1. The Greek literally reads, "those from His own hometown."
2. "Beelzebub" means, "Lord of those that flit" or "dart," such as a fly. Thus, it can be translated, "Lord of the Flies." It could be understood that this is analogous to saying that he is lord of flying demons or evil spirits, but it is more likely that it is simply a derogatory way of describing him as lord of something disdained.
3. Matthew puts a very similar account of Jesus healing a deaf and dumb man in 9:32-34.
4. The word used here in the original language is actually a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew word satan, which in both languages literally means "enemy" or "adversary."
5. To slander (which comes from the Greek word blaspheme) also has the meaning of "to not recognize someone’s authority or worth." And in this case, it is with them not recognizing God’s authority, something that has them, in essence, setting themselves up as if they had the qualities of God.
This is what the Pharisees were doing at this point. They were not receiving God for who He is (Jesus in the flesh, and the works of the Holy Spirit through Him), but they wanted to justify themselves, rather than excepting God’s grace and forgiveness for their sins. They believed they were righteous within themselves. They were self-righteous.
There is a consequence, however. If you reject God’s provision for the forgiveness of your sins, you are in actuality asking to pay for them yourself, which is an impossible task by far. That is, unless you think spending eternity being tormented in Hell is not such a bad idea. For that is what you will do if you reject the work of the Holy Spirit and, thus, never become born from above.
For if a person has not been born from above (of which you cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3), that person cannot be sanctified or regenerated.
If this is the case, a person is, therefore, left "bound by sin eternally." "Bound by sin eternally" meaning that you never have the Holy Spirit removing sin from your life. (And the Holy Spirit removing sin from a person's life is one of the evidences of being a true born-from-above believer.)
Another point to keep in mind is that we are saved by the regeneration and sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and not by Jesus' death on the cross alone (Romans 5:9). That is to say, His death on the cross does justify us and, consequently, reconciles us to God. But this only enables us to be born from above (Romans 5:10). The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is what saves us from the power of sin in our lives. Being born from above is the avenue by which we are then conformed into the image of our new nature, a task within which we are then responsible to be renewed of the mind by reading and applying God’s word to our lives (Romans 12:2).
This whole package: Jesus dying for our sins to reconcile us to God, which enables His Holy Spirit to then begin to live in us, through which the old man of sin is done away with, so that we can now live a life free from the bondage of sin – this is the avenue by which we are saved. The narrow road, if you will.
To blaspheme is to either apply God’s attributes to a man (or men collectively). The attribute of being without sin. Or it is attributing our condition of being sinful (which all men are) to God. These things are both blasphemous.
7. When it comes to understanding Jesus’ resurrection, it is important to note the sequence He gives here with the analogy of Jonah. Jesus says that He will be in the "belly of the earth" for three days (beginning with a day) and three nights (ending with a night). And Not only is the sequence important, but also the amount of each – days and nights. There are three of each. (Also, see endnotes 7:52 and 14:1.)
8. Luke 11:33-36 is relocated to 3:115 of this publication. See endnote 3:64 for the explanation.
9. I noticed a very interesting thing while I was piecing this portion together. And that is right after John the Baptist pointed Jesus out as the Lamb of God (about a week or two later), Jesus went up to Jerusalem to cast out the moneychangers and, consequently, gets a lot of attention. After that, He then went around Jerusalem healing people and doing signs. Then He went back down to Galilee where He went around that area performing miracles until large crowds of people had followed Him. This is the point when He then went up on to a hillside and taught "The Sermon on the Mount" – teaching the word of God outright.
Shortly after that, when the people responded in unbelief – something that eventually happens with His own family coming to Him and saying, "He is out of His mind (Mark 3:20)" – He then began to speak to the crowds in parables. Hearing this, His disciples then became perplexed at His change in technique and asked Him, "why do you speak to them in parables?" a question He answers with, "So that they will be ever seeing but never see (Matthew 13:10-13)." He was pointing out the reason some could not understand.
This also seems to be the catalyst, much later, at the end of His ministry, for His disciple Judas (not Iscariot) to then asks Him, "Lord, what then has happened [now] that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world (John 14:22, NASB)?" (See endnote 4:13.)
11. When we think of Jesus' disciples, we most likely think of "the twelve." However, when the Gospels use this term "disciples," it is referring to all those who followed Him. That could be a different amount at any given time.
