Month: April 2026

How do you communicate with someone who speaks a different language? With someone who can neither hear nor speak intelligibly? Keep the question in mind as you look at what Jesus does in this incident recorded in Mark 7:31–37.

Recognize the Savior who meets your needs. The Lord reaches out to the Gentiles. In Jesus’ statement about cleanliness, verse 18, Mark recognizes that Jesus had declared all foods clean. That was a vital element in the church reaching out to the Gentiles, which would unfold in the Book of Acts. And Mark anticipates that spread of the Gospel in the next two incidents he records. Then, as we saw last week, Jesus left the land of the Jews, and went to Tyre. There a Syrophonecian woman begged for healing for her daughter, who was possessed by an evil spirit. She persisted despite Jesus’ comment about not giving the food of the children to the dogs, and, as Phil said, dogs became children as Jesus, in response to her faith-filled response, granted her request. In contrast with the attitude of the Pharisees, supposedly concerned about ceremonial washing, while opposing the Messiah, here a Gentile woman recognizes who Jesus is and becomes a child of God by faith. In the incident in our text, Jesus moves, possibly by a circuitous route avoiding Galilee, to the Decapolis, where he had cast a host of demons out of a man, Mark 5:1–20. Jesus had commanded him to go and tell how much the Lord had done for him. That may have had an impact, for as he again arrives in this pagan area on the east side of the Lake of Galilee, people come to him with the expectation that he can heal a man who is deaf, and probably as a consequence, impaired in speech, Mark 7:31. Mark is the only Gospel which includes this incident.

The Lord compassionately meets you where you are. Mark 6–7 parallels Mark 8 (broad structural elements include: feeding a multitude, crossing the lake, a negative evaluation of the Pharisees in the context of food, and healing. Mark 8 concludes with Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ–a confession that he could make only because the Lord had opened his heart to recognized the truth. Mark 7 concludes with an anticipation of that, with Jesus opening the ears and tongue of a man, and a recognition of Jesus’ messiahship by the crowd. It may be that for Peter, likely Mark’s human source, the significance of this event stood out as an anticipation of his own confession. Jesus takes the man aside — he is not putting on a public spectacle. This is not a magic trick. How do you communicate with a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment? Jesus begins the process by placing fingers in the man’s ears, then, having spat, touched his tongue. You may say, “unsanitary!” but both in Jewish and Greek circles there are references to the curative use of saliva. In any case, Jesus is indicating that his hearing and speech problems will be dealt with, and the look up to heaven points the man to his Father in Heaven. This is a divine healing, not some magic trick. Mark repeats, what he had doubtless hear from Peter, the Aramaic command, Ephphatha, which he translates for his Gentile readers: “Be opened!” The sign language is, as Ferguson observes, an acted parable of Christ’s incarnation. He has come into our sin-cursed world, and has taken upon himself our human flesh, bearing the burden and pain, as well as the guilt, of our fallen condition. The Lord’s Supper is one of the ways in which the Lord graciously draws near and gives himself to his church. It works! The man can suddenly hear and is able to speak plainly.

“The man could not hear Jesus and he was also incapable of verbal communication. So Jesus ‘spoke’ to him in the language he could understand — sign language. The fingers placed in his ears and then removed meant, ‘I am going to remove the blockage in your hearing.’ The spitting and the touching of the man’s tongue meant, ‘I am going to remove the blockage in your mouth.’ The glance up to heaven meant, ‘It is God alone who is able to do this for you.’ Jesus wanted the man to understand that it was not magic but God’s grace that healed him.”

“Many years before, Isaiah had prophesied that one of the blessing of the messianic age would be that ‘the ears of the deaf [would be] unstopped… and the tongue of the dumb [would] shout for joy’ (Isa. 35:5–6). That day those Scriptures had been fulfilled in the Decapolis.”

Sinclair Ferguson, Let’s Study Mark, pages l14–116

Trust the One who has done everything well. Understand the deep sigh of Jesus. Mark does not focus much on the emotions of Jesus. Why the mention of the sigh? Is it an expression of the emotional energy involved in the healing? But Mark fails to mention that in any of the other many healings he records. Perhaps it is an expression of sorrow at the dreadful ravages and effects of sin in God’s creation. There is no hint that this man’s disability was the result of particular sinful activity on his part. But his condition as he came to Jesus was pitiful. Mankind is made in the image of the God who speaks, who communicates. And here is an image who could only stammer and stutter, who could not hear the birds sing, the whisper of a loved one, the preaching of the Word of God. Jesus brings healing, and the man and his friends begin to praise God. We can talk and hear, some of us better than others. But the best of our speech is corrupted by sin. Our hearing as well takes place in the context of a fallen creation. And the culmination of Christ’s work involves a re-creation, a restoration, that will be as glorious a change for us as was this healing for the deaf man.

