody getting gut punched, getting hit in the solar plexus, and it kind of takes the air out of them. This was something that they're seeing and they're saying. This is so amazing is what he's doing. He's making the deaf to hear and the it paints a picture of not just a miracle but the impact that these miracles that Jesus was having on these people.
Speaker 2:Glenn, I have seen many modern-day people claim that they have healed people in large services where people come from all over to go to a place where there's advertised healing going to take place and people will get on the stage and the host will make proclamations in Jesus's name and he'll touch them maybe touch their ears, maybe touch their mouths, maybe touch some other part of them and tell the person that they're healed.
Speaker 2:But it's very obvious that the person is not healed Through that. They will also tell them it's a progress, take this person home and they're healed. They'll get better as you take them home. That's not what we see here in Scripture With all of these healings that Jesus does. It says immediately. The person that couldn't walk, immediately got up and took his mat and walked here. The person immediately was able to hear and immediately was able to speak. I put forth that whenever God really does touch someone with a miracle, that it's something that's going to be immediate, such as what Jesus did, and it's not something where people say, oh, you're healed, now go home and it'll get better.
Speaker 1:I firmly believe that God can and does things today that he did in the past. He is a miracle working God and he is fully capable of healing people today as he did back then. I have personally known people that were healed and their family members were healed of things that there was no medical explanation for, and so I really believe God still heals people and even miraculously heals people. He doesn't heal everyone. What I shy away from is the idea that there are people running around with a gift of healing that they can exercise at will. That is what I think is really kind of what you were dealing with. If somebody claims to have a gift of healing where they can exercise it at will, then go empty out every hospital in the world by just going in and exercising the gift. If they're not doing that, then there's some disconnect somewhere. I think that's really what we're talking about. Also, if we just read the Scriptures God heals as God wills. He doesn't ever do it as the people do.
Speaker 1:Remember the Pharisees were demanding a sign and he wouldn't do it. But these people that truly trusted in Christ, then they would bring their friends and he would do these it. But these people that truly trusted in Christ, then they would bring their friends and he would do these sign miracles. The sign miracles, the healings, were just that. They were signs, Well, signs of what Well? Signs of a new movement, signs of a new message, signs of a new prophet. That's what the signs were from. We don't have a new message today. We've got a very old one that's already been validated with signs. The other thing, Steve, I find a little reassuring is this is at least a second time now where Jesus used saliva. He would spit on people, and with some of the religious traditions it seems like if you do anything twice, then somebody's going to turn it into a religious ritual somewhere, and I'm really glad that didn't turn into a religious ritual. In our day of spitting on people, trying to heal them, that's one thing I'm quite grateful for.
Speaker 2:I'm going to make a little bit of correction. He didn't spit on him, he used his saliva, but I know what you're talking about there. Yes, and we see different ways that he heals. Some people just touch him, some people just touch the hem of his garment, some people that he touches them, and we see all different types of ways. In this case he puts his fingers in the ears and then he does take his saliva and put it on the man's tongue. It's not just one particular way.
Speaker 2:I think Jesus, through all of this, is showing how he can heal people and how he can command nature through his acts that we've seen so far with Mark and the other disciples. Whenever storms come up and et cetera, the word of him is getting out wherever he goes and people just throng to him. One last thing before we move on is it says here that he pulled this man aside and he did this privately or at least in a secluded way. This is Jesus. He is still, he's been rejected. So he has stopped, in general, doing a lot of these miracles out in public. He's doing some of them away because, as you've noted before, the Pharisees are looking for different ways to entrap him. They're actually out there plotting to kill him, and this hasn't stopped. They're building a case every time that they confront Jesus.
Speaker 1:Probably a good spot to do a quick review of where we are. In the book of Mark. At the beginning, if you remember, john the Baptist was announcing and preparing the way of the Lord. They announced the kingdom. In chapter 3, jesus heals the man in the synagogue with the withered hand the key there was. He did it on the Sabbath, which made the religious leaders upset.
Speaker 1:The official delegation from Jerusalem declared Jesus to be demon-possessed and that changed Jesus' message a little bit. He started in chapter 4 teaching in parables and preaching about the kingdom. And he preached about the kingdom in these parables. He calmed the sea. Then in chapter 5, he cured the demoniac and got rid of the 2,000 pigs. He also healed the woman with the issue of blood and raised Jairus' daughter from the dead. In chapter 6, jesus goes to his hometown and is rejected there by his family and those that knew him when he was growing up. He sends out his disciples in groups of two to give the message of repentance and to do miracles. This would increase his message to the Jewish nation. He also fed 5,000 people and walked on the water. And in chapter 7, we saw Jesus calling the Pharisees hypocrites and recognizing the faith of the Syrophoenician woman and heals the deaf man. Now, at the beginning of chapter 8, we have the feeding of the 4,000 and then Peter's confession on who Jesus is. Steve, can you read the first nine verses of Mark, chapter 8?
