GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:38
Jesus Heals Many
(Matthew 8:14-18; Mark 1:29-34)
38 Jesus got up, left the synagogue, and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her.
We don’t learn the names of either Peter’s wife or his mother-in-law here or elsewhere in the Bible. According to Paul (1 Corinthians 9:5-6), all of the apostles and evangelists (including the Lord’s brothers) had wives, except for Paul himself and Barnabas. Paul mentions that Peter and the others took their wives with them as they traveled to preach the gospel. Lenski remarks: “All this is rather inconvenient for Catholicism which regards Peter as the first pope and demands celibacy for its priests” (Luke p. 270).
In Mark’s account, Jesus is invited to Peter’s house. The mother of Peter’s wife lived there with them, as did Andrew. James and John were invited along with Jesus to dinner, and probably to spend the night. The presence of Peter’s mother-in-law tells us that his wife’s father had died, and that there were no boys in the family to look after her. Peter’s father Jonah (or ‘John,’ cp. Matt. 16:17; John 1:24) is never mentioned except by name; he had probably died by this time. We don’t know anything about Peter’s mother—perhaps she, too, lived in her son’s home.
In an age without thermometers, fevers were categorized by physicians like the famous Galen into two forms: “great” (μεγάλoι) and “small” (μίκρoι). This one was high, which in an adult is usually anything above 100.5°.
Unlike the congregation from the synagogue, Peter and his family were willing to trust in Jesus personally rather than to wonder where Jesus got his authority and words. They asked the Lord for help.
Was this family, therefore, already a church in some manner of speaking, confessing Jesus as the Christ? Nearly, but not quite yet. There was teaching still to be done with this group. “The origin of ecclesiastical (formal church) confession is not the call ‘follow me’ (Matt. 4:19), but the question ‘Who do you say that I am?’ (Matt. 16:15). It is very significant that according to the New Testament, Jesus demanded confession, indeed, verbal confession, from his disciples” (Hermann Sasse, The Confession of the Church, 1930).
The sermon in the synagogue, the exorcism of the demon, and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law were working together in the hearts of this little congregation. They were seeing the Messiah revealed before their very eyes. Their trust in him would grow and multiply to others, and we are seeing here the earliest beginning of the Christian church, right here in Peter’s living room.
Don’t keep the church out of your living room or out of your home. Share your faith with everyone who is there. This confession of yours will help to strengthen their faith and to remind them of where to turn when troubles come—whatever fevers and temptations may burn in them. It will help to remind them to turn to Jesus, the God who heals all.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota