Jesus and the Unclean Woman

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Jesus and the Unclean Woman ------------------- Date: 1/14/2003
Keywords: "bleeding" "blood" "heal" "touch" "unclean" "woman"
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Passage: Mark 5:21-34*

21. 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.

22. One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up, and on seeing Him, fell at His feet

23. 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."

24. And He went off with him; and a large crowd was following Him and pressing in on Him.

25. A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years,

26. 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 —

27. after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak.

28. For she thought, "If I just touch His garments, I will get well."

29. Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

30. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My garments?"

31. And His disciples said to Him, "You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’"

32. And He looked around to see the woman who had done this.

33. 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.

34. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction."

Questions

1. Who was Jairus?

 

2. How were Jairus’ and the woman’s needs the same? How were their lives different from each others?

 

3. Why might the woman have been afraid to speak to Jesus after she had touched him?

 

Practical help

You can’t find two more different people than Jairus and the unnamed chronically ill woman in our story today. He was a big-wig, she was a nobody. He approached Jesus with his request standing up, she crawled through a crowd, not to talk to him, but simply to touch the hem of his robe.

How do you see women? Have they become objects to you because of your time viewing smutty material on the Internet? Contrast this to how Jesus restores this woman. May I suggest that He not only healed her infirmity that day, but he elevated her status in the eyes of her community. He gave her back her dignity. If we call ourselves His followers, do we not have an obligation to act the same with those women God has placed in our lives?

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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."