KJB: Matthew; Chapters 9 & 10

Reading Chapters 9 and 10 of Matthew made me realize the different relationships that Jesus had with humanity vs. God’s relationship with humanity. What sprouted this thought was, “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew; 9:36).

The “scattered abroad” bit takes me back to the story of Noah, when God scattered humans across the world and made it so that there were many languages instead of just one. Jesus’ compassion for humanity being scattered surprises me because it indicates that Jesus’ feels sorry for their condition, while God believed it was the right thing to do and did not have compassion.

Furthermore, in Chapter 10 Jesus even goes on to give his twelve disciples, “power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease” (10:1). This is extremely shocking to me because before Jesus, God never directly gave anyone this kind of power. God guided and advised but maintained his power.

Jesus himself is the first example of God creating someone with godly powers and a godly purpose. And Jesus, this godly person, is now capable of giving his disciples power.

All of this makes me wonder if Jesus’ purpose is to do everything that God couldn’t do himself. If Jesus’s purpose is to forgive, heal, and empower human beings in ways that God failed to do in the other stories of the KJB.

God failed to forgive and empower Adam and Eve and eventually ended up wiping the Earth clean of almost all humans in order to create a race of people like Noah, who were good and not evil. This was not successful as Jesus commands his disciples to: “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.”

God even failed to rid Earth of evil. But maybe Jesus’ is God’s second chance, the channel through which he himself will forgive, heal, and empower the human race.