12. Or, "Is a lamp ever brought and put into hiding?"
13. Many times, after finishing a public teaching, Jesus would end by saying, "Whoever has an ear let them hear." However, this time, it seems to be more of an instruction to His disciples on the kind of attitude they should have towards teaching people God’s word. This seems to be the case because Jesus has just begun to speak in parables, and the disciples could have gotten the idea that He was now changing his approach – that He was speaking in parables, or a type of code, so that only a special elite would know what He is teaching. That is why He now tells the disciples that their teaching of doctrine should be in the open (K 4:221-23, L 8:16-17). (That is besides the fact that when things are done in secret, there is a form of deception involved.)
It is not our call to determine who is saved and who is not. And it is not our call to decide who is worthy to hear the truth and who is not.
Jesus was not teaching in a secret code, telling things that have been hidden since the foundations of the world (Psalms 78:2).
Teaching parables – contrary to popular belief – is not used to conceal things. A parable is something a teacher would use by taking something very familiar to throw it alongside the truth he wants to teach – to better illustrate it to the hearer. (See endnote 3:67.)
It was not that Jesus was saying things that could not be understood; it was because of the people’s hardness of their hearts that they could not understand what He was saying (Matthew 13:14-15). This is why He now tells His disciples, "Anyone who has an ear, let him hear."
14. At this point there is a very peculiar situation. The Gospels inform us that Jesus had spoken a series of parables to the disciples at large, and then He later explains them to the twelve when they were alone with Him.
However, at the point, where Jesus is speaking the parables, the Gospels only give us two of them: the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares – the two larger parables of the group.
The Gospel writers reserved telling us the other parables for when Jesus explains them to His disciples when they are alone. This is signified by the general concluding phrase at the point when we are informed of the two larger parables. The concluding phrase is, "So Jesus said all these things to the people in parables, and with a lot of parables like this He spoke the word to them, but only as they were able to hear it. (M 13:34, K 4:33)."
And we are given the three introductory phrases connected to the displaced smaller parables when He was alone with the twelve, explaining the meanings of all the parables. They are:
"He presented another parable to them, saying . . . (M 13:24a)."
"He presented another parable to them, saying . . . (M 13:31a)."
"He spoke another parable to them . . . (M 13:33a)."
These introductory sentences indicating that the parables in reference had been spoken at an earlier point.
To keep the text from sounding redundant, however, these three introductions are summarized with the phrase, "The other parables He had set before them were . . ."
15. To give some clarity, Matthew 13:24-30 has an amplified translation.
18. Jesus spoke this same parable, except in slightly different words, in Luke 13:18-21. It is very likely that Jesus had said several things more than once throughout His ministry.
20. Or, ". . . until the whole batch was leavened."
21. The Greek plainly says, "the house." Context, however, shows that it was, in fact, Peter’s house.
22. Or "Devil." "Enemy" is the meaning of the word Satan (satanas), and "accuser" is the meaning of the word devil (diabolos).
The words "the Accuser" is a translation rather than a transliteration of the Greek word "devil." It comes from the Greek word (diabolos), which is made up of two words, dia, which means "through," and ballo, which means "to throw (and gives us our word "ball.")" It literally means "through throwing." It is a type of figure of speech to refer to throwing accusations. We could also look at it as being translated as "throwing dirt" at someone in a figurative way, meaning throwing trash on his reputation or character.
23. The Greek could also be translated, "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
25. Luke only says that it was "on a certain day" because he was not sure of the specific day. Mark, however, knows that it was ". . . on that same day."
26. The Greek literally says, ". . . nowhere to lay His head."
27. The Greek just says, "they."
28. If you follow the circumstances leading up to this event, you can see that it was not until shortly before this point that Jesus could not get rest from the crowds. And it wasn’t until now that the Gospels start to say how the crowds were getting too big. In fact, now it says that the crowds were so big that they could not even eat (Mark 3:20). For further explanation, see the preface.
29. Matthew says "Lord," Mark says "teacher," and Luke says "Chief" in the Greek.
30. Whenever the gospels describe the disciples interacting or reacting to something Jesus said or did, it always identifies them as, "the disciples" or "the apostles" or "the twelve." But here, interestingly enough, it says that it were "the men" who reacted to Jesus.
