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
S15 || From Desperation to Deliverance || Mark 5:21-34 || Session 15 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Jairus, a man of authority, strips away his societal facade to kneel before Jesus in desperate need for his dying daughter. In contrast, a woman, ostracized and deemed unclean, bravely touches the hem of Jesus' garment, believing that even this simple action could restore her health. Their encounters reveal essential lessons about faith, humility, and the accessibility of divine grace. Don't miss this opportunity to engage with life-changing insights—subscribe, share, and join the conversation!
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The Gospel of Mark has Jesus interacting with a long series of individual people, and we're going to see this again today. We're going to see Jesus interact with some very different people on different ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, but yet they have very similar problem and Jesus has a very similar solution. Hi, this is Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. Today we are in Mark, chapter 5, and we're going to meet a ruler of the synagogue and a very sick woman, and Jesus is going to deal with them and he's also going to teach us a very specific lesson that we can learn from these people. Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 1:We do verse-by-verse Bible studies through the Word of God.
Speaker 1:We have resources on our website that you can find and we trust that you'll listen to several of our sessions and pick up on some of the things that we teach. We have a very unique style where we go, even phrase by phrase, through the Word of God, and we trust that it's beneficial to you, as it has been to us. So, if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to Mark 5, starting in verse 21, says this when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side. A large crowd gathered around him and so he stayed by the seashore. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came up and, on seeing him, fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying my little daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her so that she will get well and live. And he went off with him and a large crowd was following him and pressing in on him. So, steve, what do we know about somebody like a synagogue leader such as this man, jairus?
Speaker 2:Oh, the synagogue leader was kind of a coordinator. Whenever the synagogue would operate, they would come together and they had certain things that they would do and scriptures that they would read. People would stand up and be presented with reading certain scriptures. He's one of the guys that are there to help with the organization and to keep the synagogue going. He's somebody that's respected. He's probably somebody that's there every time that they meet and also reads scripture quite often. So I would say that he's somebody that the people know, the ones that go to the synagogue on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:What was Jairus' issue? Why did he approach Jesus?
Speaker 2:He said his daughter was near death and that he implored him. Once again, we see that word that Mark likes to use he implored him to come so that his daughter might be healed. When we have a problem, where should we go? We should go to Jesus directly. A couple of sessions ago, the disciples were in the boat. It was about to sink. They couldn't bail it out fast enough. They had a big problem. They thought they might die. They went directly to Jesus, who was sleeping in the boat, and we discussed it a little bit then. That that's where we need to turn. Whenever we have big issues and big problems that we have, we need to go directly to Jesus, god, in order to help us solve those problems and issues of our life.
Speaker 1:The good news today is that we can go directly to him, that we don't have to wait until some specific time. We can go to him now. The book of Hebrews says we have the authority as Christians to go directly into the throne room of God. Then in this story, his daughter is at the death's door. In verses 21 and 24, it gives us an indication of approximately how many people were around when Jairus made this request. So what was the situation? How many people were there?
Speaker 2:There's a large group of people and in 24, it says it was such a crowd that they were pressing in on him. So get the picture of, maybe, people trying to press into a gate of an event, everybody trying to get through the different gates at one time and they all start to congregate into this one point. Think of Jesus as being that gate and that point where everybody's pressing in. Everybody is trying to get close to Jesus. They're pressing in upon themselves together, tightly, getting as close to Jesus as they can, because he's the one that is going out and about doing this, healing, talking with authority. He's the one that everybody wants to know what's going on.
Speaker 1:It doesn't tell us what all these other people were there for. We can just assume that some of them wanted things, some of them maybe just wanted to watch, some of them probably wanted to criticize. Large crowd, nevertheless, yet this one man. Large crowd, nevertheless, yet this one man, jairus, comes up and has a request. What does Jesus do? He listens to Jairus, he stops what he's doing with the crowd and agrees to go with Jairus to help him. What does that tell us about our Lord, when there was all these people? Big crowd says it twice, big crowd, and yet one man comes up with an issue. And what does Jesus do?
