{"id":553,"date":"2015-01-26T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=553"},"modified":"2015-01-10T22:29:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T22:29:51","slug":"matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The mysterious relationship between sin and sickness is a question that\u2019s brewed for hundreds of generations. Is a man sick because he sins, or is physical sickness independent of spiritual and moral cause?<\/p>\n<p>Ancient Judaic thought had settled on the assumption that every sickness was punishment for some kind of sin, thus no healing could occur until that sin had been erased. That belief was encapsulated in this rabbinical teaching, \u201cHija bar Abba said, The sick doth not recover from his sickness until all his sins be forgiven him\u2026 if God heal his soul from its sickness, viz. by making atonement for his sins, then his body is healed.\u201d This view was supported by Scriptures such as Psalm 103:2-3, \u201cPraise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits\u2014who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, when friends brought a paralyzed man to Jesus for healing (Matthew 9:1-8), the common assumption was that the paralytic was suffering punishment for some sin he had committed.<\/p>\n<p>Now, elsewhere in Scripture, commenting on the case of a man born blind, Jesus made it very clear that sickness is not always a consequence of personal sin (John 9:1-6). But in the case of this paralytic, Jesus was equally clear that this man\u2019s sin was indeed the root cause of his infirmity. In fact, the miraculous healing he received was proof that Christ, as God incarnate, had forgiven the man\u2019s sins! (See Matthew 9:6-7.)<\/p>\n<p>So, is a man sick because he sins, or is physical sickness independent of spiritual and moral cause? The answer appears to be \u201cYes, both circumstances can be true.\u201d In the case of the healed paralytic, though, it was his sin that caused his suffering\u2014and Christ\u2019s generous forgiveness which redeemed both the man\u2019s body and soul.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[RBD, 301; PC15, 360]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mysterious relationship between sin and sickness is a question that\u2019s brewed for hundreds of generations. Is a man sick because he sins, or is physical sickness independent of spiritual and moral cause? Ancient Judaic thought had settled on the assumption that every sickness was punishment for some kind of sin, thus no healing could&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[94,16,232],"class_list":["post-553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culturalcommentary","category-matthew","tag-healing","tag-jesus","tag-sickness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The mysterious relationship between sin and sickness is a question that\u2019s brewed for hundreds of generations. Is a man sick because he sins, or is physical sickness independent of spiritual and moral cause? Ancient Judaic thought had settled on the assumption that every sickness was punishment for some kind of sin, thus no healing could&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-26T12:00:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-10T22:29:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"The mysterious relationship between sin and sickness is a question that\u2019s brewed for hundreds of generations. Is a man sick because he sins, or is physical sickness independent of spiritual and moral cause? Ancient Judaic thought had settled on the assumption that every sickness was punishment for some kind of sin, thus no healing could&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-01-26T12:00:50+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-01-10T22:29:51+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html","name":"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-01-26T12:00:50+00:00","dateModified":"2015-01-10T22:29:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/01\/matthew-91-8-jesus-heals-a-paralytic-cultural-commentary.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 9:1-8; Jesus Heals a Paralytic (Cultural Commentary)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}