With that in mind, due to the discovery of what is called the Jesus-boat (a 2000 year old boat discovered sunk in the mud when the sea of Galilee drastically receded one year), we know that some of the boats in that day were rather large. And for twelve disciples to fit into one, and since they had left their boats to follow Him (Luke 5:11), it is quite possible that they rented a type of limousine-boat to travel across the lake at this point, a boat that would have several men that came with it to work the controls. This could be why it says, "the men marveled." "The men" being different men than the twelve.
31. Also known as modern-day Kursi on the east- side of the Sea of Galilee. (See map.)
32. Matthew says there were two demon-possessed men who came up to Him at this point, but the other Gospels have chosen to focus only on one of the two men. Therefore, the words "more specifically" are added to begin the next paragraph and to change the focus to one man.
33. The Greek literally reads, "who|to me|and|to you (ti emoi dai soi)?" and it is most commonly translated (also correctly) as "what do I have to do with you?" – the demon speaking.
34. The Greek literally reads: "I beg|you,|the|God,|not|me|to torment (orkizose ton teon mea me basaniseas)."
35. The words here translated as ". . . describing the whole incident with the demon-possessed men," in the original language, literally reads, "announcing|everything|and|the [things]|of the|demon-possessed ones (apeangeilan panta kai toan daimonizomenoan)."
36. It seems that Jesus could use this man more effectively with him going back and being a testimony to the people who knew him and his previous condition.
37. Decapolis was a region on the eastside of the lake of Galilee, which incorporated ten cities. This name comes from the two Greek words: deca, meaning "ten;" and polis, meaning "cities."
38. Capernaum comes from two Hebrew words, Kofer, meaning "village," and Nahum, the Hebrew male name Nahum, meaning "compassion." Therefore, Capernaum is a Hebrew phrase meaning "village of compassion." Isn’t that interesting?
Related to that, there is a very fascinating correlation between the meanings of the names of the towns in the Gospels and the events that happened in them. For example, Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:48), is born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1), translated as the "house of bread," His ministry, where He healed and had compassion on many is centered in the village of Capernaum (Matthew 4:13), meaning "village of compassion," His disciples Peter and Andrew (as well as, at least, Philip) who He called to be fisher of men (Mark 1:17) are from "the house of fish (Bethsaida, John 1:44)," Jesus was falsely arrested in the Olive Press (Gethsemane), and He provided peace for the world (Colossians 1:20) by being crucified in the city of peace (Jerusalem).
39. These parables have popularly been touted by some to be describing what they think is the "staleness of the Old Testament" and the grandness of the New. However, when the context is used to determine what these parables are referring to, there is nothing further from the truth.
Just prior to these parables we see the catalyst for Jesus saying them. The Pharisees had come to Jesus and asked Him why His disciples were not fasting. Jesus responds with the statement that the friends of the bridegroom do not fast while the bridegroom is still with them. That would be ridiculous!
And to prove how ridiculous it is, and that the Pharisees even understand this in their daily lives, he gives some parables. He informs us that to think that His disciples should fast while He is still with them is as as ridiculous as a person putting new wine in an old wineskin – that would break the old wineskin. And it is ridiculous as putting old material onto a new piece of cloth – that would tear the cloth. In essence, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, "Your logic is unrealistic – as unrealistic as putting new wine into old wine skins!"
The idea of a supposed Old versus the New with regards to the Covenants of God is nowhere to be found in the context of this passage. If you were to say, "OK, Jesus IS the New Covenant," and, therefore, this principles is in the context, you need to remember one thing. Jesus says that they cannot fast because He is with them, but He also says that they will fast again when He is taken away from them. Is He, therefore, teaching that the New Covenant will be taken away again. Certainly not!
40. This whole verse is an amplified translation of the Greek. It is amplified for clarification.
41. "She was twelve years old . . . " is a detail from Mark 5:42b, which is then replaced here to aid the reader in comprehending the contextual meaning.
42. When Jairus first comes to Jesus to make his request concerning his daughter, Matthew says that his daughter had just died, Mark uses a strange set of Greek words (esxatow exei), and it literally reads, "last having." And they can be interpreted that she was dead or that she was having her end. Luke says she was dying. (He used the active, indicative voice).