Speaker 2:In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, jesus called his disciples and said to them I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with me now three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from a great distance. And his disciples answered him where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people? And he was asking them how many loaves do you have? And they said seven.
Speaker 2:And he directed the people to sit down on the ground and, taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks and broke them and started giving them to his disciples to serve to them. And they served them to the people. They also had a few small fish and after he had blessed them, he ordered these to be served as well. And they ate and were satisfied. And they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over. Of the broken pieces, about 4,000 were there and he sent them away.
Speaker 1:With this we have the feeding of the 4,000, which is a somewhat similar miracle to the feeding of the 5,000 we saw back in chapter 6. There are some similarities but there's also some major distinctions, and we need to quickly mention these simply because there is some confusion about the two miracles and a lot of times people blend them together, but there's some great distinctions between them. First of all, the feeding of the 5,000 is in all four of the Gospels, whereas the 4,000 is only in Mark and Matthew. Mark and Matthew have both accounts, whereas Luke and John only have the feeding of the 5,000. The feeding of the 5,000 was in Galilee and was mostly to Jews that lived in that region. The feeding of the 4,000 was near Decapolis, which had a mainly Gentile population, or at least a large Gentile population.
Speaker 1:The two events have some major differences. They're in different locations, they're in different audiences, they have different starting and ending numbers of fish and loaves, the audience had been there a different amount of time and the two accounts even mention a different type of basket. Each time Our English translations just say baskets, but the original Greek word made a distinction on the type of basket. Each time Our English translations just say baskets, but the original Greek word made a distinction on the type of basket. One of the accounts mentioned a small basket that you'd use around a home and around a house to have food in, whereas the other account had a large bushel basket that would be used for harvesting. Those were technical words for the type of basket that doesn't come across in this. It's very clear there was two different accounts. He even mentions it in some following verses.
Speaker 2:And even in the Gospels that we have. In John's Gospel he said this is only part of the things that happen. If I were to write all the things that Jesus did, there wouldn't be enough books in the world to contain them. I don't think we're just limited to these two particular times that possibly Jesus performed this type of a miracle. Yeah, here he is.
Speaker 2:He's in this Decapolis region, as I noted before. Probably news has gotten around for him while he's been gone from the demoniacs that went around spreading word as what he was doing. Now he has this great throng that is around him. One thing that stands out to me, glenn, though, is he says I have compassion on them. He says they've been here with me for three days and listening to my teaching, seeing and witnessing what's going on, and he has compassion on them because he's getting ready to release them to go back to their homes, but he knows that some of them, at least, wouldn't be able to make it back home. I just find that comforting to know that Jesus is a compassionate person and he wasn't wanting to just release them without them getting something to eat before they left.
Speaker 1:In the previous account. Apparently there were communities close by where, theoretically, they could have gone and asked for bread here, since they were in a desolate place and there was nowhere to get it. But it's interesting that I also noticed Steve here. It says in verse 2 that he had compassion on them because they had been there three days listening to Jesus. Now they had been three solid days listening to Jesus'. Teaching. Wouldn't it be great to be able to just sit and listen to Jesus for three days straight?
Speaker 2:It would be great. And he says during those three days they had nothing to eat. That gives us a picture of the authority that he was speaking with. That gives us a picture of the authority that he was speaking with. What he was teaching them was something that would keep them there, to the point that they wanted to stay and remain there for three days listening to the teacher of the master, the Messiah, the king that had come. I think this is just another way of looking at the way that he carried himself and the way the people just wanted to be around him, to listen to him, just teach.
Speaker 1:It wasn't always just about the miracles he could do Apparently, it was also about the teaching that he was given, the people here had been listening to Jesus for three days and apparently they'd been so focused on what Jesus was saying that they hadn't taken time to eat for these three days. I find that interesting that they were so attentive, so focused on Christ that they hadn't broken away to go find food. I think still today, when we really start to pay attention to Jesus, then we find out that all the rest of life really becomes unimportant, really becomes less and less. I remember meeting a man who, at the point of his salvation, was so focused on reading his Bible that he would sit and read all day long and he ended up similar here. He didn't eat for a period of weeks. He ate very little because he was just digesting the Word of God. When we really meet Jesus and we really start to listen to his words, the rest of life really becomes unimportant. Remember the parable of the sower and the soils. The cares of the world grow up and sort of choke out the Word of God. Oftentimes we're either focusing on God and his Word or we're focusing on the world. It's very hard to do both. When we really become attuned to what Jesus is saying and speaking to us, the rest of life just kind of fades away.
