Matthew 8:14-16 - and the fever left her

8:14,15

We have just had two incidents where people who were “outside the Law” were so miraculous answers. Now we have one where a close family member, Peter’s mother-in-law, is healed. So we should pray for those close to us when they are ill. The fever was probably malaria. Note that in this case there is no mention of anyone asking for healing, it just says Jesus saw she had a fever, He touched her, and she was immediately healed. There is no one pattern for healing, no one method or “technique”. Oh how we love there to be a method, a form of words, that would guarantee healing! But there isn’t, instead we need to remember we are in a relationship with God.

8:16

The word about Jesus was getting around, so many people came. Many of these were demon possessed and many were sick. Jesus drove out the evil spirits with a word (note that casting out demons was usually very simple) and healed the sick. Many react against the idea of demon possession or casting out evil spirits, and consider things like this to be a product of the ignorance of the people of the day. First we should note that there was a distinction here between demon possession and sickness, though the two can sometimes go together. Demon possession is real, but we should not go overboard about it. As C S Lewis said, there are two things the devil loves, either to be totally ignored, or to have an unhealthy obsession with him. There have, of course, been many incidents of abuse of “exorcism”. We should note the simplicity with which Jesus drove the evil spirits out.