MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/2/2026
10:19 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: “His
Interpretability”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke
8:42c-44
Message of the verses: “the crowds were pressing against
Him. And a woman who had a hemorrhage
for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and
touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped.”
Lately in my Spiritual Diaries I have mostly been
quoting from John MacArthur’s commentaries and adding all of his verse
references, something that he mostly does not do as he only gives the
references.
“As He endeavored to go with Jairus,
the Lord found His way impeded by the crowds that were pressing
against Him. The thick mass of
bodies was immobile, all desperately wanting Jesus’ attention. Jairus’s anxiety and frustration at the delay
in getting Jesus to his house must have been intense. Every passing moment brought his beloved
daughter closer to death. Suddenly, to
Jairus’s dismay, the Lord’s slow progress through the crowd was halted
completely by an equally desperate person. A woman who had a hemorrhage for
twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and touched
the fringe of His cloak. The delay
she caused could and would prove fatal to Jairus’s daughter.
“Jesus was used to being interrupted.
Once while He was preaching a sermon, some men tore open the roof above Him and
lowered a paralyzed man on a stretcher (Luke 5:17-19).”
(Luke 5:17-19)
“17 ¶ On one of those days, as he was teaching,
Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every
village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was
with him to heal. 18 And behold, some men
were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring
him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but
finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof
and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.”
“On
another occasion He was interrupted when ‘someone in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher,
tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me’’’(Luke12:13). Despite the overwhelming demands, Jesus was
never indifferent to individuals in need.
“The woman had lived with severe
medical problems, a hemorrhage, for twelve years—as long as Jairus’s
daughter had been alive. While he and
his family enjoyed watching their daughter grow up and looked forward to her
future as a wife and mother, this woman had endured twelve years of misery and
suffering. Her condition produced severe
physical effects; continual bleeding, fatigue and lack of strength from blood
loss, fear that the condition might eventually prove fatal, and perhaps
constant pain. But the social effects
were even more severe. According to
Leviticus 15:19-27, a woman with a bleeding problem like hers was ceremonially
unclean for as long as the condition persisted.”
(Leviticus 15:19-27)
“19 ¶ "When a woman has a discharge, and the
discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for
seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. 20 And everything on which she lies during her
menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be
unclean. 21 And whoever touches her bed
shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the
evening. 22 And whoever touches anything
on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be
unclean until the evening. 23 Whether it
is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be
unclean until the evening. 24 And if any
man lies with her and her menstrual impurity comes upon him, he shall be
unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean. 25 "If a woman has a discharge of blood for
many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge
beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall
continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.
26 Every bed on which she lies, all the
days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And
everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her
menstrual impurity. 27 And whoever
touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe
himself in water and be unclean until the evening.”
“That
meant that she could not go to the temple, or attend the synagogue. No one in her family could touch her or
anything she touched or they too would become ceremonially unclean. She was an outcast, both in society and in
her own family.
“Her situation was hopeless, since
like everyone else at that time she could not be healed by anyone. The woman’s cure was beyond the limited
medical knowledge of that day. All her
desperate attempts to find relief had only increased her suffering; she had, as
Mark records ‘endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all
that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse’ (Mark
5:26). Ancient, useless treatments prescribed
for women with her condition were bizarre:
One remedy
consisted of drinking a goblet of wine containing a powder compounded from
rubber, alum and garden crocuses.
Another treatment consisted of a dose of Persian onions cooked in wine
administered with the summons, ‘Arise out of your flow of blood!’ Other physicians prescribed sudden shock, or
the carrying of the ash of an ostrich’s egg in a certain cloth. (William L.
Lane, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary
on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975], 192 n. 46)
Her money and hope gone, cut off
from friends and family, she desperately and anxiously forced her way through
the crowd to reach Jesus. Embarrassed
and humiliated by her perpetually unclean condition and seeking to avoid
disclosure, embarrassment, and resentment from the people, she came up
behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak.
In the Old Testament law God had commanded the Jews, ‘You shall make
yourself tassels on the four corners of your garment with which you cover
yourself’ (Deut. 22:12). Those tassels,
on the fringe of their robes, served as a reminder of their obligation
to obey God’s commandments (Num. 15:37-41).”
(Num. 15:37-41)
“37 ¶ The LORD said to Moses, 38 "Speak to the people of Israel, and tell
them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their
generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. 39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at
and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after
your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.
40 So you shall remember and do all my
commandments, and be holy to your God. 41
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be
your God: I am the LORD your God.’”
“The Greek
verb translated touched suggests that the woman did not merely tap one
of the Lord’s tassels, but grabbed one and clutched it. (The same verb is translated ‘clinging’ in
John 20:17) Matthew records that she
kept ‘saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well (Matt.
9:21). After twelve years of suffering,
Jesus was her only hope, so she literally and figuratively clung desperately to
Him.
“Jesus honored her faith, and as she
grasped the tassel of His robe immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Jesus often healed those who had no
faith, but never saved anyone who lacked it.
This woman, her physical problem solved, was on the way to salvation.”
Spiritual Meaning for my life
today: I cannot touch the Lord Jesus
Christ like this woman did, but I can trust Him to continue to care for me and
the issues that I am facing.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trusting the Lord to take care of the loneliness
that I have after my wife’s death.
10/2/2026
11:16 AM
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