Devotional Thoughts: Healing body and soul

This morning am taking a look at Matthew 15:29-31.

I've been following the "heading divisions" in the New Living Translation so some sections are longer than others as the divisions are based on the subject matter of the text.

A few quick words about the different types of Bibles you can find at the book store.

The various books of the Bible were written originally in Greek (Christian Scriptures or New Testament) and Hebrew (Jewish Scriptures or Old Testament). Complete Greek NTs have been found as old as the 4th Century and a fragment of the Gospel of John has been dated to the 2nd Century. Complete Hebrew OTs date to the 10th Century. However various parts of the OT have been found in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and those are from the time of Christ and may even be a century or two older. In both OT and NT, there are multiple copies with remarkable consistency between texts that have been found. After all, if the people who made copies over the centuries believe the texts are "sacred" writings then they would be highly motivated to preserve them as accurately as possible.

Translating the source material into English is a hard job and Bible translators deserve a lot of thanks for their quiet behind the scenes efforts! Rarely do they get called up to the front of the church and given a round of applause for their contributions. So a hearty "Well Done and THANKS!" from this blog!!

There are many translations and they fall within a spectrum of translating philosophies:
"literal" - attempts to make word-by-word translations from the original language - New American Standard Bible, King James Version, New Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version would be to varying degrees toward the literal side.
"dynamic equivalent" - attempts to balance word-by-word and thought-by-thought translations from the original language - New International Version is the most well known of this group. Jerusalem Bible and New Living Translation are also in this category again to varying degrees on the dynamic equivalent side.
"paraphrase" - attempts to "translate" idea-by-idea - In this approach some of the English words chosen will be quite distant from the original Greek or Hebrew in the effort to convey the idea intended. Some times additional words or phrases maybe added to clarify the meaning. Examples of this type are Living Bible and Eugene Peterson's The Message.

So, you say, show me!

Okay ... Matthew 15:29-31 ... I'll use the Bible Gateway and fetch three examples.

First, the New American Standard Bible from the very literal style ...

Departing from there, Jesus went along by the Sea of Galilee, and having gone up on the mountain, He was sitting there. And large crowds came to Him, bringing with them those who were lame, crippled, blind, mute, and many others, and they laid them down at His feet; and He healed them. So the crowd marveled as they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.

Next, the New Living Translation which is in the dynamic equivalent style toward the paraphrase side.

Jesus returned to the Sea of Galilee and climbed a hill and sat down. A vast crowd brought him the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others with physical difficulties, and they laid them before Jesus. And he healed them all. The crowd was amazed! Those who hadn't been able to speak were talking, the crippled were made well, the lame were walking around, and those who had been blind could see again! And they praised the God of Israel.

And finally, the paraphrase style of the Message

After Jesus returned, he walked along Lake Galilee and then climbed a mountain and took his place, ready to receive visitors. They came, tons of them, bringing along the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute--all sorts of people in need--and more or less threw them down at Jesus' feet to see what he would do with them. He healed them. When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them.

See the difference?

Anyway, as I read this passage, it tells me that Jesus very much cares about the people's needs. And, as the people were healed, they acknowledged God!

But what about today?

In the USA, most of us are pretty healthy. I suppose the problem of being overweight is a big one and many of our health issues stem from that. Also, many of the ailments we have are also a result of being able to live a lot longer.

Christians have established hospitals all over the world. Sometimes the Missionary (in the eyes of some a "dirty" word) hospital is the only place in a poor country where people can get health care. The reason why Christians do such stuff is because of the example of Jesus. Yes, we have our eyes on heaven but we absolutely do not ignore the here and now.

But with all our physical well being, how are we really?

As such, in modern day USA life, a lot of what ails us isn't physical. The church needs to be there for that too. Churches are often the meeting places for 12-step groups, credit debt recovery groups and marriage counseling programs. A program getting some attention in the television news (saw it on CNN and Fox News) is Celebrate Recovery. Thus, the church, as it should, is trying to meet these needs. Jesus wants us to do that.

Thus, in addition to medicine, many Christians opt to go into social work and psychology. It grows from the example of Jesus who saw people hurting and He did something about it.

As Christians, we see needs and we must respond in any way possible to help.