In this chapter there is a series of events that powerfully show Jesus’ authority.

😐 How come we skipped the Sermon on the Mount?

Well, unless Peter’s mother was frequently sick with fevers and Jesus healed her more than once, then Matthew sets these events very early in Jesus’ ministry. The other Gospels put the Sermon on the Mount a bit later. Another thing to keep in mind is what John said:

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did, which—if they were written down one after the other—I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.”
‭‭John‬ ‭21‬:‭25‬ ‭LEB‬‬

There is no reason to assume that Jesus only taught the contents of “the Sermon on the Mount” one time. Jesus taught the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom of God everywhere He went.

If you are interested in reading the events of Jesus’ life in a strict chronological order, what you need is a “Harmony of the Gospels.” The Thompson Chain Reference Bible has a very good one included in the reference material. It lists the events in order and what text(s) cover it.

It is quite detailed down to the specific verses. My own Bible study group went through it and we all learned a lot of new details.

Here is a link to a free parallel Gospel on BibleHub. (Note that sometimes the term “parallel” is used to mean side-by-side Bible versions. Like – it’s the whole book of Matthew but in one column you have the KJV text and in another the NIV. It makes version comparison easy.)

And here is a free Gospel Harmony from BlueLetterBible.

You can also find printed Gospel Harmonies that contain the full text of the various accounts side-by-side for comparison.

More rare are also fully integrated harmonies like Professor Gary Crossland’s “The Merged Gospels.”

One more helpful thing to know… The events of Matthew 8 are in the beginning of Jesus 2nd year of ministry.

• Year 1 – the Year of Inauguration or Obscurity
• Year 2 – the Year of Popularity
• Year 3 – the Year of Opposition

Back to Matthew 8…

Though the events recorded in Matthew 8 are spread out compared to the other Gospels, the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to record them this way for a reason. And this particular sequence – which seems to extend through chapter 9 – repeatedly emphasizes Jesus’ power over death and the demonic.

JESUS CLEANSES A LEPER – 8:1-4

Leprosy was a living death. The skin and flesh would decay while the person was still living. It’s an apt picture of sin and the unsaved person: dead while “living.”

The leper has no qualms about Jesus’ ability to heal. He appeals to Jesus’ will to heal. And Jesus does want to heal him just as He wants to cleanse “whosoever will” from sin. The ability of Jesus to cleanse or of the sinner to be cleansed is not in question. It is a matter of will. Do you choose to respond to the Messiah standing before you?

THE CENTURION’S FAITH – 8:5-13

This man is a Roman Military Officer in charge of a unit of 80 men called a “century.” They slept 8-men to a tent. And they were part of a larger unit called a “cohort” made up of 6 centuries or 480 men.

It’s very likely that the centurion was from Tiberias and had gone to Capernaum looking for the young rabbi reported to be able to miraculously heal.

As a military man in the middle of the chain of command, the centurion understood how authority worked. He also had a Roman worldview which included the supernatural. Sickness was seen as punishment of the gods, the meddling of malevolent spirits, or the result of “the evil eye.” Having never met Jesus or heard Him teach, he still recognized His authority over evil based on what he has heard. Jesus has healed the sick, which, to his Roman mind meant He had authority over the evil spirits or curses that had caused it.

He wasn’t wrong.

And even though his theology was flawed, his faith was not. In his simple way, he understood that Jesus was the BOSS of Evil. And that was more than the descendants of Abraham (the Father of faith!) had yet perceived.

The centurion also realized that Jesus – with that level of divine authority – was WAY above his station. And he knew it wasn’t necessary for Jesus to bother traveling to his home. As a soldier, he received orders from the headquarters at Caesarea and perhaps even Rome. The Tribune or Legate (the most senior commanders) did not have to show up in person for their orders to be obeyed. Indeed, it would be dishonorable if they had to be physically present for their orders to be obeyed.

We read “and his servant was healed in that very hour,” and go on without thinking who this servant was. There are two types of servants in this text, a pais and a doulos. The one that he commands to “do this” and he does it is a doulos.

The one who is sick is a pais.

A pais might be low in the servant hierarchy. Though the word technically means “a child” the person wasn’t necessarily young, but they were as dependent as a child and lived within the family. This term was also applied to a personal attendant.

🤔 Personal attendant? Like having your own waiter at home to bring you drinks and stuff? I’d like to have one of those.

