Luke Bible Study, Day 29
Today’s passage: Luke 17
Focus verse:Then [Jesus] said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19)
In the Bible, the word leprosy is used to refer to various skin diseases, which includes leprosy. Specifically, leprosy is an infectious skin decease that eats away the flesh. It is contagious.
In Jesus’s day, leprosy was not treatable, so the goal was avoidance. (Today leprosy is treatable with the help of modern medicine.)
Moses taught that people with leprosy were supposed to isolate themselves and call out “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45). This allowed healthy people to keep their distance and not risk infection.
This is the background for today’s story about Jesus and ten lepers.
As Jesus walks down the road, ten lepers spot him. They hope he will heal them. Standing at a distance, they call out to him, “Jesus, please help us!”
Seeing them, Jesus gives them the simple instruction, “Go and show yourself to the priests.”
Though this may seem like a strange response to us today, the law of Moses instructed people healed from a skin disease to go present themselves to the priests (Leviticus 14:1–32).
This was their first step before reentering society as a fully healthy person.
The lepers do as Jesus instructed. This suggests a step of faith on their part.
They would not dare approach a priest if they were still infected, yet they head in that direction anyway. They may have expected—or at least hoped—that they’d be healed of their leprosy by the time they arrived to approach the priest.
As they go, they are cleansed of their leprosy.
One man, seeing what happened, returns to Jesus, loudly praising God along the way. He kneels before the Healer and thanks him.
Jesus commends the man for doing so but is surprised that only one person returned to give thanks. Then the man is made well.
First, he was cleansed—they all were. Now he is made well.
There seems to be a distinction between these two conditions.
One thought is that being cleansed meant the leprosy was gone, but its ravages remained, whereas being made well restored the flesh to its pre-leprous condition.
An additional consideration is that being made well addresses the whole person, encompassing the psychological and emotional aspect of having been ostracized and devalued as a person.
Whatever the precise meaning, it’s clear the man who gives thanks to Jesus—and didn’t take his generosity for granted—received even more.
He was made well.
Questions:
- What do we need to thank Jesus for?
- Do we want Jesus to make us well, like this leper?
[Discover more about getting well in John 5:1–15.]
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Read more about the book of Luke in Dear Theophilus: A 40-Day Devotional Exploring the Life of Jesus through the Gospel of Luke, now available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront a status quo faith and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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