I am
the type of person that looks for patterns in everything. I see pictures in the clouds
(“Ooh, that looks
like a monkey in a top hat”) and I often see faces in trees. It should be no surprise,
then, that when I
approach the Bible, I look for patterns.
One
of
the benefits of looking for scriptural patterns is that it allows
us to learn
from passages that we would overlook otherwise.
Mark 1:29-31 is a good example.
It says, “As soon as they left the synagogue, they went
with James and
John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in
bed with a
fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to
her, took her
hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait
on them”. It would be
easy to read this passage and
never really think about it, but there is a pattern contained
within it that we
must understand.
The
first thing to notice is that wherever Jesus goes, he brings
healing. In this case, it
was a physical healing. In
other cases, it was a spiritual healing
from things like demon possession, guilt, fear and, ultimately,
sin. This should not
surprise us as Jesus himself
said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me
to proclaim
good news to the poor. He
has sent me to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the
blind, to set
the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”
(Luke
4:18-19). Where Jesus is,
healing takes
place.
The
second pattern to notice is that we are healed so that we can
serve. Immediately after
being made well, Peter’s
mother-in-law starts helping others.
We
are not saved to sit. We
are not made to
be consumers. Those who
have been saved
are to help save others. When
we miss
this part of the pattern, the church becomes selfish, weak and,
eventually,
useless.
One
must be careful with “pattern theology”.
Not every example is worth following.
However, when you see a pattern starting to form, it is
time to pay
attention. Like Jesus, we
can bring
healing by making things better wherever we go and like Peter’s
mother-in-law we
can knowledge our blessings by blessing others.
That
is
a pattern worth repeating.
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