Speaker 2:It tells us that no problem is small enough for Jesus to care about. That, through this crowd, Jairus is able to get into Jesus's presence to ask him. Jesus listened, as you noted, and he immediately said I'm going to go with you. I will go with you to help your situation. No problem that we have is too small for Jesus to listen to. He's never too busy with other things to not listen to our problems and issues when we go to him.
Speaker 1:That's. One of the good messages from this is that Jesus is never too busy to stop and listen to his followers. That's what he does, it tells us at the beginning of verse 22,. He was a man of somewhat high position in the community here. He was a leader of the synagogue. He was a well-respected, probably well-educated somebody in sort of the upper crust of society. Yet at the end of verse 22,. End of verse 23,. What does Jairus?
Speaker 2:do. It says there, in verse 22, that he fell at his feet of Jesus and he's imploring him, he's begging him earnestly it says him being Jesus to come and heal his daughter. Number one you only fall at the feet of somebody that you're going to worship. Number two you only beg somebody to come when you believe that, when they come, they have the power and the ability to actually do what you're asking them to do. In this case, it was to heal his daughter because she was near death. You have a sense of urgency, the fact that she was near death. You have a sense of urgency, the fact that she's near death. He's asking and begging Jesus come now, because my daughter is near death. By those actions, he believes that Jesus has the power and authority to be able to heal his daughter.
Speaker 1:Do you think it would be easy or hard for a man of power and means and high position in society? Would it be easy or hard for a person like that to fall at the feet of a poor man and beg?
Speaker 2:That's sometimes the picture that you get, glenn, is that people of means, people that have the ability to pay for good doctors or pay for good lawyers if they're in a legal situation that they can just take care of their problems and issues that way. But now we have a situation that apparently, everything that they have tried in order to heal their daughter we don't have the details on it, but they have all run out. He has nowhere else to turn. Desperation will drive you to do many things that you might not do under other circumstances. People of means when they get desperate and have nowhere else to turn, some of them will turn to Jesus Christ for help. Others will just stay stubborn and try and continue to do it on their own power through other people. I put forth to you that ones who turn to Jesus Christ have a better chance of having their lives changed than trying to do it and continue to do it on their own.
Speaker 1:If we ask the question what would have happened if Jairus would have stayed in a position of I'm demanding something I'm deserving, I have position and authority here. I'm going to treat Jesus as if he's lower than me. I submit none of this would have happened the way it did. Jairus got what he wanted simply because he knew who he was dealing with, which was the Lord, and he fell at his feet and begged. He humbled himself. If we humble ourselves at the feet of God, he will lift us up, it says in one of Peter's epistles. He is worthy. We are not, and we need to realize that is. Our pride would get in the way of humbling ourselves at the feet of Jesus. This man had position, he had means, he had authority, he had respect in society, but he humbled himself at the feet of Jesus. That's why Jesus was responding. We should learn the same lesson Pride will get in the way of us being able to humble ourselves at the feet of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, with this, while Jesus agrees to go to Jairus' daughter, there's this crowd. Again, the sense in Mark is this sense of immediacy. You can almost feel the crowd pressing around you and feel the oh. He's going here, then he goes there. Now he's going here. So now we're introduced while he's going to Jairus' daughter, while he's walking along, we're introduced to another person that has some faith, steve. This is a woman on the other end of the societal spectrum. Steve, can you start at verse 25 and read through 34, and we'll meet someone else that has a need for Jesus.
Speaker 2:A woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak, for she thought, if I just touch his garments I will get well. Immediately, the flow of her blood was dried and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately, jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeded from him, had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him you see the crowd pressing in on you and you say who touched me? And he looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman, fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her daughter your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.
Speaker 1:Our hearts really go out to this woman because we can tell some things about her simply from this very brief description. It says she had had a hemorrhage, a bleeding, for 12 years and that she had spent a lot of her money, but now she's worse. Just bleeding like that would make you physically really down. You would be physically weak. Another thing that would happen what would happen, steve, to anybody really but a woman who is bleeding. What was the Jewish laws about people that had a flow of blood?
