Matthew 4
Jesus’ Acts Bring Fame
MATT 4:23-25
MATT 4:23 – 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. {Similar to Luke 4:15 & Matt 9:35}
[the gospel of the kingdom] – What message was this exactly? It was something like, ~turn from your sin back to God, because the kingdom of God is here, and that means that the Spirit of God will work through Me to heal anyone who believes~ (Matt 12:28). This phrase means, “the good news of the kingdom”. It is not what we call the gospel of Jesus Christ. He did not preach, “I am the Christ”, because he didn’t even tell His disciples He was the Christ until almost the end (Matt 16:13-15).
[healing all manner of sickness] – This was the gospel (Matt 9:35). There was not one sickness that Jesus couldn’t or wouldn’t heal. There is no record of Jesus turning anyone away, except perhaps a Canaanite woman whose request was granted through persistence (Matt 15:22-28). Never did Jesus deny a person healing, tell them that it wasn’t their time, or tell them there was some lesson to learn from the sickness because God was working the sickness out for their own good (see Rom 8:28).
[disease] – G3119 = infirmity, debility, bodily weakness, sickness
MATT 4:24 – And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
[Syria] – The country north and east of Capernaum. Damascus is the capital of Syria.
[torments] – G0931 = torturer, torture, a torture rack, acute pains of the pains of a disease.
[possessed with devils] – G1139 = daimonizomai – to be under the power of a demon/devil. In the NT, these are persons, afflicted with especially severe diseases, either bodily or mentally. The cure required the expulsion of the demon.
[lunatick] – G4583 = to be moon struck, crazy, to be epileptic, epilepsy; being supposed to return and increase with the fullness of the moon. See Jesus healing the child with epilepsy (Matt 17:14-20).
[palsy] – G3885 = paralytic, sick of palsy, suffering from the relaxing of the nerves of one’s side, disabled, weak of limb.
MATT 4:25 – And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
[Decapolis] – G1179 = the ten-city region; a district in Syria; a track of land so called from the ten cities that were in it according to Pliny, these cities were: Damascus, Opoton, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippondion, Pella, Galasa, and Canatha (Gill).