Praise the Lord who does all things well. Jesus did command this man and the others not to tell anyone. This contrasts with his earlier instruction to the healed demoniac, Mark 5:19. Now things were different, and Jesus does not want to stir up popular misconceptions of his messiahship. But they disobey, and the more he commands silence, the more they speak. Yet God is able to bring glory even out of disobedience. Without qualifying the sin involved in disobedience, they did get their notion of Jesus right. They are amazed (not a unique response to Jesus’ divine power). They recognize that he does all things well, including certainly the details of this healing, but also speaking more generally of what Jesus did. They exclaim, “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” We can speculate about how self-conscious these Gentiles were about the clearly messianic passage in Isaiah 35. But regardless, they did use the words, and Mark, who certainly did understand their significance, quotes them here.

“The narrative concludes with a confession of faith which focuses on the messianic significance of the incident…. Mark intends an allusion to Isa. 35:5f. The choral exclamation of the crowd is the response of faith which recognizes in all the works of Jesus the promised intervention of God.”

William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, NICNT, p. 268

This event culminates in a doxology to the Messiah who reverses not just the effects of the curse, but who deals the deathblow to sin itself. As Mark draws a parallel between this incident and Peter’s great Christological confession at the end of Mark 8, recognize how completely you need this Savior, and turn to him in praise. You have ears opened by the Spirit of the Messiah so that you can hear God’s Word. That Spirit has also renewed your heart so that you can really hear and understand. He opens your lips to praise the Savior — you are under no limitation as were the original witnesses, not to speak of theses things. As the Lord gives you strength and ability, meet together this morning, this evening, week by week to hear God speak in his Word and to sound his praise. Go about your work day by day, knowing that you are the church of the Messiah, whose healing miracles were a foretaste of the renewal of all creation. Your daily lives are lived in his presence, are part of his kingdom, and are under his sovereign lordship.

Jesus comes to you knowing your need, your sin, your weakness. And he brings not just forgiveness, but ultimately the reversal of the curse. With the crowd exclaim, He does all things well! And sound his praise in your worship and your work.

You think of Jesus, appropriately, as compassionate. Why then, as Mark 7:24–30 records, when a woman is crying to him desperately for healing for her daughter, does Jesus tell her that it’s not right to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs? It seems out of character.

Jesus came as the shepherd of the lost sheep of Israel. A gentile woman pleads for mercy. Jesus may well have been avoiding the crowds of Israel. He had withdrawn with his disciples after John’s death (Mark 6:30–31), only to be followed by the crowds, whom he healed and fed. The withdrawal may also have defused and postponed confrontations with the Pharisees and other leaders of Israel (Mark 7:1), because his time had not yet come. In any case, Jesus is outside the bounds of Israel, in the vicinity of Tyre, in relative seclusion with his disciples. The Canaanite, whom Mark identifies as a Greek, someone outside the community of God’s covenant people, begs Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter.

Continue reading “Pet Dogs and Children”

“The Lord is risen indeed” is a refrain that is appropriate for every Lord’s Day. The Christian Sabbath was moved to the first day of the week precisely because that was the day on which our Lord was raised from the dead. Celebrate it annually, if you wish, but also celebrate it each Sunday! And don’t only look back to Christ’s resurrection. Recognize, as Paul tells you in 1 Corinthians 15:54, that your resurrection is part of his being raised — and that makes very practical changes in how you live.

You will be changed. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. A change is necessary because of the fall. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul is dealing with the bodily resurrection. Some Christians from a Greek background had no problem with the idea of an immoral soul, but failed to understand the resurrection of the physical body. 21^st century westerners may face similar skepticism. Paul can argue from a natural body to a spiritual one, verse 44b. However, that argument goes back to pre-fallen Adam, and from him, to the last Adam, Jesus Christ. These two represent their own groups. The resurrection of the last Adam guarantees yours. The first Adam fell. There are lasting consequences because of that fall. Adam’s sin brought death, decay, and corruption into the world. Your present body is not suited for heaven.