Speaker 2:During that period of the flow of blood, they were noted as being unclean. Period of the flow of blood they were noted as being unclean. So then there would be a ritual that they would have to do after that stopped for them to become purified and become clean again. But while they were unclean the ones who were strictly keeping the law they wouldn't come near her, they wouldn't touch her, they wouldn't want to be around her, they wouldn't want her to touch them. They would be aware of where she was to make sure that they didn't touch her and that she didn't touch them.
Speaker 1:We really feel for this woman. She would have been ostracized from the Jewish society simply because of this ritualistic uncleanness. The Mosaic law says she would have had to have stayed separate from people. So she's physically tired, she's separated from society. It says she spent all her money, so now she's poor. So really feel for this woman. Then I think we can learn some things.
Speaker 1:Part of what the Lord's doing in the Gospel of Mark here is he's contrasting this woman with Jairus, the synagogue leader. He was a man in a patriarchal society. He had wealth, he had positions of means, he was educated, and yet he had really the same situation. He had a need that this woman had. She, on the other hand, she was either broke or near broke. She had a need as well. Neither Jairus, with his money, or this woman could buy what they needed. They couldn't buy happiness, they couldn't buy health. They were both in a situation where they needed the Lord. And I think that's part of the lesson here is that people in the higher ends of society and the people in the lower ends of society we all get in situations where we can't fix it and we need the Lord, and I think that's really part of the lesson here, wouldn't you think, steve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, glenn, that's exactly right. Just like we saw with Jairus, I noted a while ago that he had come to a point of desperation, had really nowhere else to turn. Same thing with this woman she's at a point of desperation, nowhere else to turn. It is a lesson that, no matter where we are in society, we do have a place to turn. We always have a place to turn, to turn to God, to repent, change our mind about Jesus, who he is, what he's done and through his death, burial and resurrection, that we can have the promises of eternal life and salvation and a relationship with God. But we need to turn to Jesus. It doesn't matter where we are in the societal strata, there's always a place that we can turn to.
Speaker 1:There is always a place we can turn to with the Lord, Jesus. Now, remember, get the picture. There's this huge crowd, all these people pressing in trying to get to Jesus. This one man, Jairus, comes up and says I have a need, Lord, can you please come help? Jesus turns and goes to help Jairus.
Speaker 1:Again, man of means, leader of the synagogue, he's a person of high in the society. Jesus is off helping him. With this other crowd, this one poor woman comes up. What does he do? He stops what he's doing with Jairus to help her. What does that tell us? It tells us that Jesus is never too busy to help. Just because he's off helping some important person doesn't mean he won't stop and help us as well. Jesus will indeed stop and help us if we but reach out to him. That's one of the lessons here, Steve, is that God is never too busy to help us with our problems. All we have to do is humble ourselves. Either one of these people could have either gotten so discouraged to say well, God's never going to help me. I've had this problem so long. I'm sure she'd been praying about it and hadn't got any relief. Likewise with Jairus. Look at all these people. So Jesus is never too busy to stop and say I will reach out and touch you, Don't you think that's part of the lesson here?
Speaker 2:I think that's the main part of the lesson is not just that Jesus has the ability to do these healings, but he will listen to us and that we can reach out to him at any time. We don't have to get to a point of desperation. We can do it at any time. We don't have to get to a point of desperation.
Speaker 1:We can do it at any time. Jesus cares about even one person's needs, and that's the lesson here. What she did again. She said if I merely touch part of his garment, if I touch the hem of his garment, then I'll be healed. She reaches through the crowd, touches the fringe of his garment. Then what happens? He says who touched me? And there's the little scene where he said no, no, no, I felt the power go out. What's happening here? He then turns to her and says your faith has made you well. What can we conclude from that?
Speaker 2:Steve. She was thinking if I can just touch his garment, I can be healed. But it's not his garment that made her well, it was her faith. Jesus is very clear to say your faith made you well.
