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In this story, we have a demon-possessed Gadarene who saw Jesus from a distance, and immediately he appeared to have felt a strong compulsion to run up to Jesus and bow down before him. This supposition would be further confirmed, if the evening when Jesus embarked was what the Jews were wont to call the first evening, that is, the time when the sun was declining in the heaven, but before it had actually set, the latter time being the second evening. For it seems most unlikely that multitudes would have resorted to Jesus at Capernaum after the second evening, or that either the disciples or other boats would have put to sea after nightfall. Jesus asked some crazy questions like "Why are you afraid?" And, yes, Dana did just read us something about a man possessed by a whole bunch of demons that later go and possess a bunch of hogs. Do roots of these polynomials approach the negative of the Euler-Mascheroni constant? July 2022 Why would Jesus ask, "Who touched Me?" 112 Skeptics and liberals have made much of the differences between the Gospel writers as to the place Jesus landed with His disciples. Mark 9:17-29). Read the Scripture: Mark 4:35 - 5:20. (3) Our Lord was moved with compassion by the torment of Legion and the loss of these pigs should in no way dim our view of the deliverance of the demoniac. The reply Legion118 may be some kind of evasion, a reluctance on the part of the demons to individually identify themselves. How to show that an expression of a finite type must be one of the finitely many possible values? Anonymous, October 25 2014 Is it a bug? 4. Bill Maher says he's scared of former President Trump "on a very personal level" and "what he would do" to the comedian if he were to win the 2024 White House race. Fallen people reject God not because they do not know His power. ), you also need to understand the significance of this - to the people in Gerasene. October 2022 5. It is even possible that his request was to become one of our Lords disciples.125. 7. That is why he was living in the solitude of the tombs, away from civilization. Demonized individuals are not to be viewed so much as a pigeon hole category, as they are a continuem. The religious rulers hated Jesus for exposing their hypocrisy and feared the consequences His actions might have with Rome, but they were not afraid of Jesus as a Person. 116 As Lane observes this title Son of the Most High God, is not a messianic designation but a divine one. Lane, Mark, p. 133, cf. Such was the case with this man (cf. This incident in the Gerasenes requires some entry understanding. . when He was the only One Who truly knew what had happened. October 2021 Why did the demons ask to be cast into the herd of pigs, and why did the pigs then run into the water to be drowned? We dismiss it the more readily, that, in our view, it conveys a wrong impression. It was greatly influenced by Greek culture.126. Matthew 9:2-8 Why was "This man is blaspheming" considered an evil thought without knowing Jesus' identity? Embedded into both stories are people who were afraid of Jesus. Therefore, Jesus Christ for demons is God and thus even demons inadvertently reveal themselves as being better theologians than Arians and their modern day heirs - Jehovawitnesians and all different breeds of Unitarians - their name being legion! (3) Spiritual insight. Gadara is about six miles from the sea. But from all of the Gospel accounts, I get the distinct impression that this mans eyes were riveted on Jesus. xii. of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were So he got into the boat and left. He obviously attracted crowds. September 2018 Now' as to the pigs (an unclean animal, so you know Jesus wasnt in Israel! 13; Luke iv. Such must have been the response of those with our Lord. Here is one of the few times that a miracle drove people away, rather than to draw them to Jesus. Fear that you would not be in control? HELPING CHRISTIANS BUILD POSITIVE, GODLY FAMILIES, CHURCHES, AND NATIONS, Follow us on social media for daily Scripture comments and more at. verse 5). December 2014 The Gospels use different names for the place where this occurred: This is supposedly a contradiction. Gerasa is (as we know) some 30-35 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee, but may have also been the name of the larger region. For some people, the cost is too high. The lectionary reading for Trinity 1, Year C, is Luke's version of Jesus meeting and healing the demon-possessed man in the 'region of the Gerasenes' (Luke 8.26-39). If Jesus had that kind of power, then He could not be controlled. This name (Strong's #G3003) is a reference to a Roman military regiment that varied in soldier strength from 4,000 to 6,000. How much more sinful than Peter were the Geraseneans, who because of love of money did not shun even to engage in a non-Jew business of herding swine; how much more unbearable and dreadful must have been for them the Lords presence! The difference between the phonemes /p/ and /b/ in Japanese, Is there a solutiuon to add special characters from software and how to do it. 4, p. 102. Gergesa, also Gergasa ( in Byzantine greek) or the Country of the Gergesenes, is a place on the eastern ( Golan Heights) side of the Sea of Galilee located at some distance to the ancient Decapolis cities of Gadara and Gerasa. He shivered at the disturbing memory. In that case, of course, it would be in the early morning that the Gerasenes afterwards resorted to Jesus and that He again returned to Capernaum. Acts 19:16). Demons are highly organized (cf. monetization of National Catholic Register RSS feeds is strictly prohibited. They were not looked upon as necessarily evil in all cases. 9. Christians are to be a "safe" people - an expression of that love of God so people who do not know Him can be drawn to the Truth. Sometime after the Lord Jesus miraculously calmed the storm, the ship landed, perhaps late in the evening,111 on the other side of the lake in the country of the Gerasenes.112 If, indeed, it was late at night, the scene must have been an eerie one, with the nerves of the disciples already worn thin by the terrifying experience of the storm. He did not appear to rush upon the small group of men to attack them (as he would normally have done), but rather to plead with Jesus. The sons of god ended up becoming the gods of these nations. Others are absolutely controlled (hooked) by the drug and totally dependent upon it. or by some form of self-emptying (such as various forms of eastern meditation) in my opinion, they are in a precarious position. