Gradual

When care is taken to consider the text and context of the ministry of Jesus carefully we can see that Jesus is very deliberate in His method of bringing people to understanding. The disciples grew in understating during their tour of training at the Master's feet. And the Holy Spirit helped the writers of the Gospels to arrange the accounts in a way that made his work clear. Such is the case in Mark 8. Recall the context. The 5000 Jews were very dull in their understanding and so fixated on bread that when Jesus spoke of deeper matters they all began to walk away offended. These were followed by religious leaders who were extremely dull in their understanding of Jesus message, and they too were offended. However the 4000 Gentiles spent three days with Jesus with little provisions soaking up his teachings. Now in a boat crossing the northern part of the lake Jesus warns of the leaven of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians, and the disciples are dull in their understanding changing the conversation to bread when Jesus was talking about influence. Nowwe have the story of the blind man whose eyes are opened with the aid of some Jesus spit. Yet, the miracle was gradual. Jesus did not heal the man all at once. He saw men looking like walking trees. Jesus applied the spit again and he saw clearly. So what to make of this? Was Jesus' powers waning? Was Jesus losing His touch? Hardly. His actions were deliberate, merely another lesson, a mixture of parable and miracle. And His target audience was the dull minded apostles who were often like the blind man being healed seeing only gradually.

Jesus asked the blind man after the first application, "Do you see anything?" He asks us the same after each encounter with Him. Do we see anything? Does His message or example reach our understanding? Or, do we like the blind man merely see it dimly? Paul mentions our seeing through a glass darkly and one day face to face, to know even as we are known. Paul also speaks of the veil being taken out of the way when we turn to the Lord, but our minds made dull while the veil remains. Then, there is James who talks of our looking intently into the perfect law of liberty, and if not being forgetful but doers of it. We avoid being like the man who looks at his face in a mirror yet forgets what he looks like. The blind man in our story looked intently too. To look this way means to look with great intent. All our learning will be gradual, for that is the nature of learning and understanding, little by little. Yet we can speed up the process if we are intentional. When we devote ourselves to understanding we will gain it.

Why so many times does Jesus talk about seeing and hearing and understanding? This is truly a major theme in understanding the Mind of Christ. Jesus is not seeking mindless slaves. He is looking for disciples. He is looking for those intensely intentional about knowing Him. And even with this we will all see gradually.