Anchor My Faith

From Judea to Galilee

Scripture: Mark 6:55-56; John 7:1

With this lesson we start another section in which Jesus teaches about the difference between God’s righteousness and human traditions and the importance of focusing on God and not humans in our adventure through life.

The narrative for this section is one of the longer ones and is developed from all four gospels. To see how the narrative was formed, use your computer or note pad, not your smart phone, and go to gev086. You will notice that only a single verse was used from Luke and John, a few verses from Matthew and many verses from Mark. Notice how the flow in the narrative draws from each gospel. Our narrative starts with John 7:1 and is the transition from the previous section to this one.

^{Jn 7:1} “After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.” “After this” points back to the previous section where Jesus made some strong statements resulting in the Jews growing in their hate toward Jesus and in many disciples turning away from him. Since the Jews were now seeking to kill Jesus, he decided to leave Judea and go with his disciples to Galilee.

Arriving in Galilee, ^{Mk 6:55} “[The people] ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.”

By this time Jesus was well known in Galilee and whenever he returns to that region, the people gather about him and implored him to help them feel better. Their focus is on the humanitarian side of life, not on the spiritual side. When Christians gather today and have a time of sharing prayer request, you will notice that the request are primarily about them overcoming something, so they will feel better. There is little attention to how God might like to use their circumstance to grow their faith and lead them toward being more like Jesus. We don’t like to suffer if we can help it, even at the cost of restricting our spiritual growth and advancing the gospel.

As the people made request for better health, Jesus demonstrated his ability and power to heal. That power of God was so strongly present that people needed to only touch the fringe of his garment to be healed. Jesus meets this need amongst the people in hopes that they would be willing to listen to him teach about things that are more important that their physical health. They must come to the point where they realize they are dying in their sin and that they need to come to Jesus for salvation.

Notice that Jesus does not stay in one place to heal and teach, but travels to villages, to cities and to the countryside to deliver the message given to him from the Father. His example of going from place to place to meet the needs of the people and then sharing the gospel is what we should be doing. As Paul said, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4 ESV) and as we concern ourselves over their needs, we need to help them understand their spiritual needs and how to meet them.

As expected, there were some Jews in the crowds that came up from Jerusalem and we can be sure they will be a source of trouble for Jesus. We will pick up that theme in the next lesson.

Conclusion

According to the timeline being used by Jerry Payton to develop the gospel harmonization narrative, we find this section at the beginning of the third year of ministry of Jesus. We will find it to be a time of intensified rejection of Jesus as he moves closer and closer to his death on the cross.