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. Earles comments are helpful: The difference in names for the destination on the east side of the take has caused considerable comment. It is in no way certain, however, that the pig raisers were Jews. Commentator R. C. H. Lenski states: The distance of these cities from the lake is immaterial for the narrative since this deals with the region that is near the lake and not with the vicinity of either of the cities to the lake.. Neither is it only a kind of physical disease, although spiritual and physical disease often accompany it (e.g. But the city of Gadara owned some territory round about Khersa, so that the district and the pigs could properly also be called Gadarene. F. F. Bruce, Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? February 2022 April 2021 184-185. But then also Christ will triumph, and finally put an end to the evil one and all his powers of darkness (Rev. The time of this event was before Jesus' crucifixion, and before the gentiles were grafted in to the promise (Acts 10). Lets face it, we all like to be in control. Where it falls apart for me is why the Bellonas, knowing that only one person is allowed to survive each duel, take the defeat so personally. Will they be condemned like unclean animals? Instead, they reject Him because all they know is His power and purity. When the townspeople arrived on the scene, they saw the formerly demon-possessed men, clothed, in their right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Spam. The country of the Gadarenes (Gergesenes) is one of the few areas Jesus visited where Gentiles (non-Jews) composed the majority of the population. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 991. 35Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. xx. (6) Tendency towards self-destruction. May 2017 The account occurs in all three Synoptic gospels; in Mark (the shortest gospel) the story is in the longest and most detailed version; Matthew 8.28-34 is the shortest, The Gadarenes was the place where Jesus confronted a man whose possession by demons gave him a level of superhuman strength like Samson (Mark 5:3 - 5, Luke 8:27). This city was better known than Gadara or Gergesa; indeed in the Roman age no city of Palestine was better known. Why did Jesus allow the legion of demons to stay in the area when they begged him? "They sailed to the country of the Gerasenes which is opposite Galilee. and our And Jesus, being a Gentleman, was not about to force Himself on them. I understand why," the HBO "Real Time" host told Jake Tapper on Tuesday as part . Wikipedia states about it: In the second half of the 1st century AD, the city of Jerash achieved great prosperity.. One is that he was a fascinating man. "The trains were . While the Jews had not denied the works of Jesus were supernatural, they had declined to admit they established His deity. Luke 8 As always, we must begin with the principle: Interpretation is one, application is many. 3 When the centurion 2 heard about Jesus, c he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his . First of all, I believe Mark was attempting to warn his Gentile readers of the great danger of demonic influence and activity. It is now called Jerash and is a deserted ruin. 124 Augustine: The devils were driven out and permitted to go into the swine; and Aquinas: But that the swine were driven into the sea was no work of the divine miracle, but was the work of the devils by divine permission. Quoted by Trench, Miracles, fn. 13ff.). The people who witnessed this are . and 1 Kings xxii. If they dare to open up their lives to Jesus what will happen? Oh Hye-son recently published a Korean-language memoir on how she and her husband Thae Yong-ho, then deputy ambassador at North Korea's London embassy, defected in 2016. This suggests that whoever was the customer for the swineherder in the "region of the Gerasenes", it was not the Roman army to any significant extent. Thus, it is not always used of one specific country (nation), but rather, usually to regions or areas of either small (Bethlehem) or large (Judaea and Samaria) size, including regions surrounding large cities. "Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear." (Luke 8:37a) Fear plagues us. August 2017 Jesus deserves the benefit of the doubt even when we don't have all the facts. November 2020 print and digital media outlets, dedicated to reporting the truth in light of the Gospel and the Satans most effective tool is not the demoniac wandering about the desolate places. A friend of mine told me later that two students were attempting to cast a demon out of a fellow. 122 Quoted by Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to Saint Luke, (Edinburg: T. and T. Clark, 5th ed., 1969): p. 228. January 2021 Where did the demons go after they went into the pigs and caused them to jump to their death. 2ff., xvv. The swine then immediately killed themselves by rushing off a cliff. Those who have witnessed demon possession tell us that each demon has its own distinct personality and that the individual possessed begins to manifest the distinct personality of the demon by which he is possessed. art thou come hither to torment us before the time? January 2016 115 While Mark and Luke describe only one demoniac, Matthew informs us that there were two. Many New Testament manuscripts refer to the "Country of the Gadarenes" or "Gerasenes" rather than the Gergesenes. The passage in Daniel especially suggests specific geographical boundaries within which spirit beings must abide. Until we decide on a new comic, you'll likely see a gray box where "Dilbert" had appeared. From this it is clear that demon-possession is a phenomenon which occurred almost exclusively, but then to be sure on an amazing scale, during Jesus appearance on earth and to a lesser extent during the activity of the apostles. The destructive desires of the demons were dramatically carried out in the drowning of the swine. So much pain, so much sin. First let us see what the Sacred Texts says: The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. It was significant. It is very appropriate that these two incidents . We should know from other Scriptures that our present spiritual experience is one of spiritual warfare. Sign-up for E-NewsletterGet Register Updates sent daily or weeklyto your inbox. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1991. That is not the choice at all. When Jesus asked his name the man answered, Legion, for we are many (Mark 5:9). 22, xvii. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Far from this, He had stormed the gates of Hell and prevailed. But as Gergesa was a small village, and little known, the evangelists, who wrote for more distant readers, spoke of the event as taking place in the country of the Gadarenes, so named from its largest city, Gadara; and this country included the country of the Gergesenes as a state includes a county.