Mark 7: 31-37 Exegesis

In Mark 7:31-37, Mark introduces another miraculous healing. In the beginning of the story, Jesus travels to Decapolis, and a group of people brought a deaf mute to Jesus. They begged Jesus to heal the deaf mute, so Jesus took the deaf mute aside from the crowd. He, then, put His fingers into the deaf mute’s ears and spat and touched his tongue. After Jesus uttered “Ephphatha,” the deaf mute was now able to hear and speak correctly. The crowd were astonished and acclaimed, “He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.” Prior to this story, Jesus was having a conversation with the Pharisees. The Pharisees saw Jesus was eating with disciples “with hand defiled, that is, unwashed” (The Bible, Mark 7:1-23). The Pharisees believed Jesus was rejecting the commandment of God as found in the Old Testament. Jesus does not agree saying that “nothing outside a man…

This charge to keep his healing a secret was a common theme in the book of Mark. The theme, called The Messianic Secret, refers to the motif in which Jesus is portrayed telling his disciples to keep quiet about his Messianic mission throughout the book of Mark. This motif causes a lot of criticism according to Donahue. Why would Jesus repeatedly tell people to tell no one of their encounters with Jesus? According to Donahue, “the more Jesus commands silence, the more… people speak out and are… awestruck.” The Messianic Secret caused many controversies to whether or not “Jesus is a powerful Son of God.” People would begin to ask “what kind of Son he is and when and how He can be proclaimed as such?” If He came to save the lost souls, why would he keep his mission a secret? What was his purpose? To me, I believed that Jesus wanted to keep his identity a secret, so people can truly believe in Him. Jesus doesn’t want them to see and believe; he wants them to believe and see. He wants the people to put their faith in