The brothers were too smart by half. While they were plotting to sell Joseph to
the Ishmaelite traders (children of their great-uncle) some others came along,
Midianites, who took Joseph out of the pit and sold him themselves. They return and find him gone and they have
no idea what has happened. Apparently the
one thing they feel certain they can rule out is that Joseph has escaped. We know that because they contrive a means of
deceiving (there it is again) their father to believe some wild animal has
killed Joseph and they have somehow saved his coat. Think back now to Jacob's own life. Think about deception involving a goat that
he and his mother used to steal the blessing of his own father, Isaac. What goes around comes around doesn't
it?
Remember that this passage begins on Sabbath. That explains why the people come at
sundown. They are keeping Sabbath and
the belief was that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus has already healed a man in the
synagogue that day and then, upon arrival at Peter's mother-in-law's house He
heals her as well before the people arrive with the sick. Jesus goes out early in the morning to pray
alone and although everyone was looking for Him in Capernaum, He is moving out
and moving on. The leper He meets has to
cry out that he has leprosy lest anyone come close and contract the
disease. In spite of that Jesus does the
one thing He had no need to do, touch the man in order to heal him. He knows, however, that touch is for this man
healing itself. He has not known touch
from another human being since he contracted leprosy and for Jesus to draw near
and then touch him must have been
restoration for his soul, he was human again.
Paul was a man of great education, he straddled the Jewish and
Gentile worlds in that respect as we see in Athens when he uses some Greek
philosophy to attempt to evangelize the Greeks.
Here in Corinth, however, he says he disdained such an approach,
preaching only Christ crucified. He has
not used philosophy or other worldly knowledge or wisdom, he has relied on the
power of the proclamation of the Gospel alone as his message and it did a
powerful work among them. These would
not be in the church today had it not been for the power of the Gospel. What they have received then is the very
Spirit of God by which they were able to understand God Himself. They have a secret wisdom, a wisdom imparted
by the Spirit of God. This is not some
form of Gnosticism, Paul has already told them his message was simply Christ
crucified, it is in fact a corrective to any idea of Gnosticism they might
have. Keep it simple and honest is the
message for today.
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