The perishable does not inherit the imperishable. Paul goes beyond the weakness and decay of our physical bodies. By nature we are corrupt and sinful, the antithesis of all that heaven is. Our life on earth, as well as death and burial, are described by the quadruple “sown” of verses 42–44. It is sown perishable, in dishonor, weakness, a natural body. One of the themes of C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is that even if given the opportunity, fallen man prefers the separation of hell to the glory of God’s presence in heaven. Sinners are unsuited for the reality of heaven.

A change must take place, verse 52. The trumpet will sound! This is the sign of God’s activity for his people. Its origins lie in the trumpet blast each day before the nation of Israel set out through the wilderness, Numbers 10:5–9, 35, 36. Here it is a sign of judgment on God’s enemies and vindication for his people. This is the last trumpet, the introduction to the events of the last day, God’s final act in redemptive history. The dead will be raised. Those asleep in Christ, verse 18, are in view. They are raised incorruptible. (Though all the dead are raised at his point, Paul’s focus is on the dead in Christ.) There is no evidence of two or three separate resurrections. This is the last trumpet. The dead are raised with “spiritual bodies,” verse 44. These are not immaterial (saints in glory don’t sit around on clouds), but are bodies characterized by the Holy Spirit. All will be changed. Even those who don’t sleep (who are still alive) will be changed, verse 51. They undergo a change similar to that of the dead in Christ. Because this is the resurrection of the harvest of which Christ was the firstfruits, verse 20, your change parallels that effected in his human nature by the Savior’s resurrection. Through his resurrection he was constituted Son of God with power by the Spirit of holiness, Romans 1:4. In a somewhat parallel way, your resurrection marks your adoption as sons, Romans 8:23. His resurrection body was real, substantial, capable of eating. Your resurrection is the culmination of your union with Christ.

“We can measure the upreach of our faith, the depth of our love, and the outreach of our hope by the extent to which we gravitate in our thought to that event when the Lord himself will be finally glorified and when the people of God shall enter into the complete fellowship of him in that exalted and final glory.”

Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol. 3, pp.245–246

Because he was raised, death is swallowed up in victory! Death is defeated. Corruption and mortality end. This marks the end of the illness, sorrow, and decay of our world. Death itself is defeated. Death is still an enemy. There is still a place for mourning, but you do have hope, even as you face death. Your hope is not just your immediate presence with the Lord, but, beyond that, the glory of the resurrection. Death is swallowed up, verse 54. Paul quotes from Isaiah 25:8. Even the prophet recognized that great messianic feast involved the destruction of the shroud of death that had covered the nations. Isaiah, from his prophetic perspective, may have anticipated it sooner. We know that it follows the first coming of the Messiah by at least nearly 2000 years. Your resurrection is the direct result of (or better, part of) Christ’s resurrection.

“By his own bodily resurrection, as the ‘firstfruits,’ death’s final and complete destruction has already occurred for Christ personally an so is assured for the rest of the the harvest. But for them their actual, bodily participation in that destruction has yet to occur. Further, verses 50–52 make clear that the future victory over death in verses 54–55 will be at the time of the ‘last trumpet,’ that is, the final judgment (cf. 1 Thess. 4:16; Matt. 24:31).” “the culminating note on which the chapter ends (vv. 57–58) is consonant with this conclusion. Paul assures Christians, ‘your labors are not in vain in the lord,’ and that is so because of ‘God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. But, from the immediately preceding verses (the references to victory in vv. 54–55), for them that death-destroying victory, while secured and certain, is still future.”

Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “Justification and Eschatology” in Word and Spirit: Selected Writing in Biblical and Systematic Theology, pages 637 & 638

The strength of sin is broken. Join in the cry of victory. Paul’s song of triumph quotes Hosea 13:14. Death’s sting is sin. Sin is transgression of God’s law. But, Christ has triumphed, verse 57. He is the second Adam. His death paid the penalty for sin. He fulfilled God’s law. His death, and particularly his resurrection are the victory over death. The Eritrean death wail and our culture’s neo-pagan fascination with death can be replaced with the cry of victory in Christ. Be unmovable. Be steadfast, despite opposition. Be confident, even in the face of death. The Bible’s teaching about what we call the last things (eschatology) is not ivory tower speculation. Because Christ has been raised, your life is shaped by what he has done. Do the work God has given you. Trust Christ’s victory. Remember that you are called to serve God. Serve Christ, despite the cost, in all that you do.

The Biblical teaching of the resurrection leads, not to speculation, but to comfort and encouragement in obedience. Because Christ has been raised, because you will be changed, serve your Lord faithfully this week.