Speaker 2:I think that's something for us, glenn, to take away from here is that many times people think that you have to do something, that you have to go somewhere and be a part of a service somewhere or go to a specific person that says that they have the ability to heal and you have to be in that service in order to be healed, or to get close to some relic or have it around your neck and keep it with you at all times, or in your car, or something like that. And it has nothing to do with that. It all has to do with faith. What is it that you're believing in? And again, that word faith is pistis or a derivative of pistis, which means to be firmly convinced and persuaded. Jesus is saying you were firmly convinced and persuaded that if you got near me that you would be healed. So you did what was necessary to be healed based on your faith, not upon just touching my garment. It was your faith that made you well.
Speaker 1:Jesus is very clear, I think, in saying that, I think there's two extremes here, or at least two points that I think we need to bring out, because there is so much need in all cultures and all ages, is that there's always people that are ill, that have family members and physical issues that need healing. I want to talk about two things. What is this saying? And then, what is it not saying? One of the things I think it is clearly and we have to admit this from the text he's saying that there was this power that was available in Jesus and when she reached out in faith, it automatically flowed out of him to her and healed her. It says she felt that in her body and he confirmed it when he reached around and talked with her. Jesus had so much power that all she had to do was appropriate it in faith and he says, yes, it's your faith that made you well. Therefore, god is using this as an example to us to have faith, god will do what God wants to do and God has the power and the ability to heal us. If we don't have faith, then there's going to be situations where, again, if we're just, oh God can't do this, I don't believe he will, then there's enough indication in the scriptures that says God generally doesn't act in those situations. However, if we reach out in faith, then God will act. However, we can't take that as a guarantee of physical healing every single time, simply because of several things. One practical experience tells us that every human that's ever lived in the history of the human race died of our last disease, and so they've all died, every last person. So God doesn't always heal in every situation. Likewise, the Scripture tells us that, for example, there's people that were healed that expressed no faith. Luke 7-11,. Jesus walks up to a funeral that was ongoing and raises the dead man, and the dead man was dead. He had no faith. There was no indication that anybody else in the funeral even knew who Jesus was, let alone required faith to appropriate his healing. Jesus just went up and had compassion on this family and healed them.
Speaker 1:Another one John chapter 5, the story of Jesus going and healing the lame man at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus walks past many people there that were all sick and healed this one man. If you read the account in John 5, there's no indication there that the man even knew who Jesus was, let alone had faith in him. Jesus just did it because of Jesus's compassion and because he wanted to demonstrate some things to us. How do we answer the fact that he heals in some instances and not others?
Speaker 1:1 John 5, verse 14 says and then it goes on to say that we will get what we have prayed for and he will grant whatever we want. But notice, if we ask according to his will, he hears us. So I think, if we take this woman with the hemorrhage, the flow of blood, yes, we need faith and we should have faith because God can and does heal. But at the same time, james 4.2 says you don't have because you don't ask. We should go ask in faith. He's teaching that very clearly. We should go ask in faith. He's teaching that very clearly. But it's also the case that, like in the case of the apostle Paul did ask three times and he says no. The answer is no, my grace is sufficient. So, steve, we learn from this that God is sovereign and he always does good things, but he doesn't always do what I end up demanding. There's times where I've thanked God for not giving me what I had prayed for.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the things I was pointing out earlier, glenn is that people think that they have to be somewhere or be around someone and do certain things for the faith to be effective, when, in reality, is that the faith that you have in place, that whatever you're asking for will come about, has to do with God answering that particular one. It might not be such as you mentioned with Paul something that's going to take place. God might say no, you're going to need to be content with what you have, that you're not going to be healed of this particular thing or particular item. But there is one thing that we do know is consistent that God will do every single time. It's a type of healing that has everlasting consequences.
Speaker 2:Scripture tells us that whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be healed. Whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will have eternal life. That will happen every time. That healing that's talked about from having eternal life is a glorified body, a body that's not corrupt, a body that will live forever. That's the ultimate healing that we can experience. That is something that will happen every time. We won't realize that until we have the glorified body, but we will have eternal life and God will justify us at that particular point in time, that we express that belief in him, of Jesus, who he is, what he's done With Abraham. Abraham believed God reckoned it to him as righteousness, he was justified at that moment. Abraham, like us at some point, will have a glorified body, perfectly healed, perfectly taken care of, that will live forever.
