Mark - Lesson 8...Continued from page 1

DAY TWO:  A Begging, Suffering Woman

Please carefully read Mark 5:25-29 and answer the following questions.

1.  Jesus set out with Jairus, a great crowd thronging around Him as usual.  Who sneaked her way into the crowd, and what was her story (v. 25, 26)?

NOTE: Medicine in Jesus’ day was needless to say primitive.  This woman suffered from not just her affliction but from the treatments of the day.[v]   Interestingly, Luke the beloved physician left out this little detail in his account of the same incident!

2.  What tremendously risky thing did she do, and why (v. 27, 28)?

NOTE: The nlt states that she touched the fringe of His garment.  We’ll look at why this is vital to understand tomorrow.  The tense of the phrase in verse 28 means that she kept saying this to herself as she pressed her way through the crowd.

3.  What wonderful thing happened when she did touch the fringe of His garment, or prayer shawl (v. 29)?

4.  We can’t know what led this woman who had suffered so to believe that she would be healed by Jesus like this; possibly there was a notion held by some that a healer had power in his clothing, so she reached out to Jesus by faith.[vi]  Her healing, like all of Jesus’ miracles, was instant, complete, total and undeniable.[vii]  The Greek word used here for affliction literally meant a scourge or whip, a repeated and torturous condition.  She took her affliction to the right place, though:  “It was indeed a sad tale of hopeless despair.  Now, bleeding, broken, and bankrupt, she turned to Jesus.”[viii] How do the following passages comfort us in facing our own trials and afflictions?

Exodus 4:31

Psalm 22:22-24; 119:50, 92

Isaiah 63:9

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Scripture Memory:  Try to fill in the missing words in the blanks below, by memory if at all possible, and then review the passage several times today.

“Don't be ____________________. Just trust me.”  Mark 5: 36c (nlt)