Luke 4:38,39 - Healing the mother-in-law

4:38,39

Jesus went to the home of Simon-Peter, Matthew and Mark call him Peter in their parallel accounts. Mark also tells us that John, Andrew and James went as well. Luke refers to Peter’s mother-in-law’s condition as a “high fever”, maybe reflecting his profession as a physician. It should also be noted that in Matthew and Mark the calling of the first disciples has already taken place, but Luke has yet to tell us about this. Luke is not seeking to give a strict chronological account, but is focusing on themes.

The disciples asked Jesus to help her, and so He did. The healing was a very simple affair. Jesus rebuked the fever and she got well at once. There are many false claims of healing, and overclaims for healing, but two of the themes of the gospels are (i) Jesus healed all sorts of people of all sorts of diseases; (ii) He expected His disciples to do much the same. Then in Acts the apostles did do much the same. We have more to learn about healing and need to do more of it. One of the things that Jesus did was to rebuke the sickness, so that should be part of our prayer armoury as well.