Speaker 1:The other thing I notice here, steve, is that, okay, these people hadn't eaten in three days. Well, neither probably had Jesus. He was the one standing there teaching and he hadn't eaten in three days either. We have here. He's not complaining. He had been pressed on to teach probably hard to get a break at all in those times, but he was glad to do it. He was willing to give himself. That was what he came for was to sacrifice himself. He'd probably gone without food for that long as well. Jesus sacrificed himself for his listeners. Then, in verse 4, the disciples are wondering how they're going to feed this crowd. It seems they've forgotten about the time that Jesus fed the 5,000, back in chapter 6. Take this down to our day, steve. Do we ever forget what the Lord has done for us in the past and have to be reminded?
Speaker 2:I think that we absolutely do forget Not always, but in some cases we reach out to the Lord and he brings us through a difficult situation, and then I think sometimes we do. I know I have and I'll raise my hand. I know I do forget sometimes the things that God has done for us, and usually it comes that whenever another type of crisis hits or something else like that, then that's whenever you forget about how he's brought you through different situations in the past. So, yeah, something here, while they are out in this desolate place, you still might think that they would say I don't know, let's go see if somebody has some few fish and a few loaves of bread. And, Jesus, you could do the same thing that you did when you fed those 5,000 people. Remember when you did that If we could just find a little bit of food, would you be able to do that again. But that's not their reaction. Their reaction is we're out here in this desolate place. Where are we going to be able to find enough food to feed all these people?
Speaker 1:It's often very good to remind ourselves what God has done for us in the past, so that we know that when we get to situations in the future, we know he's going to be taking care of us. It's very good to write down those things and go back and read them later to remind ourselves, because we're so weak we do indeed forget. We do get so focused on present difficulties that we've forgotten how many times he came through for us in the past. It's also good to tell our children, to tell our family members hey, here's what God has done for me. Don't forget what a great thing the Lord can do for you as well. Also, in this passage, he blesses the food prior to eating it.
Speaker 1:This is one of the traditions in Christianity is to pray before the meal and ask God's blessing on food before we eat it. In the miracle of the feeding, we've seen this twice now, where he took a small amount of food and multiplied it to bless a large number of people. So if we ask ourselves what are the spiritual lessons that go along with this miracle as a whole, really these two miracles? Well, along with this miracle as a whole, really these two miracles? Well, our little bit is insufficient. But when we turn it over to Christ, he is sufficient. He can multiply it my little bit. On my own strength I'm not going to do much good, certainly not going to do the Lord's will. But if I turn my little bit over to Him, he can multiply it and have great accomplishments through it. What else can we learn from these? Multiplying the food, steve.
Speaker 2:In the very last verses that we read there verse 8, it says and they were satisfied. I think that is another thing is that Jesus had compassion on them. He wanted to feed them. He multiplies this, but it's not just enough to kind of get them through their hunger pains. No, they were satiated and satisfied. He gave them enough to eat, and I think that's something that we can learn too Whenever Jesus comes through for us. A difficult situation, at least in my experience, has been that I'm satisfied and that it's a comforting feeling to know that God has been with me through those type of situations.
Speaker 1:When we eat what Jesus gives us, he gives us abundantly. Above all that we can ask or think we are indeed satisfied. His food is true spiritual food that can satisfy the human soul. We can bring our little meager possessions and on our own we're going to not have enough and we'll be hungry again tomorrow. But when he provides, we give our little meager amount to Him, he can multiply it and not only satisfy us but satisfy all those around us.
Speaker 1:Our spiritual food comes from the Lord Jesus. He is able to supply us sufficiently and abundantly. He knows what we need. That's another lesson out of here. He knows we don't have to go to him necessarily and inform him of some need. We can say Lord, you know this situation here and I trust you to take care of it, and he will. He always has in the past and we've just forgotten sometimes. Jesus provides abundantly. If there's any message here from these lessons, it's that he provides abundantly. We just need to remember what great things he's done for us and trust him, because he will indeed bless our little meager amounts that we might bring to him. That's probably a good place to stop for today, and we're going to be learning even more great things as we continue to reason through.
Speaker 2:Mark Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
