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‘And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.’
Mat_4:23
I. Christ regarded man in his whole nature.—He did not sink the spiritual in the material; He did not sink the material in the spiritual. He regarded man as God had made him, with his material body and his reasonable soul, and addressed Himself to the wants and woes of the spirit and the flesh. In dealing with man’s higher nature, Christ ‘taught in the synagogues, and preached the Gospel of the kingdom.’ The one is not a reiteration, a variation of the other; there is a real distinction. Christ addressed Himself to the intelligence of His hearers, showing from the Scriptures the mind and will of God; but He also preached a Gospel to men, offered sinful men mercy, called them to enter His kingdom of grace. The world needs teaching, instruction, in the things of God, an intelligent declaration of truth; but the world also needs preaching, an earnest enforcement of the truth upon the conscience and the heart. The one is not enough. Teaching without preaching often leaves men unmoved. Preaching without teaching is unsatisfactory, is superficial and transient in its influence, is attended with many evils.
II. The union of teaching and healing.—Healing demonstrated the truth of the teaching. Men could not consistently deny the latter where they beheld the former. “Rabbi,” said Nicodemus, “we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” Christ’s healing made clear and real to men the invisible and spiritual truths He taught. Men found less difficulty in believing what they could not see, because they saw so much that was wonderful, and wise, and good. This was the force of Christ’s memorable challenge when in the face of an act of Divine power there were muttered charges of blasphemy on the part of Pharisee and Scribe.
III. A pattern for his church.—The religion of Christ teaches us to respect man’s entire nature. Nothing human is common and unclean. The work of teaching and healing began with Christianity. The Christian Church must not stand aloof from, but lead, efforts for relieving human need and suffering. Christ’s work on the bodies of men is an image of His work in the souls of men. Sin continues in itself all the evils that afflict the bodies of men. It is blindness, palsy, leprosy, death itself. But as Christ healed ‘all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease,’ so is He able also to conquer sin’s power and sin’s effects in human souls.
Illustration
‘The Rev. R. Hack, c.m.s., Central Provinces of India, narrates the following instructive experience: “The people received our party most churlishly, refusing to give one of our number a drink of water or to supply the ordinary necessities of our camp. Before our preaching commenced I noticed that the rajah’s father-in-law was suffering from fever and in some pain. I at once attended to him, and sent for the medicine chest. Almost immediately everybody seemed to change his attitude towards us; chairs were brought out, profuse apologies given for all the inconvenience to which we had been put, and not only had we an attentive audience, but also a ready sale for all our books.” ’