Yes. Waiter. Valet. Secretary. This was a personal assistant, no doubt highly valued by the centurion. He had either been bought as a slave, captured, or won in some way. He was probably young-ish and a Gentile. He was excessively tortured in paralysis; which seems to describe some kind of seizure. And whether he knew it or not, the Messiah healed him.

I wonder if the centurion (and the servant) kinda “kept tabs on” Jesus and heard the Gospel at some point.

WOULD-BE FOLLOWERS – 8:19-22

It’s easy to forget that Rabbi Yeshua had a pretty large school. We tend to think only of the 12, but the Gospels will count 70 that He sends out, 500 at His Ascension, and 120 at Pentecost. At this point, early in His ministry, there are already more following Him than the ones we know about. One of them (rather impressively) is a scribe. He is quite gung-ho, ready to follow Jesus anywhere – except for maybe homelessness.

Jesus never had a place to call home on earth. He was a sojourner on earth, as are we. But when He returns He will bring home with Him to earth.

I know a lot of the old hymns and gospel songwriters meant well when they wrote about leaving the earth and spending eternity in Heaven, but, did they not read Revelation 21-22? This world (as it now stands) is not my home and I am just passing through. But it’s going to be remade and Eden restored and the redeemed will live in it forever.

But I digress…

Another student needs to go home to take care of funeral arrangements for his father. Jesus tells him to “let the dead bury their dead.” This young man was called to Life – spiritual life. His family (it is implied) has chosen to reject Jesus and thereby remain in spiritual death. It’s like that Jeremy Camp song, Dead Man Walking.

JESUS CALMS THE SEA – 8:23-27

A few times as we went through the OT, we observed the “water” language connected to death and chaos: waves, billows, floods, depths. This goes all the way back to Genesis 1:2 where the Spirit of God “moved upon the face of the waters” and brought order and light and life out of emptiness, chaos and darkness.

In this narrative, the Sea of Galilee is like a Gen. 1:2 “tempest in a tea cup.“

In 1986 this boat was found buried in the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It’s a first-century fishing boat and would be something like what Jesus was taking across the lake. Because of this, it has been nicknamed “The Jesus Boat.”

Jesus stands up in this small, pitching boat and instead of saying “Let there be light,” this time The Word rebukes the wind and sea and, of course, they obeyed.

DEMONS & DROWNING PIGS – 8:28-34

In the parallel accounts of this event in Mark 5 and Luke 8, there is only one man filled with the Legion of demons. Matthew records 2 men. I have no idea why the difference. They are in “the country of the Gergesenes” (or Gadarenes). On the Google map above it’s basically where the Kursi National Park is. You’ll notice that the terrain of the coast there is quite steep.

“And behold, they cried out, saying, “What do you have to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭8‬:‭29‬ ‭LEB‬‬

This is a telling question. These spirits KNOW they are destined for judgment. It’s just a matter of time. And they also recognize Jesus as having the authority to mete out this judgment. How do they know this? Who are these spirits exactly?

Remember how we’ve said several times in the past that according to the book of Enoch and 2nd Temple era teaching, the entities called “demons” were the disembodied spirits of the dead Nephilim who mostly perished in the Flood?

Does it strike you as interesting that these spirits would want to kill a whole (HUGE) herd of pigs by drowning?

This scene is like a replay of how they died in the flood of Noah.

😟 That’s rather creepy.

I agree. Very weird.

In both Mark and Luke’s accounts, Jesus asks the demonic entity its name. “Legion” was the answer.

At this time in the early days of the Roman Empire, a legion was 5,200 soldiers. I don’t necessarily think that the man (or men) had 5,200 demons inhabiting them, (it may have been an attempt to project power or importance), but there were certainly many.

In Mark and Luke we find that the man displayed superhuman strength – rather the like Incredible Hulk. And Matthew includes the detail that he (they) lived among the tombs. This may be due to the practice of magic and necromancy. It’s kinda the equivalent of wanting to live in a haunted graveyard so he could commune with the ghosts.

Notice that the spirits had to ask permission from Jesus to go into the pigs. They knew who was in charge. It’s kinda like watching Caesar Milan make an aggressive dog back down with just a word or look.

Jesus has supreme authority over death and the rebel spiritual forces. He did then and He still does now and will ALWAYS have this authority.

The people from that region are kinda freaked out by what has happened. And they ask Jesus to leave!

The next miracle we read about is going to upset a different group of people. And they’re going to want to get rid of Him too.