Today’s passage: Mark 5:1-20
Helpful thoughts:
- Satan and his demons seek to kill and destroy (John 10:10). This demon-possessed man was being destroyed with his own hands.
- We don’t know how many demons were possessing this man. But we do know there were enough to make a herd of 2,000 pigs do a completely unnatural thing by running down a steep bank to their death! A legion of Roman soldiers had 6,000 men.
- The country of the Gerasenes (Gadara) and the Decapolis was a heavily Gentile region. There were Jews and Gentiles living there, but the Greek influence was very strong.
- This explains the presence of the pigs (Which were deemed “unclean” in the Law – Deuteronomy 14:8).
- This explains why Jesus would tell the man to go and tell everyone what He had done. The response to Jesus’ miracles in the Decapolis region would be very different than in Galilee or Judea because they were not looking for a political Messiah to liberate them from Rome.
Questions to consider:
- There are all kinds of questions a passage like this can bring about, but it tells us what God intends for it to. What does this passage teach us about Jesus?
- Why do you think the people in the town begged Jesus to leave? What all had they just seen and heard? What had they just lost? What didn’t they realize they had just gained?
- Can you think of something you’ve lost that ended up being God’s grace? What kinds of things do we tend to hold firmly to even when they turn our eyes away from Jesus?