Matthew 8:1-17

8:2-4 | The first miracle Matthew records is Jesus’ healing of a man with leprosy (Mark 1:40; Luke 5:12). Any Jew who touched a leper was declared ceremonially unclean and unfit to worship with the congregation of Israel (Lev. 13:45). But Jesus’ touch indicated His authority over all disease, and the leper was immediately made whole. Jesus’ instruction to the healed leper that he tell no one what had happened to him is the first of many such instructions in the Gospels.

8:5-10 | Unlike Luke’s account of this event (Luke 7:1-10), Matthew’s does not mention the Jewish intermediaries the centurion sent on his behalf. By helping a Roman officer, Jesus was modeling what He had taught in His sermon about how to treat one’s enemies (5:38-48).

8:11-12 | Jesus took the opportunity of the centurion’s faith to announce that Gentiles from all over the world would one day sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the three Jewish patriarchs – clearly tying these healings to the literal kingdom of heaven. Many sons of the kingdom (Jew by birth) would end up in outer darkness because they had never truly converted to faith in Christ (Isa. 25:6-9; Mal. 1:11; Luke 13:28-29).

8:14-15 | When Jesus found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with a fever, He touched her. This also was a violation of Jewish tradition which viewed the fever as a symptom of some deeper spiritual condition.