Matthew 4:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 4:24

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(Synoptics: Matthew 4:24-25) Christ’s fame corresponded so perfectly to people’s deep sense of need that they travelled from far and wide to come to him. Some had lived with serious illnesses in the family and had watched loves ones deteriorating and felt powerless to prevent it. They had seen disease making progress and knew it must end in death sooner or later. They saw children having their lives cut short and forced into a sick bed or a quiet corner of inactivity in the house, when they ought to have been full of the exuberance of youth and making new discoveries in the world with joy. Others watched parents who had cared for them in former days, now wracked with pain and having no way of relieving it. Or else they agonized over the decay of the mind, and the loss of memory and of reason, that made them no longer recognisable as the people they once knew and related to so closely. Even worse, some were demon possessed and afflicted with the powers of darkness that had turned them from once familiar family and friends into objects of horror and terror. Then there were those taken with seizures, and those who were paralysed and had to be carried everywhere. He healed them all.News spread rapidly of the one who had already healed such sicknesses and cast out the powers of darkness. Many returned with eye witness accounts of what they had seen, hurrying home they told with great energy what they had seen. They heard that there was no case that he could not deal with, and their hopes which had been crushed by the difficulty of these cases were raised up again. If only they could reach him. He turned none away, they heard. Therefore many set out and made the arduous journey, and they brought their sick ones with them, carrying them if necessary. If only they could come to him with their sick, all the effort would be rewarded. This was worth more to them than riches or comforts, for who does not know that people are of greater value than goods and leisure, and many households therefore came to Galilee to where these wonderful works were being done by Christ.

Application

An unbelieving world stands condemned by the zeal of these people who were ready to disrupt their lives in order to travel to Christ. Many today have absolutely no time for God in their lives. They have organized their entire program without reference to God. The Lord’s Day, far from being devoted to God as he requires, is a day for pursuing private pleasures. For some it is shopping trips, others have sports activities throughout the day. They are pleased with how well they have organised themselves, and congratulate themselves on having all that really matters sorted. God is irrelevant to them, and the worship of God is the last thing they would ever think of making time for. Why are they so dead towards spiritual things? Because they do not know where they are going. They have blocked out the voice of conscience, and suppressed the thought of their own mortality, though it stares them in the face. They feel no spiritual need, no need of forgiveness, no anxiety about meeting their Judge, no regret at the profitless activities that fill their lives. They are self-satisfied, and shallow people, who may have achieved much in their sphere of interest, but it will all be swept away when the flood waters rise. Even where there is a Bible in the house, they cannot even be bothered to take it off the shelf, and this neglect of the soul stands in terrible contrast with the people who travelled days to come to see Christ. The body may be trim, but the soul is emaciated.

But even so, the expectations of those who travelled to see Christ were not high enough. It was the needs of the body that so many responded to, and few came to hear his teaching. Yet the healing of the soul and the giving of spiritual life is far more wonderful than the token healing of the body. The Lord Jesus healed men’s bodies, but he knew that while people saw this as the most he could do for them, they had not properly understood who he was. Why would a man rest content with a loan when there is a free gift on offer? Why would be leave with a few sacks of grain, when the entire business enterprise was being made available to him? Why would he be satisfied with the healing of the body, and yet hold on to mortality and ignore the gift of eternal life? Man is body and soul, and the healing of the body without the renewing of the soul leaves him in just as hopeless a condition as he was before. Christ healed the bodies of those who travelled so far, but while they did not come to him for salvation, he remained grieved that they had not asked for what he wanted most of all to give them. But now Matthew gives us a sample of the wonderful teaching of Christ, that was worth so much more than any healing.

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Matthew 4:24 Commentary and Bible Study