The difference between the accounts of Matthew and Mark with Luke is that Luke is writing it from the third-person’s perspective, while Matthew and Mark from the first-person. Another way to think of it is that Luke was explaining that Jarius had come while his daughter was in the dying process, while Matthew and Mark give the actual words Jarius spoke, which would be that she was dead.
There is no contradiction – just different perspectives and a use of Greek words that may seem strange to the modern reader.
43. Matthew 9:18a ended up being the biggest obstacle in this entire project. Or, rather, my preconceived conclusion was the biggest obstacle in placing the calling of Matthew in its correct chronology because of Matthew 9:18a.
It is clear in all three Gospels that Matthew the Tax Collector was called to follow Jesus right after Jesus had healed the paraplegic that was lowered down by his friends through the roof of Peter’s house, which was an incident that happened relatively early in Jesus’ ministry (see Mark 2:13-14 and Luke 5:27). But the problem Matthew 9:18a presented was that right after the calling of Matthew, Jesus has His interaction with raising Jarius’ daughter (him being the synagogue’s ruler) to life and the woman with the 12 year flow of blood. And the accounts of the girl and the woman are inextricably connected with the passage in Matthew when Jesus was questioned about why He and His disciples did not fast.
This inquiry about fasting is placed by Matthew, Mark, and Luke right after Matthew is called to follow Jesus. But Mark and Luke place the healing of the girl and the woman later in Jesus’ ministry. So now it wasn’t clear. Was Matthew called just after the healing of the paraplegic, an event that happened earlier in Jesus’ ministry, or was it just before the healing of the girl and the woman, an event that comes later in Jesus’ ministry, according to Mark and Luke?
Now on the surface it would look like Matthew’s chronology would be the obvious choice in being correct, and that he was actually called to follow Jesus just before the girl and the woman are healed, which happened after the Sermon on the Mount. But then we also have all three Gospels telling us that Matthew was called just after Jesus healed the paraplegic, which happened before the Sermon on the Mount. Which one is correct?
Well, given Matthew’s record for his lack of concern for chronological order – as we have discussed in the preface – or rather because of Mark’s and Luke’s record of accuracy, I quickly discarded Matthew’s placement of his calling to follow Jesus, and accepted Mark’s and Luke’s. All three of them, again, placing Matthew’s calling just after Jesus had healed the paraplegic.
That, however, created a conflict that I had decided I would iron out later, a conflict I figured was due to a mistranslation of the Greek phrase in Matthew 9:18a ("As He was saying this . . ."), which is inextricably connected with the inquiry about fasting that is just before it.
But when I did get around to translating it from the Greek – even in the Greek, it said that ". . . as He [Jesus] was saying this [about the fasting], Jairus came up to Jesus. . . ." Again, the account of Jarius’ daughter and the woman with the flow of blood had happened later in Jesus’ ministry than the healing of the paraplegic.
All this was making my brain short circuit; so, finally, I resolved to accept Matthew’s comment of ". . . as He was saying this, Jairus came up to Jesus . . ." as being an inaccurate assumption on Matthew’s part based on his record of disinterest in presenting a full chronology. (Please stay with me, there is a simple and very logical explanation.)
Later on, however, when I went to write this conclusion down as an endnote, having cut out the phrase of Matthew 9:18a with the intention of explaining why, I was stopped by integrity. For it had already been settled in the subtitle that this book would be "all conflicts resolved [and] with no details left out."
And so because of this, I could not allow this phrase in Matthew 9:18a to be discarded. That is when it became apparent to me that there was an uncanny similarity in the context surrounding both locations, even though one was placed in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the other much later on, chronologically.
Then I realized that I was focusing on the wrong points. I should not have been focusing on Matthew 9:18a at all, but, rather, on 9:14 – the inquiry made to Jesus about why He and His disciples were not fasting. For Mark and Luke do place this in the correct location (Mark 2:18 and Luke 5:33), but Matthew doesn’t. Matthew, however, does place it where he does for a specific reason.
Interesting enough, there is nothing in the wording that concretely links the inquiry about fasting with the calling of Matthew and his feast. Taking it from Matthew’s located and putting it back to Mark’s and Luke’s created no conflict with Matthew’s context, and doing this also resettled the phrase I had previously considered removing from before the girl and the woman account (specifically M 9:18a). The fasting inquiry account slipped back into Mark’s and Luke’s placement very naturally. It even seemed to add some action that was apparently missing for the text when it is not there.
