Message from Scripture: 1/7/2021

Our message from Scripture today comes from Luke 5:31-32. “And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’"

Have you read all the information found in medicine products, about their contents?  Pharmaceutical companies are required to provide specific listings about these products. Sometimes they list what they call the therapeutic benefits. Interestingly, the word therapeutic comes from the Greek language, and is used by the writers of the New Testament. The Greek term for therapeutic originally meant to serve. Later, however, doctors who offered service in healing the sick became known by this term.  It eventually took on the meaning, "to care for the sick, to treat medically, to cure."

The New Testament writers used the word in the sense of healing, but never in the sense of typical, medical cures. The term is always used about Jesus, and the true healing He performed by the power of God.  For example, a woman had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and “though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her” (Luke 8:43).  The therapeutic power of the Lord, however, caused her to be healed “immediately” (8:47).  When those who were sick with various kinds of diseases were brought to Him, He cured them (Luke 4:40).  As the Son of God, Jesus could provide completely for the needs of those about Him.

No matter the disorder, there is no greater disease than sin, and no other cure than Jesus. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Luke 5:31).  Jesus is the great physician to those who believe and obey (Heb. 5:9).  The world may offer its remedies, but, like the woman with the hemorrhage, it just makes matters worse.  Only the blood of Christ can rid us of sin.  Let's rejoice in the salvation we have in Christ, and resolve to make known to a sin-sick world the therapeutic benefit of the gospel, eternal life. God bless.

Robert