Blind man near Bethsaida - touched twice

[Guest]

Hey all,

I'm doing a read-through of Mark with some friends who aren't very well acquainted with the Bible. It's interesting the questions they come up with, since after reading the gospels over and over, I tend to miss some details.

A question one of them brought up was Mark 8:22-25, the healing of the blind man near Bethsaida. Here's the passage:

22And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" 24And he looked up and said, "I see men, but they look like trees, walking." 25Then Jesus[a] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

In my wife's study Bible, the footnote said that the fact that Jesus touched him twice was unique in Jesus' ministry, but didn't elaborate. There's apparently no parallel to the passage (checked my "Harmony of the Four Gospels").

The question is, what (if any) significance is there to the fact that Jesus had to touch him twice to fully restore his sight?

[Guest]

This is obviously only my opinion, but maybe Jesus was testing the blind man's faith since people brought the blind man to Him instead of the blind man coming on his own. Also, in Matthew 11:21, Jesus warns Bethsaida of their lack of repentance which He may also have been testing the blind man on.

[Guest]

Here's a similar thread:
http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.php?t=1119

Honestly, I think all we can do is speculate. It's my hunch that in these instances where the details don't make sense to us, the details were important to the individuals with whom Jesus was interacting in some way.

[Guest]

Hi seth--

looking at this passage again, another thing that strikes me (that i never really noticed before) is Jesus asking the man after touching him the first time, " Do you see anything?"

now this seems like a rather odd question of Jesus to ask; if one did not know better one might ask whether Jesus wondered if the healing was "working." i did not take the time to look, but i do not believe that anywhere else does Jesus ask for a "status report" when he healed someone. this leads me to believe, like Micah said, that Jesus was not confident the man had the faith to be healed. in other words, maybe the man's lack of faith was "countering" Jesus's ability to heal him. this resulted in an initial "incomplete" healing. however, the fact that he was seeing at all resulted in an increase in faith, and therefore a complete healing.

Another explanation, although a tad gross, is that the spit in his eyes made everything blurry (like when you open your eyes underwater), so Jesus touched his eyes again to clear them out. I certainly dont mean to be irreverent by stating this, but the passage does say that jesus spit in the man's eyes.

just a guess though!

TK

[Guest]

Great answers, guys. I agree it's all speculation, but what better to speculate about than the Word?

The faith issue occurred to me, but I hesitate from it just because it smacks of Word of Faith teaching. However, we know that Jesus didn't always do miracles where the faith was lacking. Maybe Jesus healed him up to the point where the man's faith was, then brought him the rest of the way to show him his power.

The "spit blurring his eyes" idea gave me a chuckle. There's nothing in the passage to indicate that the second touch was a healing one. Maybe there's a lesson there: God gives us miracles, and we expect he'll heal us *and* wipe the gunk out of our eyes. But sometimes he wants to give us what we need, then ask us to take a step to complete the work. Reminds me of another healing, where Jesus put mud in the guy's eyes, then had *him* wash them out in the pool of Siloam.

In this case, of course, Jesus did that part for him, perhaps because his faith was weak. After all, as Micah pointed out, others brought the blind man to Christ, not the other way around.

[Guest]

is that where the saying "here's mud in your eye" came from?

TK

[Guest]

This is one interesting explanation I heard. Perhaps Jesus was trying to illustrate a spiritual reality. Before he had come as Messiah people had an understanding of God that could only be understood as "seeing men as trees". Now with the revelation of Christ our vision has been cleared to see things preveously not understood. For example as Timothy states, "This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus..." II Tim 2:9. or in Eph 1:4-5 "In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets."

It's also interesting to note that this story is preceded by another story where Jesus said to his disciples "Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?"....then immediately after the healing story Mark tells the story of Peter's revelation "You are the Christ". He could have been showing the contrast between the disciples not seeing clearly in one instance and then later, seeing clearly with their spiritual eyes that Jesus was the Messiah.

I see this as a possible explanation

[Guest]

excellent point, steve. like seth said, there is nothing more interesting to speculate on than scripture!

TK