In other words, as the chronology goes, dictated by the details given when all four gospels are put together, it says that Jesus was hanging out along the sea. But then it never proceeds to describe anything He had done or said while He was there (Mark 5:21 and Luke 8:40) – at least not until this portion, the portion of Jesus being questioned about His fasting habits, was placed where Mark and Luke originally had it, which is just before Jesus healed Jarius’ daughter and the woman with a flow of blood.
Matthew had relocated the events of the fasting inquiry and the girl and woman healed (two events that are inseparable from each other) to just after he is called to show the relationship the events of his calling and the inquiry have with each other. And that is why all three Gospels place this portion about the fasting right after Jesus and His disciples ate the feast Matthew had invited them to attend.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke wanted to point out the relationship of the two by deliberately placing one part out of chronological context so that it could be closer to its more distant relational context. That is, Matthew had placed the time Jesus was asked why His disciples did not fast (Mark and Luke indicating that it was the Pharisees who were behind this), right along with Jesus and His disciples eating a feast at Matthew the tax collectors house – the event that spawned this inquiry from the Pharisees that came later on in Jesus’ ministry. The inquiry, actually, happened after the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus heals the girl and the woman.
That is why all three Synoptic Gospels have no leading details to this inquiry about fasting that chronologically connects it to Matthew’s calling. They had pasted it out of chronological order, deliberately, to show its relationship to the feast Matthew threw for Jesus right after he was called, which inspired the inquiry by the Pharisees that came later. (Matthew displacing the inquiry and the girl and woman healed. Mark and Luke only displacing the fasting inquiry.)
It is as though the Pharisees were disturbed by the feast but they didn’t think of this fasting objection until later. And the Gospel writers are pointing out to us the relationship by displacing this inquiry about fasting so that it is connected to the event that spawned it – the calling of Matthew and his feast.
Conflict resolved!
The following chart will illustrate all this, but let me preface it with a little synopsis of the Chronology presented in the publication contrasted with those of the Synoptic Gospels.
At some point near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, just after Jesus heals the paraplegic, Jesus calls Matthew to follow Him. In response, Matthew invites Jesus to a feast. Because Jesus goes to the feast, it upsets the Pharisees and so they complain to Jesus about Him eating with "tax-collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:11)." Consequently, Jesus stops their objection with the comment that a sick person is the exact person who needs a doctor (Matthew 9:12). (By the way, I am certain that the Pharisees, for the most part, were not satisfied with this answer. They still wanted to find a complaint against Jesus, but they were having a hard time.)
From this point, Jesus continues His ministry of healing and at some point He sets-apart twelve of His disciples and then gives the Sermon on the Mount. After giving the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus then continues His ministry for some time. Then the Pharisees come again with a renewed hope in finding something against Jesus in complaining to Him about how He and His disciples do not fast. (This complaint being partly inspired by Jesus’ feasting at Matthew’s house earlier in His ministry.)
Jesus responds to their complaint with three parables explaining, basically, that having the friends of the bridegroom fasting while the bridegroom is still with them is as ridiculous as putting new wine into old wine-skins or putting a new un-shrunk piece of material as a patch onto an old piece of un-shrunk material.
Then Matthew’s Gospel unalterably links Jesus speaking these parables with the healing of the synagogue ruler’s daughter and the woman with a flow of blood (Matthew 9:18). (This is something Mark and Luke do not do. There is nothing in Mark or Luke’s Gospel to concretely link the fasting inquiry and these healings together chronologically.)
That, basically, is the sequence these events actually happened. But in order to make the reader understand this, Matthew, Mark, and Luke made some deliberate alterations. Matthew moves both the fasting inquiry and the healing of the girl and woman to just after the feast he threw for Jesus that inspired the Pharisees' reaction later on. Mark and Luke, likewise move the fasting inquiry to link it with the calling of Matthew and his feast, but they only move that incident, and not the healing of the girl and the woman. (The healing of the girl and the woman in Matthews Gospel not having any verbiage that concretely links it to the text that follows. In fact, it ends with the general statement, "And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages . . . (Matthew 9:27).")
44. If you were to picture a religious Jew – besides the conspicuous Yalmika – you would see an embroidered piece of cloth a little larger than a bath towel, with a fringe on each corner, draped on his back and over his shoulders, called a "Tallis" (the Hebrew word for "cloak").
