Dr. Manny Arango (0:01)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. Let's jump into today's reading. We are going through Luke chapter 7, 8 and 9. If you haven't done the reading yet, then how about you pause? I'll be right here. Go read Luke chapter 789. I'm not going to go in depth. I'm just going to give an overview. And that overview is going to make the most sense. After you do today's reading, let's jump in. There's a theme in Luke's Gospel that the outsider is being brought in, that the insiders are kind of being pushed out. And that theme is prevalent right here. Luke 7:1. When Jesus had finished saying all these to the people who are listening, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. And the centurion, who's not a Jew, centurions are Romans. Now let me give you some context clues. When the Bible says a centurion, this is a Roman soldier, these are the very people who are like the brunt of the force are keeping the Jewish people oppressed. This would be like being in the middle of like the summer of 2020, being at like Black Lives Matter protest event and Jesus healing a police officer. Right? Like in the middle of everybody talking about defund the police. This is Jesus, like going straight up to a police officer and providing a miracle for someone who is like the poster child or the face of what everybody's angry about. So centurions not a fan. Okay? Jews are not a fan of centurions. Centurions are there literally as the face of oppression. They are the face of everything that Jews hate about Roman occupation. And who does Jesus do a miracle for? The centurion. But we get a little nugget, we learn a little bit about faith and. And that is going to be a timeless truth. Here's what the centurion says. Lord, don't trouble yourself for I don't deserve to have you come under my roof. You don't need to come to my house to heal my servant. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word and my servant will be healed, for I Myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one to go, and he goes, and that one come, and he comes. I say to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. And he said, I've not even seen such great faith in Israel. What unlocked faith? What unlocked the man's ability to understand faith? It was authority. I think there's a lot of us who we want more faith, but we don't want to be submitted to anyone or anything's authority. And because the centurion understood authority, it gave him an edge. It was a hack for understanding faith. It was a cheat code. Understanding authority was a cheat code for understanding faith. I think there's a lot of us that want to understand faith, but we don't really want to understand submission, to understand authority, to understand hierarchy, to understand rank. It was the centurion's life of order and authority that actually gave him a perspective on Jesus's ministry and on Jesus's authority that Jesus perceives as faith. It's impossible for me to have faith in Jesus without having some faith in the authority of people that he's anointed in church, in institutions. So maybe you're someone who. You've been struggling with the authority of the church, but I would actually push you and say, ah, like you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If I get rid of authority, I'm also damaging my ability to have strong faith. Okay, let's keep moving in chapter eight. This is one of my favorite things. Remember, Luke says for all these people who are on the outside, they're now on the inside. So let's read Luke, chapter 8, verse 1. Because this is something that's so unique about Luke's Gospel. We don't get this from Matthew, Mark, or John. This is something that is totally unique to Luke. We're going to read Luke, chapter 8, verse 1. It says that Jesus traveled about from town to town, village to village, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out. Joanna, the wife of Chuza or Chuzza, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. So you're telling me now when Jesus has, like a banquet and he invites people and he's preaching the gospel and the bill comes for the meal, it's the women who are paying for it, like Women were supporting, financially supporting the ministry of Jesus. And what Luke is communicating is that these women were acting like deceased disciples of Jesus. This is the radical inside out Gospel of Luke, and I'm here for it and I love it. This is the first time where Jesus really starts getting into some parables. In Luke chapter 8. If you really want a deep dive on how to understand parables, I'm not going to necessarily do that on this podcast, but if you are an ARMA subscriber, then there are tons of resources on the ARMA platform for you to learn how to like, dissect and digest parables a little bit better. Let me say one more thing. From Luke chapter eight, we've got Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood. Okay? This is verse 40, onward. And Jairus is a synagogue leader. Now there's a cultural context, okay? Context, clue, context, clue. Jairus is in contact with, with Jesus. He wouldn't have agreed with Jesus theologically. He's probably a Pharisee, but his daughter is dying, okay? So he approaches Jesus. Jairus and Jesus agree to go to the house to go heal Jairus's daughter. On the way, there's a woman with the issue of blood. Now, the woman with the issue of blood is minding her business, reaches out in the crowd, touches the hem of Jesus garment, and she gets healed. Jesus could have just let it go. Jesus does not have to make a scene, but instead, Jesus turns around and in this whole theatrical performance, it's kind of like, hey, who touched me? The disciples are like, bruh, there's a crowd of people. What do you mean, who touched you? Finally they found out that it's the woman with this hemorrhaging, bleeding issue that touched Jesus. Now the reason that this, the woman doesn't want to speak up is because it would have been unlawful for her to even be in a crowd of people. Because the way that a menstrual hemorrhaging, bleeding issue worked is that if a woman was even like, on her menstrual cycle, if she sat on a couch and then somebody else sat on that couch, that couch was unclean. And the next person who sat on it was unclean. Because uncleanness can be transferred through touch. So this woman would have been isolated, she would have been ostracized. Jesus is like, hey, who touched me? The woman now has to confess that she broke the law in order to get healed by Jesus. She's probably scared out of her mind. And Jesus now says some words that should make all of our Ears perk up in verse 48. Then Jesus said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. Daughter. That's an interesting word. Daughter. What other daughter have we seen in this story? Oh, yeah, Jairus daughter. They're on their way to Jairus house because Jairus daughter is sick. Well, Jairus daughter is 12 years old. The woman's been struggling with this issue of blood for 12 years. The Bible wants us to draw some lines to connect the woman with the girl. The Bible wants us to see that these two characters are not completely opposed to each other, but they are interconnected. Which means when Jesus says, hey, who touched me? He's calling out to the woman, but really he's talking to Jairus. Because who would have been responsible for putting this woman out of the synagogue? You guessed it, Jairus. Jairus would have been responsible for ostracizing the woman. Jairus would have been responsible for actually excommunicating this woman. Jairus knows this woman. And here's what Jesus is saying. Jesus says, hey, Jairus, until you can care about my daughter, I'm not going to go care about your daughter. That if you're going to be a leader, then you can't just care about your house and your family and your kids. But part of what it means to be a leader in God's house is in God's kingdom, is to see my daughters as your daughter. And before there can be healing of Jairus daughter, there has to be reconciliation between Jairus and this woman that he probably would have been responsible for putting out of the synagogue. This is a context clue that completely changes how we read this passage of scripture. Jesus is restoring the humanity to this woman. What Jesus is saying to this insider named Jairus is that there's a woman who you've relegated to the outskirts of society, but the gospel is inviting her in, and we are redefining holiness. In the old covenant, uncleanness can be transferred by touch. But in God's kingdom, healing can be transferred by touch. So instead of the one with the issue of blood making Jesus unclean is Jesus's holiness that makes her clean. See, in the old covenant, holiness is delicate. If I'm unholy and I touch something that's holy, I have more of an impact on it than it has on me. But in the new covenant, in God's kingdom, he says, holiness is not delicate. It's a force to be reckoned with. And if Jesus is holy, then the holiness on him has more power than the sickness on the woman. This is a redefinition of holiness.