Bible Notes. Peter s Mother-in-law Healed of a Fever. Matt 8: 14-16

Transcription

1 Bible Notes Biblos Foundation Peter s Mother-in-law Healed of a Fever Matt 8: Peter lived with his wife, his mother-in-law, and his brother Andrew in Capernaum. He was in the fishing business with his brother Andrew, in addition to James and John and their father Zebedee. This city became the home base for Jesus ministry throughout Galilee. Capernaum was a bustling port of international commerce and industry because of the Via Maris, or the Way of the Sea, running through it. This caravan route from Egypt to Damascus ran near the city along the hills. A custom-house employed tax-gatherers (publicans) to obtain a toll on travelers. A Roman garrison housed Roman soldiers. The official residence of Herod Antipas representative was located there. A thriving fishing industry exported a variety of fish which were caught from the fresh waters of the Galilean Sea. Jews, Christians, and Gentiles lived together all around the Sea in uneasy cohabitation. 14 And when Jesus was come into Peter s house, he saw his wife s mother laid, and sick of a fever. Whatever the cause of the fever, it had her bedridden. Luke describes it as a great fever or a high fever (Luke 4:38). Fever is puresso in Greek and it means to be on fire, i.e. (specially), to be sick of a fever (Thayer #4445). 15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. The healing was so instantaneous and complete that she began to serve the needs of her guests, probably preparing food for the Sabbath meal. Ministered in Greek is diakoneo and means to be a servant, to serve or wait upon; to wait at a table and offer food and drink to guests. It can also mean to take care of the poor and sick; or is another name for a church deacon (Thayer 137). 16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: Copyright 2011 Biblos Foundation Bible Notes are prepared exclusively for paid members of Biblos Foundation. Duplication prohibited except with permission. To join, please visit

2 Peter s Mother-in-law Healed of a Fever for February 28, 2010 page 2 To be possessed is daimonizomai in Greek and means to be under the power of a demon; In the N.T. are persons afflicted with especially severe diseases, either bodily or mental (such as paralysis, blindness, deafness, loss of speech, epilepsy, insanity, etc.); whose bodies in the opinion of the Jews demons had entered, and so held possession of them as not only to afflict them with ills, but also to dethrone the reason and take its place themselves (Thayer #1139). When the sun went down, the Sabbath was over; the people began bringing those who were sick to Jesus. All that were brought to him, he healed (Barnes 39). Jesus drove out many demons because they knew who he was (v. 34). In Luke, it is more specific: they knew he was the Christ (Luke 4:41; EBC 8.628). In Mark 1:33, it says: And all the city was gathered together at the door. Almost the whole city came in droves to the door of Peter s house, hoping for healing. The people of the community who brought ill individuals with them were drawn to the presence of the Christ. Mark 1:34 And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him. They knew that he was the Messiah. If they had spoken, they would have made that known to the people. Jesus was not desirous at that time, that that should be publicly known, or his name be blazoned abroad. The time had not come when he wished it to be promulgated, and he therefore imposed silence on the evil spirits (Barnes 149). At this point in his ministry, Jesus has healed in the synagogue, in the precincts of church, and now he has healed in the humble home of a disciple. The Greek word for healed is therapeuo and is the root word of our word therapeutic. It means more than just healing in the basic sense, it means to serve and to restore to health (Thayer 288). Not only does a church service include serving in the more traditional sense, but it also includes healing. Copyright 2011 Biblos Foundation Biblos Foundation Bible Notes are prepared exclusively for paid members of Biblos Foundation. Duplication prohibited except with permission. To join, please visit

3 Peter s Mother-in-law Healed of a Fever for February 28, 2010 page 3... True Diagnosis by Charles Henry Philips From The Christian Science Journal, December Article made available by The Ark: Christian Science Collection. Click here for a free trial of The Ark: Click here to purchase The Ark: Copyright 2011 Biblos Foundation Biblos Foundation Bible Notes are prepared exclusively for paid members of Biblos Foundation. Duplication prohibited except with permission. To join, please visit

4 TRUE DIAGNOSIS CHARLES HENRY CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS are sometimes asked this question: How do you know you were healed of a certain disease through the application of Christian Science, when you were not able to diagnose your own case and could not be sure that you had a given malady? From a strictly materia medica standpoint this query might on its face appear to carry some weight, as all diagnoses so called are based on the theory that certain physical symptoms indicate particular ailments; but even from this assumption as a working basis for tabulating diseases and codifying the material laws supposed to govern such cases, it is an incontrovertible fact that a very large proportion of all those who come to Christian Science for help have either been labeled with asserted diseases by the diagnoses of physicians, or they think they have this ailment or that, through the law of association. It is little cause for surprise, therefore, when a patient has been healed in Christian Science of a so-called diagnosed disease, that he should be only too glad to speak of it, and that Christian Science should very properly get the credit for the cure. What is a medical diagnosis? It is a dictum respecting the classification of diseases based on the study of symptoms; it is a grouping or classifying of certain supposedly well defined physical manifestations of derangement in the body, which 527 PHILIPS from long continued and minute observation have been specifically named. Just how far back this systematized taking of observations began, or the processes which have gradually led up through the years to the present complex workings of the modern diagnostician, is not so important as a knowledge of the fact that this medical fallacy exists, and that it has become so completely a part of present-day medical assumption as to have inoculated not only the patient and the apothecary, but all who are under the mesmeric spell of this material sense of things. Engaged as he is, however, in the hopeless task of endeavoring to arrive at causes from the study of effects, the physician "gropes among phenomena, which fluctuate every instant under influences not embraced in his diagnosis, and so he may stumble and fall in the darkness" (Science and Health, p. 463). Having neither fixed Principle nor rule, the physician is incessantly at the beck and call of matter; he notes symptoms today which will have vanished tomorrow; he remembers certain phases of yesterday which today he looks for in vain; interest is excited, then surprise and not infrequently consternation at the puzzling complications which he is wholly unable to account for or to alleviate. Baffled, but not disheartened, he experiments along the lines of least resistance, and lo, all unexpectedly, the patient seems to rally, or still

