I am finally going to leave the dark ages of writing checks, stamping and putting a return label on an envelope.  I am going to do my banking on line.  I think I must be the last living dinosaur.  I tried to set it up myself.  That was amusing.  All I did was prove that I couldn't get it done.  I have three people lined up to help me.  I'll take the first person I can get.  Big step for me.  I've been reluctant to do this with all the hacking going on.

My music director, (Jerry Miller) who is also the director at teacher's meeting, just finished leading the music at a revival.  He came back with something he learned and shared it with me.  Something that he said he had never thought of.  It turns out that I hadn't either.

We know the stories in the New Testament about Jesus' miracles.  And remember that when he preformed a miracle among the Jews--who were trying to trap and kill him--he would tell the person who was healed not to tell anyone about it--about what he, Jesus, had done.  Because he didn't want to arouse any more irritation among the Pharisees or the priests--those who were plotting to kill him for heresy.  Healing the sick wasn't the thing he came for--he still had a much greater mission to preform.  He was on his way to the cross to die for our sins.  

But when Jesus cast the demons out of the man who was possessed, (and cast the demons into a bunch of pigs), Jesus told the man who was cured to go home and tell everyone what he, Jesus, had done, and what had happened.  (That the man was free from demons.)  Of course, his friends and family would know immediately something had happened since the man had been crazed and cast out of town years before and forced to live in a graveyard.

The question is:  Why did Jesus tell that man that he should go and tell about Jesus, and not the others?  What my director said was maybe it was because the man possessed with a demon was a Gentile.  And this was a way for Gentiles to learn the good news that Jesus--the Jewish Messiah--had come to save everyone.  Not just the Jews.  The good news of salvation is for all of us.  Jesus had no fear of the Gentiles doing him harm.  I had never put that together or thought about why Jesus told that particular man to go and tell his friends.

As for the man who owned the pigs which ran over a cliff?  I'm sure he wasn't very happy.