Though that is what you will see today, it has not always been that way. In Jesus’ day, there were essentially four pieces of clothing: a loincloth (a cloth that was wrapped around and tucked into itself as a type of underwear), the main piece of garment, sandals, and then a cloak.
Now, though Israel is essentially a desert type area, it can, however, get pretty cold at night. Therefore, what the people did was carry with them a blanket-type piece of clothing, carrying it with them on their arms during the day and using it as a coat at night – this was a cloak.
As well, in obedience to Deuteronomy 22:12, the Jews had sown fringes onto the corners of this cloak, an act that consequently made this cloak, eventually, into a religious item for them.
Now, however, as it has been throughout all Jewish history, they have been the targets for some very atrocious hatred – both before and after Christ – because of their religious convictions according to scripture.
In response to this, at some point after Christ, having lost its original purpose, this cloak then became more of only a religious symbol. And, eventually, to keep it from becoming an antagonist to others, the Jews scaled down a version of this item to be worn under other clothing (specifically, a now-invented coat), so that it would not be seen as they were in transit to their gatherings. This is where the Jewish prayer shawl comes from.
(Also see endnote 2:28.)
45. The Greek word here is, in reality, the name Jacob. It is not clear why it is usually replaced with the name James in, literally, every translation out there.
It may be because of the King James Version of the Bible. It may be that when King James hired the counsel to translate the first delegated translation of the English Bible, He told them to use his name, James, in place of Jacob – to honor himself in some way. Either that or the translators decided on their own to honor King James in this manner.
46. This phrase "Talitha cumi" appears to be an Aramaic statement.
However, if you look this phrase up in some Bible dictionaries, you will see that they point out that "many manuscripts" say the Aramaic form "cum, " rather than the "Palestinian form" "cumi."
That creates a problem, though because there was no such thing as "Palestine" in those days. It was "Israel, the land of the Jews."
And why didn’t the dictionaries say "most manuscripts." As a result, there appears to be a bit of bias or, at least, faulty logic in presenting the information here.
47. The phrase, "she was twelve years old" has been moved from Mark 5:42b up to verse 86 of this book so that we can know her age from the beginning of the account.
48. When the text says, "the house" it usually means Peter’s house. However, on one or two occasions, when He was not staying in Capernaum (Peter’s town), it just means the house that He was regularly staying at in whichever town He happened to be in at any particular time during His ministry.
49. The statement, "two blind men" comes from Matthew 9:27. (Also, compare this with endnote 4:32.)
50. There are no specific details for this account that absolutely place it where it is, and designated Luke’s account as separate from Mark’s and Matthew’s concerning Jesus teaching at the synagogue of Nazareth. It is only based on the location Luke undoubtedly places it and the differences it has from the context and chronology where Matthew and Mark place it.
Matthew and Mark do, however, seem to indicate that theirs is, in fact, a separate account from Luke’s by the way it is worded throughout their texts. As well, there was just too much strain created when I tried to splice these three separate accounts of Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s into one.
Matthew and Mark’s went together very easily, but when I tried to then tie it in with Luke’s, it clearly caused conflict. The main conflict being that Luke’s account was located, as it is stated in John 4:54, before Jesus had even done His second sign.
There would not be a problem with that except that Mark 6:5 says that Jesus had done a few signs in Nazareth while He was there. And He could not have done, and not done, signs at the same time. That is a contradiction. Therefore, this is the biggest reason Luke’s account is undoubtedly distinct from Matthew’s and Mark’s.
Added to all this, Matthew and Mark place this account of Jesus teaching in Nazareth directly after He gives the Parable of the Sower. And even that happened only after Jesus had done many signs.
51. Matthew 9:27-38 has been placed here, starting a few verses back because this portion is found only in Matthews Gospel and can only be placed in direct chronology with Matthew 9:26. Matthew 9:26 is a verse that can only be placed where it is because of its inseparable location with Mark and Luke’s similar account that falls in line only at this point of the Gospels’ chronology.
Matthew 9:27 has to be placed directly after 9:26 because of its connective clause in Matthew 9:27 that states, "as Jesus passed on from there. . . ."
And since Mark and Luke give no indication of this verse and where it should go, it can only rightly be placed where Matthew places it.