5 528 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL more mysteriously to finite sense, passes away. And yet the sickness was diagnosed as being a distinct type, solely from the belief that the greater percentage of symptoms manifested, indicated this type. Why, it might be asked, where two cases have been diagnosed as suffering from the same disease, because manifesting identically the same symptoms, should one patient recover and the other succumb? If treated for the same trouble and with the same remedy, why, if one recovers, should not the other? Is there any science or justice in an opinion, based on professional observation, that one should be a beneficiary of this opinion and another doomed? How did the master Metaphysician diagnose disease? Did he recognize any stereotyped set of symptoms as indicating a certain trouble, whether acute or chronic? When he went into Peter's house and found "his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever," did he test her pulse to ascertain her condition? Did he feel her forehead to determine her temperature, or did he ask how long she had been ill? Can we imagine even for an instant that he was perplexed, troubled, or in doubt that his diagnosis might not be correct, or that he anxiously questioned the inmates of the house as to how she was taken down and as to what they thought might have caused the fever? Jesus had but the one concept of man's being. He knew that the real man is the sinless son of a perfect Father. He "beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals" (Science and Health, p. 476). Holding this perfect concept of man, he went in the most divinely natural manner to the sick woman, touched her hand, and, as we read, "the fever left her." What left her? The fever, "it," the false claim that there was life and intelligence in matter and that life was subject to matter. Was there any reality to this false sense? Could it have left her if it had been real? Was anything real ever destroyed? Then was not the Master's diagnosis mental and not physical? He knew that matter with its suppositional brain activities was not Mind; that Mind is never sick and that Mind's reflection cannot be. "Why," Paul asked, "should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead [those buried in the belief that they live, move, and have their being in matter]?" Or why should it be thought impossible that God should heal and preserve our whole being with the truth which sets free? When the belief of fever was destroyed for Peter's wife's mother through the application of the right concept, the body responded to the corrected thought and she was healed. Never did one walk the earth so far above materiality as the Nazarene, nor was there ever one who studied less the surface defects and shortcomings of the human. Nevertheless he did know that Truth is a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," and that the word of God is "sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder

6 TRUE DIAGNOSIS 529 of soul and spirit." He declared that it is not that which goeth into a man, but that which cometh out of a man that defileth. Christ Jesus went to the bottom of mental action for the cause, and when the cause of the seeming inharmony was uncovered the error was practically destroyed. Spiritual to the finest fiber of his being, he was ever alert to detect the unscientific, yet he never rebuked or chastened the loving seeker after Truth. There is no evidence that his diagnosis ever depressed the sick and suffering; he never drew attention to alarming symptoms, never predicted relapse, slow recovery, or collapse. He always cheered, soothed, comforted, and made whole. He knew there was but one cause, therefore there could be but one effect. Our revered Leader says, "The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause of disease" (Science and Health, p. 462). No concept of diagnosis which falls below this standard can be accepted in Christian Science. The law of divine Love annihilates everything unlike God, good; it bids fear depart; it allays the troubled mentality; it assuages the belief in pain; it soothes the sorrowing, lightens burdens, gives "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Christian Science neither manipulates, predicts, nor prognosticates; it has no opinions; it rests upon understanding. It is the only Science there is, because it is the demonstrable knowledge of good, which is All-in-all. Christian Science is the law of God, good, and as there is but one good, there can be but one law proceeding from this good; hence any diagnosis which deals with phenomena outside the range of infinite good has no basis, no law, and no power either to increase, diminish, or stop the activities of being. Dealing exclusively with physical phenomena, the premises of medical diagnosis are necessarily laid in the shifting sands of mortal belief, which vary with every wind and tide of human conjecture, hence its conclusions must lack foundational unity and integrity. Conjectural in its inception and largely the play of guesswork in its building, the medical diagnosis is neither constructive nor strengthening. Christ Jesus never took any one's opinion or "observations" as to what a disease might or might not be. He never considered how much he had or might have to contend with in healing the afflicted; he asked no questions, refused all human aid, and lifted his thought to the Father with unshaken conviction as he said, "I thank thee that thou hast heard me." Was it any wonder, was it not rather divinely natural, that in the blaze of this righteous concept the lame leaped for joy, the blind received their sight, the lepers were cleansed, and the tombs gave up their dead? Christ Jesus' diagnosis was based upon "the law of the Spirit of life," which deals not with physical symptoms, but which frees from the law of sin and mortality. This, then, is divine Love's method, to study and meditate so persistently and prayerfully upon the things which pertain unto salvation that sin,

7 530 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear. In this glorified vision old things will have passed away; we shall behold "in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river,... the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." This vision will be single to the truth of being, for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was only to mortal sense, is not. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." STAND FAST W

8 Peter s Mother-in-law Healed of a Fever for February 28, 2010 page 8 Sources: Barnes, Albert. Barnes Notes on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Kregel, The Expositor s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein et al. Vol. 8. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Philips, Charles Henry. True Diagnosis. The Christian Science Journal 30, no. 9 (December 1912): Accessed via The Ark. Online subscription. Thayer, Joseph Henry, trans. The New Thayer s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody: Hendrickson, Abbreviation key: EBC = The Expositor s Bible Commentary Copyright 2011 Biblos Foundation Biblos Foundation Bible Notes are prepared exclusively for paid members of Biblos Foundation. Duplication prohibited except with permission. To join, please visit