Luke 5:12-16 Touching a Leper
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: July 9, 2018 Luke 5:12-16
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
(Understanding the Text) Luke tells us that this man was not just a leper, but that he was full of leprosy. In other words, the leprosy was apparent on the man’s appearance. He may have had parts of his body rotting off and sores and ulcers on his skin. I imagine he stank from a lack of bathing and disease.
According to the SDA commentary, these verses parallel the accounts in Matthew 8:2-4 and Mark 1:40-45.
This verse says that this healing took place in one of the cities. Clark’s commentary says that it was a city in Galilee, probably Chorazin or Bethsaida. On the other hand, Cambridge commentary says “Probably the village of Hattîn, for we learn from St Matthew’s definite notice that this incident took place on descending from the Mount of Beatitudes (Kurn Hattîn), see Mat_8:1-4; Mar_1:40-45. Hence chronologically the call of Matthew, the choosing of the Twelve, and the Sermon on the Mount probably intervene between this incident and the last.” However, it was difficult to find information about Hattin, so I’m not sure what to think except that Matthew confirms the order of Cambridge’s commentary. “When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” (Matthew 8:1-2). However, the SDA commentary disagrees saying “There is difference of opinion as to whether this miracle occurred after the Sermon on the Mount, as in Matthew, or during the first tour of Galilee, as here [Mark 1]. Mark generally observes what seems to be a more nearly chronological order of events, whereas Matthew often deviates from a time order to achieve a topical arrangement. Therefore the order given in Mark appears preferable. Accordingly, the healing of the leper is, perhaps, the only specific incident recorded in connection with the first journey through the towns and villages of Galilee.” The SDA commentary does not even try to suggest the name of a specific city.
I imagine this meeting had to be on the edge of town for the man to be able to get in to see Jesus. This would not have been a walled city like Jerusalem, but an open one. How did lepers hear about Jesus? Did they hide around corners of buildings and eavesdrop on healthy people just to be near? Did relatives and friends find them and tell them about Jesus? Did some charitable person who left food for them also bring the message? Once it started, I imagine the message spread rapidly among them.
Leprosy was considered to be the result of sin rather than a simple disease. Thus, lepers were shunned not just because of the disease but because they were understood to be under God’s condemnation. People did not have the same pity for lepers that they did for sufferers of other diseases. Guzik’s commentary gives examples of the lepers’ poor treatment. “i. Lepers were universally scorned by society and religion; they were especially despised by the Rabbis, who saw their state as the particular judgment of God. ii. In Jesus’ time rabbis spoke about how badly they would treat lepers. One boasted that he refused to buy even an egg on a street where he saw a leper, another bragged that he threw rocks at lepers when he saw them.” Therefore, although the leper had faith that Jesus could heal him, he was not sure that Jesus would heal him. He was the first. Later, healing leprosy would be more common both for Jesus and his disciples, but as far as history was concerned, a leper had not been healed for at least 800 years since Elisha’s time. This shows how completely this leper believed in Jesus as the Messiah. Now, the leper’s only question was if Jesus wanted to heal him. Because of the view that leprosy was the result of sin, in healing the leper Jesus was demonstrating His ability to heal sins. (The whole paragraph is based on information from the SDA commentary on Mark 1.)
(Revelation of God / Application) The leper had faith already, so Jesus’ touch here was not necessary to strengthen faith. It had to be to show the leper that he had value to Jesus even when he was unclean. Jesus was showing that he had no condemnation for the leper, to the leper himself, but also to the disciples. He was showing them that no matter how far gone, no person who comes to God in faith will be rejected. When I come to God asking for cleansing from the disease of sin that infiltrates my whole being, God is willing to touch me and purify me and never reject me but accept me and heal me.
Jesus gave his command for two reasons. He did not want the crowds to become too large, but He was also sending a witness to His priests that they might have a sign tailor-made for them. God loves each of us uniquely and wholly and works with each of our needs; however, we are not the only children that He loves. He will use our healing to reach others with the message that He can meet the needs of their brokenness. Jesus did not want the priests to be prejudiced against His message before it reached them. He wanted the priests to be confronted with the reality of the healing of the leper before they could rationalize it away. He wanted His message to reach their hearts before their prejudice could form a barrier. It was natural for the leper to want to tell everyone of his healing, but Jesus had a specific reason for asking the leper to be quiet until he had performed his duties to God through the priests. I might not always understand why Jesus is working in a certain way, but I should trust that He knows what He is doing and has a purpose for the manner in which He is accomplishing His objectives.
(Prayer) I have so little faith. Teach me to trust that You know what You are doing and that You will always be protecting me and doing what is best for me. Too often I try to control what is happening because I do not trust anyone else to care enough to take care of me. Teach me to trust You to take care of me. Teach me to know in my deepest being that You are acting in a way that is best for all involved and that You are involved in resolving the situation.
(Understanding the Text) I imagine the priest who would examine this leprous man as a young student studying the Levitical laws and complaining about how useless it was to memorize Leviticus 14. Leviticus 13 would be used a lot to identify leprosy, but since there had not been a leper cured for eight centuries, the young scholar probably had little faith that he would ever be asked to look at a cured leper. Or conversely, maybe he dreamed of being asked to pronounce cleanness after such a miracle. At first, I thought that the priest would have to go back and re-examine the texts to make sure that he was doing it right, but then I thought that there were probably a lot of lepers who came in trying to trick the priests into proclaiming them clean. In either case, this leper was going to have every inch of his skin examined and the procedures followed thoroughly before he was proclaimed clean. The irony is that the healing was simple and immediate, but the proving that he was healed would take a long time.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) In the account in Mark, he adds the details that the report went around because this leper did not follow Jesus’ instructions. “But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter” (Mark 1:45). As a result of the leper’s healing, Jesus was now encumbered with too much success. It is always good to have success, but too much success can ultimately lead to failure. It is more difficult to manage a massive crowd than just a small crowd. One possible way to fail during this kind of situation is to become so careworn taking care of the crowd that you neglect your connection to God. Jesus made sure that this would not happen by purposefully going away to desolate places where the crowd would not follow in order to commune with His Father. He made special times to just be alone with God as I should too. Guzik’s commentary adds that another possible reason for the withdrawal is that these crowds were following because of miracles not message. Jesus discouraged people from following Him for what they could get from Him. He tried to point them to faith in the Father and understanding of the ways of the kingdom of heaven. He wanted them to be fully healed, not just physically, so whenever they started gathering solely for greed, Jesus withdrew, just as He did with the feeding of the multitude.