Speaker 1:There's a verse in the Old Testament and in the New that says by his stripes we are healed. In both places that it's mentioned. Just before that phrase and just after it it's talking about being healed of our sin problem. One thing we can be guaranteed of, as you said, steve, is that if we go to him and ask for healing of our sin problem, he will do that. Now more about this woman.
Speaker 1:There's such a rich passage In verse 29,. It says there that she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. She could tell she was healed. Then, in verse 33, look at her reaction. It says she was in fear and trembling. She had just seen and felt a great movement of God, a great positive thing, that she had finally been healed. She could tell of this problem that had plagued her for 12 years. The problem in her life had been gotten rid of and she knew that. At this point Her reaction was fear and trembling. Steve, have you ever been close to a great movement of God, a great positive movement of God, and just being so close to such power and such goodness that it just brings us to our knees?
Speaker 2:I can somewhat describe this feeling of translated fear when it says that she is fearing in that I had a lightning strike take place with me and a couple of friends. That took place about 20 feet away from me. That was such power and that I could feel physically the shockwave from the lightning bolt hitting the tree at the base of it. Believe me, I had a lot of fear at that point, meaning that I had respect for lightning. I had respect for the power that that lightning could do to me. If it ever struck me directly Because you can't really be fearful of lightning, you never me if it ever struck me directly, Because you can't really be fearful of lightning, you never know where it's going to strike, but you can have a fear of it respectfully.
Speaker 2:The word translated fearing here is that word that Mark has used two times before. It's phobeo in Greek, with the disciples in the boat After they witnessed Jesus calming the seas. It says they were afraid, they were in awe of what they just got through, witnessing, awe of the demonstration of his power. The demoniac that we read in the last session, after the townspeople came out and saw the demoniac there in his right senses, closed somebody that had been a problem for years. It says that they were frightened same word, phobeo because of what they have witnessed. They are witnessing the power of what Jesus has done to heal this man. Now we have the same word phobeo translated fearing that.
Speaker 2:This woman who instantly it says instantly she felt that she was healed and felt it instantly that she is there in awe of Jesus, Just by touching his garment she's healed. Of course we've talked about it's her faith that she's healed by, because she believed that he could do it. But we see Mark, I think by using this word over and over again, getting a sense across of the people's reaction, of the power and demonstration that Jesus is doing by all of these acts that he is God. I know we've talked early on that people say that nowhere in Mark is Jesus's deity put on display. Mark, in this simple use of the word, I think, is telling people Jesus is God. He's doing all of these miracles and the people's reaction is one that they have whenever God does a work in their midst.
Speaker 1:In every chapter of Mark it teaches us about the deity of Jesus Christ, the unique deity of Jesus Christ. As you pointed out, steve, she knew immediately verse 29,. Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed. She got close to Jesus. She touches Jesus' garment and immediately she's changed. I submit the same will happen to Jesus. She touches Jesus' garment and immediately she's changed. I submit the same will happen to us. If we touch Jesus, he will change us. We will be changed. You will not be the same. If you get close to Jesus, you will immediately be changed.
Speaker 1:Now you also notice here, in verse 34, when he's talking to her very tenderly, he calls her daughter. Now she is a daughter of the king. Now get the contrast between this woman and Jairus, jairus at this point in the story we're going to find out in a few verses his daughter had already died and he just didn't know it yet. Jairus' daughter was a dead daughter of a synagogue leader and this woman was now a live daughter of the king. She was a daughter. He called her daughter because now she was his child. She was a child of the king.
Speaker 1:The Bible tells us that we can be a child of the king, heir according to the promise, if we but trust in Christ. We are sons and daughters of the King, with all the rights and full authority and inheritance of eternal life. Such a great story and such a contrast between Jairus and this woman. They both had things they couldn't fix and they go to Jesus. He stops what he's doing, he pays attentions to them and all they have to do is have the faith Jesus will reach out and touch them. Such a great great passage and we're still not finished because we're out of time for today, but we'll next time go in and talk about what happens when Jesus goes in to touch Jairus' daughter.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
