Mark 5:31 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 5:31

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The disciples are not thinking spiritually. They should have known that there was more to the Lord’s words than the obvious meaning, which even they could see made no sense. How can you speak of a single person touching you, as if there is only one, when the whole crowd is pressing upon you? They failed to take the route to the proper understanding of what he had said, because they forgot the nature of the blessing he had come to give. Yet they were confused because they knew that he welcomed the crowds and was incapable of irritation as someone else saying this might be. This failure in their understanding was to be blamed, because they had seen enough miracles already to know that he could not mean something so obvious, yet he dealt gently with them and ignored their mistake. But Christ had no doubts about what had happened, and he did not take back a word. He knew that what he had said was right, and he spoke to the one person in that crowd who would be able to understand the meaning of what he had said. Never mind that other had difficulty understanding him because of their darkness of mind. The Lord does deal with his children as little children at times, but he also set bigger steps before them at times to teach them to stride forward in their faith. The disciples would subsequently see exactly what he meant and ask themselves why they were unable to understand him.

Application

We too sometimes struggle with the word of God and fail to understand it for the same reason. We are not approaching it as a spiritual book. That does not mean that it is written in code, or that everything has to be translated into some other meaning, as if there is no literal sense and it is all one great allegory. No, the allegorical portions of the word of God are limited, and we always pay attention to the type of literature we are reading. But when the literal sense is ruled out by some simple impossibility, as here, we look for a spiritual sense.

It is possible to ‘touch’ Christ by coming into contact with his people, his message, growing up perhaps in a Christian family, and yet never really touch him. Faith is what matters, not physical geographical nearness or familiarity with the Bible, or with the ways of evangelicalism. There must be a personal touch.

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Mark 5:31 Commentary and Bible Study